MAY 2-4, 2002
Despite three individual victories and 10 personal bests, MIT Men's Track and Field team was not match for a very strong team from Williams College. MIT's 122 points ranks as the highest total in history for a 2nd place finish, but that was little consolation for the Engineers who were hoping to perform a little better and for Williams performers to not compete at their best level--neither happened as Williams scored 169.5 points for the title.
Peter Bluvas got things rolling for Tech with a 2 day Decathlon victory in very unfriendly conditions that has 50 mph winds, a little rain and even a snow flurry. The highlight of the event was a 22 vault effort to jump 12-7 1/4 for a new PR in the vault. Bluvas finished with 5732 points for a career best. Ossinger from Williams placed 5th to make the score 10-4 after 1 event.
MIT has 31 athletes competing in the meet, a new record, but most were seeded outside the top 4. Nevertheless, Tech had finalists in every event with trials (100, 110HH, 200, 400, 400IH). In the first final of the day, the 10K, MIT was seeded 8th with Albert Liu, but failed to score. Williams placed 2nd and 7th to garner 10 more points.
The Long and Hammer were the next finals to take place. Craig Mielcarz and Tom Hoover placed 5th and 6th in the Long Jump despite the head wind. While Williams scored 0 points in the LJ, that was not the case in the Hammer. Richard Chau of Williams had a big PR to place 2nd, just ahead of Chris Khan, 182-10 to 182. Marios Michalakis placed 6th for MIT and Greg Walker had a PR of 165-1 for a new PR.
Next in the field events were the Triple Jump, High Jump and Pole Vault. Austin Neudecker was leading the triple after the trials with his 44-4 jump into the headwind. However, the last two rounds brought out some great performances, most notably a 2nd place effort of 44-9 by Dwight Ho-Sang of Williams, which combined with a 5th place by his teammate put MIT behind for good.
The High Jump, going on at the same time, had very good results for MIT. Mielcarz placed 2nd with 6-9 3/4 and was supported by a 4th place from Brian Hoying and a 7th from Rick Rajter. Williams finished below their seed with only a tie for 8th.
Nathan Ball continued his assault on the freshman pole vault record, moving into 2nd place all time on the MIT vaulting list with his 15-7 1/4 winning vault - again into a wind. Ball was not supported by his vaulting mates on this particular day, although Bluvas came back to set another best of 12-11. Williams had a vaulter place 2nd who was favored to win, but Tech was favored to score 12, so the net result was the same.
In the Discus, the anticipated battle between last year's winner, Chris Khan from MIT and the nation's leading Division III thrower, Dan Austin of Williams never materialized as Khan had difficulty staying in and was only able to place 4th with a throw of 152-1, 8 inches out of 2nd.
The other field events were not scoring ones for MIT, but Williams managed 29 points in the Shot Put as they placed 1-4 to close out the meet.
The first final on the track after all the trials was the 400 Relay. MIT's quartet of Zach Traina, Rajter, Yuval Mazor and Marc Washington ran a PR of 42.75 to place as the fastest time for MIT since 1990. The PR gave them 4th place, just behind Williams.
The next event, the 3000SC saw two MIT entrants not attack the start enough to get into the race. Ben Schmeckpeper, a freshman who was seeded 5th, moved up in the lst half of the race to place 5th in 9:34.74, but again, Williams College placed higher than they were seeded when Karl Remsen won in 9:08.99 and Zach Blume finished in 8th.
Brian Anderson continued to run very well as he took a fast pace and made it faster when after trailing in 2:05, he ran a 60 second 400 to come through the 1200 in 3:05. Anderson never looked back as he ran to a new PR of 3:53.04 despite the windy conditions. The bigger surprise was turned in by Sean Nolan. Nolan was seeded 5th with a best of 4:00.27. Moving hard in the last 150, Nolan challenged last year's national champion, Mark Miller of Keene State before finishing in 3rd with a 3:55.64 to provisionally qualify for nationals. Williams was seeded to score 0, but managed 4th with a gutsy 3:56 from Matt Winkler out of the slow section.
Rick Rajter was not able to put all his ailments behind him, but put enough on hold to finish in 4th with a 15.21 into the wind. Rajter, hoping at the beginning of the season to qualify for nationals in this event, will give his back a much neede rest to see if the swelling around his spine can go down.
Yuval Mazor ran a PR of 49.67 in the trials, joining Matt Lehman in the finals of the 400. Mazor placed 4th in 49.87 and Lehman 6th in 49.95. The 8 points was 2 below what was expected. Williams also lost 2 from their predicted seeds as thier 1st seed finished 2nd.
Zach Traina could not match his wind aided 10.91, but he did manage to place 5th after being seeded 4th. Williams, seeded to score 13 in one of their strongest events, managed 16 as they finished 1st and 3rd. The 200 was much the same as Traina placed 6th and Williams scored 13.
The 800 was another bright moment for Tech. Alan Raphael, on a mission all season, came out of nowhere to place 2nd in a PR of 1:54.15. Anderson tried to come back, and managed to go with the leaders through the 54 first quarter, but was not able to recover enough in the 40 minutes between races to do better than 1:58. Williams, seeded to score 26 points, finally had a bad event as they only scored 11.
The 400IH saw two MIT runners make the finals, but 7th and 8th was all that was managed, although that was higher than they were seeded to score. Russ Moriarty ran a PR of 55.97 in the trials, but placed behind teammate Mark Jeunnette in the finals.
Williams won the 1600 relay in 3:16.85, a fine time in the wind. MIT could not manage to score with their 3:27.02 as all their entries had already spent themselves in previous races.
Next week, Tech goes to Northeastern University for the All New England meet on Friday and Saturday. Last year, MIT placed 9th against their foes from other divisions, but hope to place higher this year.