FANTASTIC SECOND DAY MAKES UP FOR DISAPPOINTING FIRST DAY AT NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP

MIT Comes Home With Nine All America Winners

March 12-13 , 2010

This weekend, MIT traveled to Greencastle, Indiana, the home of DePauw University, the host of the 2010 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championship. The women, ranked second in the country for the past two weeks, were counting on seven women, all underclassmen, to perform in many events, perhaps too many in such a short span of time if they make the finals in their individual events. Hazel Briner '11, competing in the pentathlon, pole vault and 4x400 relay, all on Saturday. Portia Jones '12, was entered in back to back events, the 55HH and 400, which had trials on Friday and finals on Saturday, with the 4x400 relay to follow. Jamie Simmons '12, had the 400 trials on Friday followed by the 800 leg of the distance medley relay and then the 400 finals followed by the 4x400 relay on Saturday. Martha Gross '12, had the distance medley relay on Friday followed by the 4x400 relay on Saturday. Brooke Johnson '13, had the mile trials on Friday followed by the 1200 leg of the distance medley relay and then the mile final on Saturday. Karin Fisher '11 had the pole vault on Saturday and Alina Gatowski anchored the distance medley relay on Friday. The women wanted to go for it all, determined to have a shot at a national title.

The men, ranked seventh in the country, brought three competitors; Stephen Morton '10, competing in the long jump on Friday and the triple jump on Saturday. Greg Tao '10, competing in the pole vault on Friday and Kyle Hannon '13, competing in the mile trials on Friday and hopefully the final on Saturday.

Tao was the first competitor for MIT on Friday morning at 10:00. The opening height was 15-1 3/4, which he cleared on his second attempt. Everyone in the field who came in cleared that height. At 15-7 3/4, Tao cleared on his first attempt, as did all but two others, who cleared on their second attempt. 25 minutes into the vault and they were already going to the third height, 16-1 3/4. This height took its toll on the field. The second seeded vaulter, entered at this height and no-heighted. Four addtionals vaulters went out of the 12 person field, but Tao was not one of them as he cleared on his third attempt, matching his personal best, established just one week ago. Now there were seven vaulters remaining and Tao was tied for sixth place due to his three previous misses. Although he had two very good attempts at 16-5 3/4, he was not able to clear. Jake Winder '10, won the event with a vault of 16-9 1/2.

Hannon started things off on the track in the mile run. Running in the second of two heats, Hannon was the unfortunate victim of a very slow early pace and overall slow heat as well as inexperience in racing efficiently and letting the race develop without trying to force things. The first 400 went in a pedestrian 68 seconds. Even at the 800 the pace was a slow 2:16. The bunched up pack must have been a bit claustrophobic for Hannon as he continued to move in and out trying to position himself. The third 400 saw the pace quicken to 64 with Hannon in the top three. The final 400 was in 61 for Hannon as the leaders ran 60 with two more passing him in the final 100. Running 4:21.26, he failed to qualify for the finals by .23.

Johnson was in the women's mile and displayed very similar inexperience as Hannon. Her first 400 was out in 74 yet she was trying to position herself way too early, wasting valuable energy in the process. The 800 was a solid 2:30. The third quarter slowed a bit to 3:48, but Johnson was in fine shape going into the final quarter. However, when the group moved she did not move with them. Her legs not responding, she gave up a bit in the final 100, which caused her to miss finals by .67 even though she ran 5:03.89.

At this same time, Morton was over at the long jump. The second seeded Morton should have owned this event as the winning performance was just 23-6, with only three jumpers exceeding 23'. However, Morton fouled his first two by the smallest of margins and then could not stop in time on his third attempt as he realized he was not on his mark, running through the takeoff--fouling out.

The bad kept getting worse. Jones was in the 55HH and had the worst start of year. Even so, she rallied to finish .01 out of qualifying for the finals with an 8.33 performance.

The bleeding finally stopped when Jones came back 20 minutes later to win her heat of the 400 in 56.82, a flat track personal best for Jones. The time puts Jones in the fast section final on Saturday. Simmons also ran the 400, but struggled too much and too long in lane two trying to get around an opposing runner after not taking her on the break. Her final time was 58.76.

The final event on Friday was the distance medley relay. An already fatigued Johson started out well on the 1200 leg, but struggled in the final 400, finishing in 3:43 with MIT in eighth place. Gross got the baton and ran a vicious 26.0 first 200 en route to an excellent 58.1 split, putting MIT in fifth place at the handoff. Despite Simmons solid 2:17.8 800 leg, a flat track best, MIT was unable to hold the position, falling back badly to ninth place. Gatowski, not really having raced in a month, did not seem to have missed a step. Going out in 71 for the quarter, she made up very little ground. Even coming throught the 800 in 2:28, she could not move up. Losing a little focus in the third quarter, Gatowski slowed to 3:49 before rallying to finish in a flat track best of 5:07.5. The final time of 12:07.20 did not place, but the performance was excellent nevertheless.

Saturday morning kicked off with the women's pentathlon at 9:00 a.m. and the pole vault at 10:00 a.m. Unfortunately for Briner, she was in both, but she knew this two weeks before the championship and decided to do both events anyway. She started off with the 55HH and matched her personal best with an 8.73. In the high jump portion, which was happening at the same time as her vaulting, she cleared 5-0 1/2, 1/2 inch below her best. In the vault, she cleared 11-4 1/4 and 11-10, but failed to clear 12-4, which would have been a personal best. Fisher, also in the vault, looked very good, matching her personal best of 12-4 to earn All America honors with her tie for sixth place.

Briner continued the pentathlon with a 35-1 shot put, not her best, but not bad either. This moved her up to sixth overall going into the long jump portion of the event. She jumped 16-2, a very nice personal best, which moved her up to fifth place with only the 800 meter run to go. Having the best 800 in the field and knowing she could move up to third with a solid effort, Briner started out near the front of the field of 17, splitting the 200 in 34.8. Going into the backstretch she took the lead, coming through the 400 in 71.2. Tired from the long day of competing the pole vault and the pentathlon events, Briner nevertheless held on for a 2:23.48. Her time moved her up the two spots to third overall with a new MIT record of 3391 points.

Jones was up in 400 final. Earning her way into the fastest of the two section final, Jones got out well in the inside lane, taking the break and splitting 26.2 at the 200. Two of the four passed Jones on the backstretch and final turn and the other passed her in the final few meters. Her 56.72 was her fastest indoor flat track 400 ever. The first section all ran over 57 seconds, giving Jones fourth place overall.

Morton was up in the triple jump and ready to deliver on his number one ranking. In the trials, he jumped 48-6 3/4 to go into the finals behind by .02 cm. On his first jump in the finals, Morton moved up one centimeter. On his second jump in the finals he took the lead with a jump of 48-9 1/2. With one jumper left before Morton claimed his first national championship, that final jumper leaped 15.02 or 49-3 1/4 to take the lead. Morton smiled, knowing he has been in this position many times before and pulled out most of them. Flying down the runway he put everything into the jump, landing what looked like may the championship jump. The measurement--15.01, 49-3, not quite far enough, but certainly good enough for second place.

The final event of the meet was the women's 4x400 relay. Seeded third, based on their banked track time of 3:51.61, the foursome of Simmons, Gross, Briner and Jones were in the fastest of three sections. The fastest time out of the two previous sections was 3:54.78, an impressive time on such a tight turn track. Simmons led off, working her way from the last of four teams to pass off the baton in third, splitting 58.5. Gross lost ground on the handoff, moving back to fourth as she took over the baton duties. Getting out in 26.9 to take back third place, she split 58.4 as she handed off to a very tired Briner. Briner lost a lot of ground to the fourth place team with her 60.8 400, but did not relinquish the hold on third. Jones took the baton and proceeded to run a fantastic 57.0, holding off fourth place team. MIT's time of 3:54.84 was .06 behind the time from section two, giving Tech fourth place overall.

Neither team had perfect meets and neither placed where they hoped among the championship teams. However, both the women and men competed well and represented MIT well. The women placed 10th overall with 18.5 points while the men finished in 17th with 10.5 points. The women return everyone next year and hope to improve on their 2010 finish.

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