Track Team Has Three Place Winners at All New Englands
The Men's indoor Track and Field Team traveled across the river this
weekend for a two day meet at the All New England Championships (NEIAAA
Championships). MIT planned on using this meet to finish the season with
season best performances for the top individuals on the team and possibly
qualify someone for nationals.
In the field events, junior Dafe Ogagan made it three weeks in a row
where he had a season best performance. Dafe jumped 14-9 to claim 5th place
in the pole vault. The other field event performers were Ravi Sastry '98
in the long jump and Morio Alexander '96 in the triple jump. Both failed to
improve on their best, jumping 20-10 and 43-3 3/4 respectively.
In the running events, the duo of Dan Helgesen '97 and Joel Ford '98
continued to carry the runners. Dan competed in a very talented mile field
and came away with a personal best of 4:17.83, missing national qualifying
by only 2 seconds. Joel ran the race of his life in the finals, finishing
with a 2:30.27 time in the 1000 meters. In the trials, Joel had run a
season best by 2 seconds with a 2:32.14, but he saved his best for the next
day in the finals, placing 5th with his remarkable performance.
Distance runners Josh Feldman '97 and Arnold Seto '96 competed in the
5000 meter race, both earning the right to compete in the seeded section.
Josh ran his all-time personal best with a 15:08.41 clocking, placing him
5th. Arnie did not have a good day, getting disqualified for running off of
the track (even though he was pushed).
The only other runners were Ogagan and Sastry in the high hurdles.
Neither ran well, finishing with 8.69 and 8.38 performances respectively.
For their effort, MIT finished in a tie for 20th place with 6 points.
The next week will see Ogagan and Helgesen compete in their specialties at
Harvard in the IC4As.