Men Perform Brilliantly-Overcome Deficit-Win New England Championship

February 16, 2013

Going into the New England Division III Championship, MIT was seeded third, 24 points behind Tufts University and two points behind host Bates, the defending champions. MIT had won in 2010 and 2011, but dropped the ball in 2012. The Engineers were determined to bring the fight to Tufts and Bates and see if the two teams could stand up to the pressure. In the end, MIT prevailed, clinching the meet in the next to last event and defeating runner up Bates 118.5 to 94. Tufts was third with 92 points.

The meet got off to a predictably difficult start for MIT. In the Heptathlon, Jordan Mizerak '14 competed very well and earned his seed place of eighth with 4182 points to get MIT on the board. However, Bates started off with 14 points and Tufts 13. The first final on Saturday to be completed was the Weight Throw and this added to MIT's woes. With no thrower in the competition the Engineers could only watch and wait for the track events to start. Bates dominated with 15 more points, while Tufts gathered five. With Bates up 29-1 things were not looking positive.

MIT had two individuals in the Long Jump but neither were seeded to score. Someone must have forgotten to give that message to Carrington Motley '16 and Arinze Okeke '16. The two freshmen both jumped a personal best 21-6 to claim sixth and seventh respectively for five points. Tufts won the event to add 10 to their total, giving them 28.

The first final on the track was the Mile Run. MIT was only seeded for six points, but hoped for more. In perhaps the most disappointing competition of the meet both MIT runners failed to score. Kyle Hannon '13, one of the tri-captains continued his mental problems with competing in individual events, falling off the moderate pace after the 400. Justin Bullock '14, another tri-captain, suffering from some illness that has not been adequately diagnosed, had nothing, also falling off the pace just past the 400 mark. Fortunately neither Bates nor Tufts took full advantage of the opportunity while both had very strong entries. Tufts claimed fourth and Bates eighth.

In the 60HH, Brian Djaja '13 failed to make the finals for MIT, so once again MIT had to watch while Bates scored nine more points, claiming fifth, sixth and seventh places in the event. MIT was now looking up at a 39-6 deficit.

MIT had little room to improve on the seeding going into the 400 as they were expected to score 19. However, that is just what they did. Freshmen States Lee and Michael Kaba took first and second respectively with times of 50.22 and 50.33, while Tyler Singer-Clark '14 claimed fourth, another freshman, Derek Barnes placed seventh and Nick Diamantoni '15 tied for eighth. In both sections, MIT runners took the break and would not let anyone around them until the final stretch. The 25.5 points immediately put Tech back in the meet and got the team going in the right direction.

In the next event, the 600, Tech was seeded to gain eight points with Sam Parker '15 seeded second. Parker made two harmful strategic errors (getting out too far in the back of the lead pack and making a passing move too late on the straight) and had to struggle for a sixth place in a very fast personal best 1:22.25. Mac Gager '14 came through with an eighth place in 1:23.37 out of a slower section.

Bates was not done yet. In the Shot Put, they came up with a huge 17 points while Tufts claimed four. MIT just could not seem to catch up. Similar to last year's outdoor championship, Michael DuPlessis '14 came through huge. In the 2012 outdoor championship, DuPlessis, not seeded to score, came through with a third place. He must like the script because he did the same thing in the 60 Meter Dash. DuPlessis ran a season best 7.11 to make the finals and then ran a PR 7.03 for third place and an unexpected six points.

Seeded for three points in the Pole Vault, MIT was hoping the event would be the magic it had always been for Engineers. As it was, Tufts was seeded for 12 and Bates four points. True to form, MIT prevailed with Cyrus Vafadari '13 pulling out an amazing successful vault on his third attempt at 15-8 1/4 to win the event. Yida Gao '13 helped with a seventh place to give MIT 12 points while Tufts only managed six and Bates three.

While Tufts seemed to be fading, Bates kept coming through when MIT would close the gap. In the 800, Pat Marx '13 ran a strong race but only placed third in 1:54.84. Bates scored 15 to keep the lead.

The 1000 was a nice turning point for MIT. Chadd Kiggins '15, injured for the past two weeks and unable to practice until this past Wednesday, ran a great race, refusing to lose, coming back in the final straight to take the victory in 2:31.92. Hannon, regained a bit of his competitiveness to place sixth and get MIT three points. Bates did not score as their athlete seeded second was unable to compete.

The 200 is always a difficult event indoors with the tight turns. Lane six is the favored lane as runners have to fight centripetal force less and have less turn to run. Typically, lanes one and two are not used indoors in this event. MIT earned two spots in the finals with States Lee and Tyler Singer-Clark earning those positions, but the lanes were not what MIT hoped for. Singer-Clark got lane four in the first section while Lee was given lane three in the other section. Singer-Clark fought hard and ran 22.88 in the final to claim fifth while Lee could do little in lane three but defeat the lane three runner in the other section to place seventh in 22.98. Tufts pulled out 11 points to stay in the meet.

In the 3K, Bullock was favored by a large margin to win, but in his current condition that was not going to happen. Unfortunately, not only did MIT not get any points, but Bates picked up 11 crucial points.

MIT was only seeded for two points in the 5K while Tufts was seeded for 17 and Bates eight. Benji Xie '15, running in the slow section, followed the plan to stick with 71-72 second quarters and then made a move to take the lead at the halfway mark when the pace of the leaders slowed. Xie continued with a 4:44 final 1600 to run a personal best 14:59.78 and win the section. Roy Wedge '14, also in the slow section, ran a great personal indoor best 15:11.07 for second in that section. The fast section went out exceptionally fast as the group was trying to reach a national qualifying mark, but this backfired as the leaders died big. With 200 to go it looked as though Xie might win the event, but a strong kick by the Tufts runner earned the victory by two seconds over Xie, who ended up third. Allen Leung '15 placed seventh for MIT in 15:08.46 with Wedge earning eighth. Bates did not score and Tufts only got the 10 points.

MIT was now up by 2.5 points over Bates with the Triple Jump and the three relays to go, all strong events for MIT. Tech had three in the finals of the Triple while Tufts had none and Bates had one, but he was in ninth position going into the finals. Tech moved up more in the finals with Motley placing fourth at 45-02 1/4. Jackson Wirekoh '13 placed sixth at 43-3 3/4 and Angel Echevarria '16 earned seventh place at 43-2 1/4. The 10 points put Tech up by 12.5 going into the relays.

The Distance Medley Relay was first and three of MIT's legs were fresh. Jay McKenna '14 got things started with the 1200 leg. Even though he went out much too fast and foolishly took the lead, McKenna ran 3:11.9 to put MIT in fifth place. Adrian Samsel '16 ran a great 400 in 51.4 to move MIT up to fourth. Kiggins came back from his successful 1000 to run a strong 1:59.7, keeping Tech in fourth. Logan Trimble '13 received the baton about thirty meters behind Bates, whose anchor had earlier won the 800. Trimble ran very aggressively, starting out with a 61.8 first 400. As Trimble closed he slowed a bit but still maintained a strong pace, hitting the half in 2:07 and the 1200 in 3:13 while taking the lead and pulling ahead by about 10 meters. Despite a 62 final quarter Trimble was unable to hold off Bates. Trimble ran 4:15.8 to get MIT a cumulative time of 10:19.07. Bates gained one point on MIT to cut the lead to 11.5.

Knowing they only needed nine points to clinch the victory, Tech went with the stronger 4x800, but still had a formidable 4x400 with the three freshmen and Diamantoni taking care of business. Barnes led off the 4x400 and got the job done with a 50.8 and the lead. Kaba added a 50.8 and maintained the lead. Diamantoni lost a bit of the lead with his 52.0 and then Lee had to dig down with a 50.1 when a surprising Tufts runner came from behind to challenge him for the victory. Although it appeared MIT won the event at 3:23.97, Williams College had run .07 faster in the slower section. Bates finished sixth, putting Tech up by 16.5 to seal the victory.

The 4x800 quartet wanted to win badly despite having the championship in hand. Parker led off, waited too long to push the pace, only running 29's for the first quarter, but nevertheless giving MIT a strong lead with his 1:57.7. Hannon did his job, but slowed after a 57.3 first quarter, finishing in 1:58.6. Gager went out far too fast in 26 for the first 200. He lost the lead but fought back to hand off even with Tufts. Marx ran from behind and probably took the lead too soon, since when he did take the lead he did nothing with it. In the final 200 Tufts took the lead and Marx was unable to regain it despite his 1:56.9. The overall time for MIT was 7:54.21, good for second place.

While MIT has the All Division New England Championship next weekend and the ECAC Division III Championship the week after that, all efforts will now be about preparing for the NCAA Division III Championship in three weeks.

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