19 ALL AMERICA HONORS ARE THE HIGHLIGHT AT NCAA'S

March 9-10, 2012

MIT's Track & Field team started the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championship in the best possible way at the Awards banquet on Thursday night.  Lauren Kuntz '13 won the Elite 89 Award, which is given to the student-athlete competing at the National Championship with the highest GPA on a 4.0 scale.  If there is a tie it goes to the student-athlete with the most units earned.  Kuntz has a perfect GPA in Mechanical Engineering.  

MIT made it a sweep with Kyle Hannon '13 earning the same award for the men.  Hannon has a 3.92 converted GPA in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.  Hannon also won the award last indoors, making him the first in track and field to win the award twice.

This also marks the first time the same program has won both awards.  To have the highest GPA’s at this championship, from arguably the most challenging academic institution, and to be participating at this NCAA Championship with a strong chance of earning All America honors speaks more about the quality of the MIT program than anything else they do, and is a true measure of success.

Kuntz also led things off for the women in the meet, competing in the Pole Vault. She cleared 11-3 3/4 on her first attempt. Seeded in a tie for 13th, Kuntz was hoping for the magic that earned her All America honors last year indoors and outdoors. However, at 11-9 3/4 it was not meant to be as she missed all three attempts.

Nathan Peterson '12 was the first competitor for the men, competing in the Pole Vault. Peterson passed the opening height of 15-3 1/4, at which one of the 13 competitors was eliminated. At 15-9 1/4 Peterson cleared on his first attempt. Three more went out at that height, leaving 10 in the competition. Peterson missed his first attempt at 16-3 1/4, but cleared on the second attempt. He started blowing through poles at 16-9 1/4, moving up a pole at each attempt, but failed to clear even though he had plenty of height on his final attempt. He earned fifth place, matching his NCAA place from 2011.

CK Umachi '12 was competing at the same time in the Weight Throw. Umachi threw in the second flight, starting off with a 61-11 3/4, moving him into fifth place overall. He had four fair throws and three of them were within four centimeters of each other. He was passed by one other thrower, earning sixth place overall and his first All America award.

Portia Jones '12 and Jackie Brew '14 were up in Tech's first running event, the 60HH. Jones was in the first heat. After a false start eliminated one competitor, the race was started fairly. Jones got a somewhat poor start, but was still in reasonable shape at the first hurdle. She did not block her lead arm on that hurdle and came off of it a little off balance. She was fine on the other hurdles with the exception of hitting the fourth hurdle. She finished third in her heat at 8.95. Brew had an excellent start and ran a very sound technical race for her, but just was not fast enough, missing the finals by .01 at 8.96. Jones was the final qualifier for the final.

Jamie Simmons '12 was in the very next event, the 400, along with Jones. Simmons was in lane six, a good advantage knowing how much the tight turns affect her. She did not have a great start but was in pretty good shape at the 200 mark in 26.9. She tried to maintain her momentum and pass on the turn, but the turn was just too tight, not allowing her to do what she has been successful at on the banked tracks. She put too much energy into the effort and had little left for the final straight, finishing last in her heat at 57.96. Jones has done this double very successfully the past two Nationals, but this time was different. Whether the results of the hurdles were still on her mind, or her decision to pace the first 200 of the 400 put her in a very poor position, is unknown, but the end result was certainly not what anyone expected from the number one seed. She was last at the break, about 15-20 meters behind the leaders. At this point she totally gave up, finishing last in the competition in 59.44.

In the men's 800, Sam Parker '15 represented MIT. Parker was the last seed in the competition, so any experience would be a positive one. He ran an outstanding race through the first 600 meters, staying in the top five of the seven man heat. At the 600 mark it appeared he did not make a key move, the group separated and he was in the back with two others. He tied up badly in the final 150, struggling home in 1:57.86.

The final event on day one was the Distance Medley Relay, and MIT was represented by the men and women. Only the fastest 10 teams in the country were selected, so just being in the race was quite an accomplishment. The men were first and had hopes of winning the race after last weekend's effort. Justin Bullock '14 ran the leadoff 1200 leg. The pace was crisp, coming through the 400 in 61.1. The pace slowed a bit, but Bullock was holding onto 2nd place at 2:04.4. Then the pace picked up and the leader from Bowdoin College and Bullock pulled away. Bowdoin opened up a 10 meter lead at the exchange and Bullock, at 3:04.1 had close to a 10 meter lead on the rest of the field. Tyler Singer-Clark '14 went out hard in 23.3, but so did everyone else. Coming into the final 100, Middlebury passed MIT, but Tech was still in third and still about 10 meters behind. Pat Marx '13 caught the leaders on the first backstretch, but then settled in instead of running as fast as he could. By 400 meters the other teams were catching up. At 600 Marx started making his move, and while he gave the baton to Kyle Hannon '13 with a one meter lead with a 1:54. 5 split, Some teams had made up as much as 20 meters and now seven of the 10 teams were in the hunt. Hannon opened up strong with a 60.1 400 trying to put some space between himself and the pack. This had no effect and Hannon lost a little confidence. By the 800 mark Middlebury took the lead and within the next 200 meters, Bowdoin and Wisconsin Steven's Point would also pass Hannon, although the 1200 split was 3:12.5 for MIT. In the final 400 Bates College passed MIT but then Hannon shut the door, closing with a very respectable 61.0 final 400 to give MIT fifth place.

Brooke Johnson '13 led off the women's team. She was in the outside alley and was confused about where to cut in. After running one turn too many in lane four, she cut in and still had a much too fast 33.4 split. She did not back off, staying with the main pack, which was far behind the two leaders from Washington University in St. Louis and Middlebury. In the middle of the 1200 Johnson allowed her 400 from the 600-1000 mark to slow to 77, but she closed with a 32 final 200 to put MIT in sixth place. Martha Gross '12 took the handoff and made a great effort to close the gap, but all the teams had strong 400 legs. Even though she split a 59.7, she faded, or slowed at the end, putting MIT in seventh and lost a lot of ground on the handoff. Cindy Huang '15, a little too nervous, closed too quickly, splitting 29.7 for the first 200 of her 800 leg. This caught her up to the third through sixth teams in a hurry. She came through the 400 in 62.8, staying with the field. The pace slowed to a 36 third 200 and then a 38 final 200 for Huang as the others pulled away. She did move MIT back to sixth at the handoff, running a very respectable 2:16.7 leg. Louise van den Heuvel '14 tried to make up the gap quickly and did a very good job by running a 70.7 first 400. However, even with the fast 400, she lost a place and did not catch the group until after that initial first 400. By the 600 mark she had moved into fourth place and was continuing to push, running a 2:25.1 first 800. In the third quarter, two of the teams passed her back but she stayed with them. In the final 400, van den Heuvel surged to move back into fifth with 100 to go and held onto fifth place with a 4:57.0 1600 to give the team an overall time of 11:53.85.

MIT did not have a lot going on for day two. Jones, who made the finals in the 60HH was up first for the Engineers. Continuing her slump from day one, Jones got a slow start and just did not seem to be able to sprint. She finished eighth in 8.99.

Freshman, Elaine McVay, made her the 5,000 field, and although she was seeded 13th, she raced to place. The initial pace was very slow, 88 at the 400, as no one wanted to commit to leading. The pace picked up, coming through the 1600 in 5:39, and continued to go faster, producing a 5:27 second 1600. The pack began to separate and McVay was fighting to stay in contention to score. However, she was only able to produce 87 second quarters in the final 1600, falling to 10th place in 17:35.46.

Both the men and women had 4x400 teams that had qualified and those were the final events of the meet. The men were first, running in the slower section of the two section final. Ten teams were racing for eight scoring places and the team of Singer-Clark, Mac Gager '14, Parker and Marx wanted this badly. Singer-Clark ran a great leadoff, splitting 23.0 and 49.7 to put MIT in third position. Gager ran a very aggressive 50.0 to keep MIT in third until the handoff when it was virtually a three way tie for second. Parker took over the baton duties, but just did not have the speed to hang with the top 400 runners. He fell back to fifth at the 100 mark, but held on to keep MIT in it, with a 51.2 split. Marx took off on the anchor leg, closing ground quickly. By the 200 mark, Marx had caught the pack with his 22.7 split. As he looked for an opportunity to pass coming into the final straight he had to swing wide and simply ran out of real estate, missing fourth by .02. The 3:19.74 was very fast for the tight-turned track. The fast section produced two really fast times, but the other three teams were slower than MIT and the lead team in the slow section was disqualified due to running inside the lane line, placing MIT sixth.

The women were in the fast section and were hoping for a salvation from a rather disappointing meet. Simmons got out very well, putting MIT in second place at the handoff with an excellent 57.3 split. Brew took off, committed to staying with the leader. Unfortunately this required a 26.0 200, which all but wiped Brew out. Her final 100 was painful to watch, but she was still in third at the handoff, having run a 58.7 split. The momentum of the fourth place team was better going into the handoff and they passed Jones at the handoff. Jones dropped a 26.2 to try to get around the two teams she was with, but could not do so. In the final straight she was passed again, giving MIT fifth place in the section and fifth overall since all times in the slower section were indeed slower.

The men finished with 14 points and in 14th place out of the 100+ colleges represented and the 60 scoring teams. The women scored nine points to tie for 21st place. While the point totals were not what the Engineers were looking for, 19 All America honors, 10 for the men and nine for the women, was a record high for MIT.

The team will begin the task of improving in the outdoor championships this May. A hard week of training in California in two weeks will be the beginning of that process.

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