Men and Women Remain Undefeated With Excellent Performances

January 18, 2014

For the second week in a row, the Men's and Women's Track & Field teams took the two and a half hour trip to Maine, this time the host was Bowdoin College. The competing schools other than Bowdoin and MIT were Springfield College and WPI. With another week of practice under their belts, MIT showed significant improvement from the week before. The men had too much quality and depth for their opponents, winning the team competition with 272.33 points to 111.83 for host Bowdoin, 104.83 for Springfield and 59 for WPI. The women turned in very similar scores despite a severe lack of depth in the running events as many top runners are still out. The Engineers scored 283.5 to 152 for Bowdoin, 81 for Springfield and 55.5 for WPI. The scoring format was 10-8-6-4-2-1 for six scoring places per event.

The men won 12 of 18 events and earned runner-up in nine of them. Ken Cooper '15 was the only double winner of the day for Tech, winning both the Weight Throw at 57-2 1/4 and the Shot Put with a huge PR of 55-0 1/4 to move him to number three in the country. Cooper was supported by Alex Noakes '16 in the Weight Throw, earning fourth with a PR of 46-7 1/2 and Sebastian Santos '17 in the Shot Put with a 45-11 1/4 personal best. Both Cooper and Santos threw their best on their final throw.

Ben Schreck '15 won the Pole Vault, clearing 15-1. Jordan Mizerak '14, primarily a Heptathlete/Decathlete, stepped up his game to clear 14-1 1/4 to earn second. Carrington Motley '16 won the Triple Jump with a 44-10 3/4 effort while teammate, Angel Echevarria '16 took second place honors with a 43-9 1/4 performance. Motley also placed second in the Long Jump with a 21-6 3/4 jump. He narrowly fouled a big jump of at least mid 22's. The men scored 84 points in the six field events alone.

The surprise performance of the day was turned in by Matt McEachern '17 in the 5K. Matt's goal was to run a pretty large PR of 15:20 and place 5th. Roy Wedge '14, attempting to run sub 15:00 on his own, leading the entire way, faded at the 3200 mark. After a couple of laps led by Allen Leung '15, McEachern took over and moved away from the pack quite easily as he went to 71 second splits and finished with a 33 final 200 to win with a 15:04.22. Leung placed third in 15:15.20 and Wedge held on for fourth in 15:19.40. While Brian Gilligan '17 did not score, he did run a really huge personal best of 15:56.04.

The Mile Run provided some excellent performances. Justin Bullock '14, trying to manage a lower leg injury, took the race out in 2:05, which set-up Coby Horowitz '14 from Bowdoin for a nice start for the leading time in the country with a flat track 4:11.93 victory. Bullock held on for third in 4:21.38. Nick Matthews '17 has transitioned into a very competitive runner. He began the day with a 4:26.97 individual effort win in the slow section of the Mile, which earned him fifth place overall. He then joined Chadd Kiggins '15 (2:31.77) and Bullock (2:35.61) for a 1-3-4 finish in the 1000 with a 2:37.88 performance and then joined the 4x400 A relay with very little notice, clocking a 52.6 split to help the team to victory in 3:29.62.

MIT's strength right now is most definitely in the long sprints and that certainly showed up in the results. In the 200, Tyler Singer-Clark '14, in the disadvantageous lane three, used his teammates; Michael Kaba '16 in lane five and State Lee '16 in lane six, to run a flat track season best of 22.82 for the victory. Lee and Kaba also ran season bests, placing second and third respectively in 22.96 and 22.98. Nick Diamantoni '15, provided lane two and running in a slower section, pulled out a well earned sixth place in 23.46. Not too slack in the shorter sprints either, Singer-Clark and Kaba placed second and third earlier in the day in the 60 with respective times of 7.17 and 7.19. Before that Kaba won the 60HH in 8.56.

The domination continued in the 400 where Lee ran a season best 50.11 for the victory and teammate Derek Barnes '16 pulled out a 50.72 for second despite being assigned lane one. Again Diamantoni ran a nice race, this time earning fourth place in 51.42.

The 600 Meter race was more of the same and then some. Sam Parker '15, determined to break 1:22, did his best, splitting 27.0 and 54.6, but was not quite able to do it all by himself as he slowed slightly, running 1:22.90. Mac Gager '14 ran an excellent race for a season best of 1:24.01 for second place. Andrew Mullen '17 ran his best race of the season, and there is plenty more there as the talented freshman placed third in 1:24.79. Two other freshman on the team also placed out of the slow section. Henry Tareque earned fifth place in 1:27.18 and Gary Burnett placed sixth in 1:27.19.

Displaying MIT's depth, parts of the second and third relay team combined to run the before mentioned impressive 3:29.62 victory. Tareque split 52.3 as the leadoff leg, Harrison Hunter '15 a 52.2 second leg and Mullen took the baton from Matthews to clock a 52.5 anchor.

There are very few opportunities to run a quality 4x800 relay during the regular season. While the 4x800 relay in the New England Division III Championships does not require a time, getting into the critical fast section does. Even though the Engineers have won that event in the championships from the slow section in the past, that is certainly not the preferred way to go. So, Gager, Parker, Dominique Hoskin '15 and Kiggins took to the track with the intent of winning and winning big. Gager, not accustomed to running the 800, did a great job in bringing in the baton in 2:02.7. Parker went out fast trying to make up ground on WPI and by the end of the first quarter had eliminated their lead. Continuing to push the pace Parker split 1:56.7 to give MIT the lead for good. Hoskin, having placed fourth in the 800 earlier with a 2:04.77, ran a much more competitive race in the relay. Hoskin split 29.1, 60.6, 1:32.1 and 2:03.4 to hold onto the lead. Kiggins threw down a 1:56.5 anchor to bring MIT in under the 8:00 mark with a 7:59.43.

The women won 12 of the 19 events. Choosing not to enter the 4x200 and 4x400 events, the Engineers only lost five of the events they entered. Scoring 107 points just in the six field events, the ladies totally dominated their opponents. With all those victories there was only one double winner and that was Louise van den Heuvel '14. After dominating the Mile Run with a 5:07.13 wire to wire victory, van den Heuvel returned in the 1000, supplying another victory, icing it with a 33 second final 200 to win in 3:02.74. Backing van den Heuvel up in the 1000 were impressive finishes by Christina Wicker '17 with a third place 3:05.71 and a fourth place 3:08.31 by Nadia Lucas '17.

In the Pole Vault, Cimmy Virdi '16 won easily with a height of 11-8. Joanna Chen '15 placed second at 10-10. Abby Klein '14 claimed third at 10-6 and Jen Tylock '17 earned fourth at 10-0. The 1-2-3-4 finish was a nice way to start the meet. The High Jump was almost as impressive. Preethi Vaidyanathan '15 and Jackie Konopka '14 both cleared 5-3 and both had excellent attempts at 5-5. Vaidyanathan won on misses with Konopka second. Stephanie Guo '17, performing an unofficial pentathlon (60HH, SP, LJ, HJ, 800), which permits her to qualify for the New England Division III Championship should she reach 2500 points, earned a tie for third at 5-1. Natalie Alper placed fifth at 5-1.

The horizontal jumps went almost as well as the vertical jumps. In the Long Jump Konopka did win, and did so with a huge personal best of 17-6. There was magic in the pit during this event as Stephanie Birkhimer '14 also jumped to a monster PR, hers a 16-9 3/4 good for third place. Not to be left out, Michelle Johnson '15 also jumped to a personal best, hitting the sand at 16-6 to earn sixth place. Johnson won the Triple Jump with a season best 35-11 1/2. Veronica Szklarzewski '15, got back going in the right direction with a 33-6 1/2 effort to place fifth and Birkhimer garnered sixth place at 33-3 3/4.

Ellen Liverpool '15 cannot possibly have personal bests every week in the Weight Throw, but do not tell her that. For the third week in a row Liverpool improved her mark, this time throwing 49-5 3/4 to move to third on the MIT all-time list and come in second in the meet. Ashley Wheeler '15 did not throw a PR, but it was close as she placed third at 45-11 1/4. Jackie Vahey '17 took fifth place with a nice personal best of 42-6 3/4 and Isabella Stuopis '16 threw 40-11 1/2 for sixth place. Stuopis reversed her position in her primary event, the Shot Put, winning in a new varsity record of 43-2 1/4. Vahey placed second with a personal best of 39-0 1/4. Christine Labaza '14 fought for fifth place and got it with a 33-9 1/2 throw.

On the track, MIT started things off with a 1-2-3 finish in the 5K, the first final for the running events. Elaine McVay '15 took the lead at the beginning and did not look back, running an excellent early season time of 17:45.06. Maryann Gong '17 was with McVay, occasionally helping to lead, through 2800 meters, but then fell off. Nevertheless, Gong continued to run hard, finishing in second in 18:17.22. Shivani Kaushal '15 had her best race of the year as she ran 18:51.98, good for third place. In the 3000, Heather Sweeney '16 continued to amaze as she ran an enormous personal best of 10:29.05 for second place. Nicole Zeinstra '16 continued her comeback from injury with a 10:41.02 fourth place.

Tech took first and second in both the 60 and 60HH. In the 60, Szklarzewski ran a personal best of 8.12 to take the victory. Jackie Brew '14 took second with the same time, a season best for her. In the hurdles, Brew won in a season best 9.19 while Konopka ran 9.36. Brew also earned a second in the 200 with a season best 26.53. Kendra Knittel '17 did not win an event, but she easily had the best meet of the young season with a 62.09 for second in the 400 and 27.21 in the 200 to claim fourth.

Cindy Huang won the 800, taking the lead at the start, pushing the pace for a first 400 in 69 and pretty much holding that to a 2:20.10 victory. Guo placed third with a 2:31.10. After a 71 first 400 her body would not cooperate, unable to go faster than an 80 second final 400.

MIT's final victory came in the final event, the 4x800 relay. Gong led things off very well, dropping a 2:22.5 leadoff leg. Wicker started well with a 34 first 200, but then fell immediately to 38 second laps for the remainder of the race, splitting 2:29.0. Huang ran similarly, but finished with a 40 second final 200 to run 2:28.2. van den Heuvel did not let anyone down as her 2:23.6 was an excellent third effort of the day. The cumulative time of 9:43.47 was not too impressive but should get the team into the fast section of DIII's.

Guo finished her five events with over 2900 points, a total that will not only qualify for the event, but should score pretty high, and those marks were not even her best.

Next week, MIT will split up the squad, sending Konopka and Birkhimer to Harvard for a pentathlon, along with Mizerak and Adrian Samsel '16 in the heptathlon, taking most of the oval runners to BU for the John Thomas Invitational and keeping most field event athletes at MIT to compete in the Art Farnham Invitational. With no team scoring opportunities the Engineers will be competing for top performances and qualifying for the various championships.

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