BLAU SPRINTS HIS WAY TO GREAT TIMES IN NEICAAA CHAMPIONSHIP
May 12-13, 2006
On a windy and rainy weekend athletes from New England colleges of all divisions braved the elements to compete in the NEICAAA Championship hosted by MIT. Over 40 teams for both men and women and 700 athletes brought their best to the championship won by UConn on the women's side with 229 1/4 points and the University of Rhode Island on the men's side with 124 1/2 points.
While the weather was predicted to be the worst for both Friday and Saturday, Friday did not bring the torrents of rain. It was windy and overcast with temperatures hovering in the mid 50's. Saturday however was as miserable as it can get in mid May. Temperatures were in the 50's and wind was not quite as strong as on Friday but the rain was relentless. It rained so much the drainage system was overflowing near the end of the meet and all of the electrical boxes being used to run the finish line system were underwater.
In spite of the uncooperative weather, many MIT athletes produced personal bests. David Blau ran his way to a fifth place in the 100 with a 10.89 time and a seventh in the 200 with a 21.96 personal best. The races were originally set up as trials on Friday and finals on Saturday. With the clear evidence of the rains coming in on Saturday the coaches decided to move all events from the 400IH and 400 down to the 100 to sections on time to be competed on Friday. Blau made the most of his opportunity scoring all but one of MIT's points.
With Uzoma Orji competing at the IC4A Championship at Princeton University, freshman James Oleinik took up the slack and threw a personal best of 48-9 in the shot put to place eighth.
On the women's side, MIT placed 15th overall with 17 points. Leading the way was Chi-Fong Wang in the javelin with a throw of 128-3 into the strong winds to place 4th. Also placing fourth was the 4x800 team of Adrienne Bolger, Andrea Bradshaw, Hana Adaniya and Rachel Niehuus. The quartet ran 9:39.4 to finish as the top division III team. Freshman Emily Hwang finished sixth in the pole vault with a leap of 10-11 3/4. Leanne Veldhuis ran a personal best in the 400IH to place seventh in 64.86. Another personal best was established by Aline Thomas, who threw 156-1 in the hammer to finish eighth. The final personal best was established by Betsy Eames. Running her third 10K in as many weeks, she dropped her time by over 30 seconds to 38:55.33 to also place eighth.
Next week, those with a chance to qualify for the NCAA Championship will be traveling to Springfield College to compete in the ECAC Championship on Thursday and Friday, May 18-19.