MIT Men Dominate New England Division III Track & Field Championship
February 22-23, 2019
While the MIT Men's Track & Field team has dominated New England by winning the Indoor New England Division III Championship six of the last nine years, they lost the past two years. Hosting the meet this year, the Engineers not only stopped the bleeding, they put such a dominant stamp on their victory it looks as if it might be the start of another streak.
Favored going into the meet by a score of 140 to 68 for Williams, 61 for Middlebury, 60 for WPI and 59 for Tufts, it was possible the balanced team could actually win the meet based solely on their field events. Scoring 68 points in the field, Tech did beat all but one team with that total. When it was all said and done MIT scored 164 points despite pulling their 4x400, backing off of their top 4x800 lineup and pulling 5K winner Josh Rosenkranz '19 from the 3K. Tufts was second with 78 points and WPI third with 67 points. 34 teams were entered in the meet and 24 scored.
MIT started the two-day meet with the Pole Vault. Although they entered five qualifiers, only Liam Ackerman '21 scored, clearing a personal best of 15-7 3/4 for second place, which may be enough to get him into the NCAA Division III Championship field in two weeks. Ackerman was clearly over 16-1 3/4 on two of his three attempts, but nicked it enough with a body part to displace the crossbar.
In the Distance Medley Relay, MIT was seeded third, but had a pretty strong lineup that might be able to steal some points. Kent Slaney '21 led off with a very competitive 3:07.2 for the 1200 leg, taking the lead in the final 350. Aiden Foucault-Etheridge '22 ran a 50.5 400 to expand the lead. Simon Alford '20 went out hard to expand the lead initially, but it got closed down to 10 meters by the Middlebury College team despite Alford running 1:55.6. Matthew Kearney '22 ran the 1600 anchor right with the top miler in New England until the final 400. Running 4:19, Kearney was able to bring in the baton in second place with a total time of 10:13.54.
The final event of day one was the 5K. Rosenkranz and Andrew Mah '22 worked together, leading from start to finish, trading the lead after each 1600. Rosenkranz started it off with a 4:44 first 1600. Mah took over with a 4:49 second 1600. By this point the duo had a comfortable lead. Rosenkranz took over again, slowing a bit to bring in the third 1600 in 4:55 before finishing in 33 to win in 15:01.50 to Mah's 15:02.06. For good measure, Josh Derrick '20 finished sixth for three more points in 15:17.73. At this point MIT led with 37 points to 20 for Middlebury.
Day two started with the Long Jump and Weight Throw. In the Long Jump, Joa Kennedy '21, who had been cheated out of competing in the Heptathlon - a story for another day - took out his frustration by not only making finals when seeded 19th entering the competition, but proceeded to place sixth with a personal best 21-6 1/4. Yorai Shaoul '21 easily won the competition by jumping 23-1 3/4, passing on all of his jumps in the final.
In the Weight Throw the quintet of MIT throwers did not have the best day, but Jon Fakkema '19 got the job done by matching his seed, placing fifth with a solid throw of 58-0 1/2. The 17 points between the two events gave MIT 54.
Next up was a pivotal event, the High Jump. MIT was favored for 16 points, but anything can happen in the High Jump. Caleb Harris '22 cleared 6-2 3/4 and 6-4 3/4 on first attempts while teammate Alec Reduker '20 entered at 6-4 3/4 and cleared on his first attempt. At 6-6 3/4 Reduker cleared on his first attempt, but Harris needed three attempts to move him to fourth place. At 6-8 3/4 both Reduker and Baptista from UMass Dartmouth cleared with Reduker ahead on misses. At 6-10 3/4, Reduker cleared on his second attempt, refusing to lose on his home track. At 7' Reduker was clearly over twice, just nicking the bar to displace it. The 15 points earned gave the team 69, almost enough to seal the victory and the meet was not even half over.
To the track, Aidan Gilson '19 and Slaney were up in the Mile. Both got out well. Gilson made an aggressive move to get with the leaders in this high quality field while Slaney was racing well but not quite as aggressive. In the third 440 it looked as though both were backing off. While this was true of Slaney, Gilson woke up and moved towards to front. With 200 to go Gilson blasted to the lead, but lost it with 100 to go. Nevertheless he held onto second place in 4:12.10.
Kennedy was back at it, seeded 14th in the 60HH, the sophomore made the finals and then stole 7th place, running a personal best of 8.58 in the trials.
MIT does not currently have a plethora of sprinters, but what they have is Benton Wilson '21. Wilson was injured most of the season, but was fully healthy for this championship. He was to race the 200 and 400 and was favored to win the 200 and seeded second in the 400. The 400 was first. Wilson, relaxed the entire way, was second at the break in 23.2. He took the lead on the turn and was never threatened, pulling away in 49.67. Assisting with points despite a not too brilliant move of trying to pass on the inside, Nick Duchatellier '22 placed sixth in 51.11. Tech had 92 and were not looking in their rear view mirror, but only what was to come.
Foucault-Etheridge was up in the 600. He must have watched Duchatellier fail on the inside pace and figure he could make it work, however he also failed. Nevertheless, the freshman got the job done with a third place 1:22.42.
In the 1000, Gilson was back, joining Alford. Both stayed near the front, running even 30's through 800 meters. Both pushed hard at the end with Alford earning third in 2:31.32 and Gilson just .02 behind for fourth in 2:31.34. This put the team over 100 with 109 points.
Back to the field events, the throwers wanted another turn at scoring some points. Will Woltmann '22 won the Shot Put on his first throw, a personal best of 51-00 3/4. Fakkema was sitting in third place until his first throw in the finals when he threw a personal best of 49-7 3/4 to tie for second, but was behind based on the second best throw. On his final throw the senior threw a better second-best throw to claim second place and give Tech 18 big points.
The final field event only had one MIT entry, but that was Shaoul, so the foregone conclusion of 10 more points for MIT was brought to fruition when the sophomore jumped a season best 49-1 3/4. Again he passed on all attempts in the finals, making sure he is ready for the NCAA Championships in two weeks.
Now that Shaoul had won his two events, it was time to see if Wilson could do the same. Wilson wasted no time, running a strong first 150, then bringing it home hard to win going away in a flat track best of 22.08.
The 3K was up, and even though the Engineers pulled Rosenkranz, Kearney and Mah were still in there representing the freshman class with pride. Both ran a solid pace, trailing the leaders through a 4:31 first 1600. Here the pace slowed and neither of them prepared for the break made with 800 to go. However, the rest of the field was not prepared either, so Kearney hung on for fourth in 8:35.05 and Mah was fifth in 8:37.61.
Tech's final event was the 4x800 Relay. Wanting to give everyone an opportunity to score while saving Gilson and Alford for the DMR next week, MIT changed their lineup. However, true to the MIT way, the substitutes stepped up quite well. Ellery Rajagopal '21 missing the past two days with a fever, put that behind him as well as most of the field as he led off with a 2:00.8 to put his team in fourth. Slaney went out aggressively, moving the baton up much closer to first, but still in fourth despite his 1:58.5. Matt Schofield '22 got the baton about 15 meters out of first. Schofield kept the team in fourth, ran his best race of his life with an excellent 1:59.5, but fell about 40 meters out of first. Foucault-Etheridge took the baton determined to make something happen, moving into third immediately after the pass. With 400 to go he moved into second and that was where he would stay, running 1:56.0 to total 7:54.95, a season best.
Next week MIT heads to Tufts University to run in the Final Qualifier to try and secure a few more NCAA Championship qualifying marks.
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