MORTON LEADS MIT TO SEVENTH CONSECUTIVE NEWMAC TITLE
April 28, 2007
MIT managed to beat out Springfield College by a score of 247 to 210 in the NEWMAC Outdoor Track and Field Championship to secure their seventh consecutive title. In a meet that could have gone either way, the strength of MIT's distance events, horizontal jumps and the individual domination by freshman Stephen Morton made the difference. The remaining scores were Coast Guard 162, WPI 92, Wheaton College 32 and Babson College 16.
MIT seized an early lead with the 10K, battled back and forth between Springfield dominating the throws and shorter races and MIT dominating the jumps and longer races. With just the discus, 5000 and 4x400 remaining, MIT held a narrow 203 to 182 lead. With Springfield earning 20 points in the discus, MIT needed to maximize their points in the 5K since Springfield had two entrants in the event. The 5000 locked up the victory and sent MIT looking ahead to the Championships ahead.
Morton started his day off by anchoring the 4x100 team to a come from behind victory over Springfield and a season best time of 43.22. He proceeded to place first in the long jump with a 21-11 effort on only two jumps. Taking a break from the horizontal jumps, he ran the trials and final of the 100 taking his only second place of the day as he ran into a strong wind in 11.32, far off his 10.88 season best. Coming back to the triple jump, Morton fouled his first two and then got in a jump that barely made it into finals as he was two feet behind the board. Recovering from the 100 final, Morton fouled his first two in the finals of the triple jump but put his best jump together on his last effort, moving into first place with a personal best, national provisional qualifying mark of 46-3 1/2. The meet was still on the line when he lined up against the other sprinters in the seeded section of the 200, where four of the entrants were from Springfield, including the winner of the 100. Morton ran a conservative curve then brought it home hard, winning in a lean at 22.19. Including his share of the 10 points for first in the 4x100, Morton scored 40 1/2 points for the Engineers, outscoring two of the teams in the meet.
Each team is allowed four entries per event in the championship and MIT maximized their points in the 10,000 meters to go along with the 5000 by sweeping the first four places in each. Running a calculated race plan that was a relatively slow early pace the Engineers were able to work together throughout the first two miles of the 5K and the first four miles of the 10K before doing any racing. In the 5K, Christopher Wong led the way with a 15:24.31 time, running a 2:16 final 800 meters. Trevor Rundell ran away with the 10K title in 32:59.63. Wong was supported by Joe Roy-Mayhew (15:30.58), Eric Khatchadourian (15:33.04) and Hemagiri Arumugam in 15:34.34. Rundell was assisted by Jack Bourbonnais (33:11.04), Brian Jacokes (33:18.82) and Tyler Abrams (33:35.15)
Morton won both horizontal jumps but had a large supporting cast. Placing second in the long jump and fifth in the triple jump, Chris Bateman leaped to two personal bests with marks of 21-8 3/4 and 44-6. Anthony Teixeira also jumped to two personal bests when he placed third in the long jump and second in the triple jump with jumps of 21-6 3/4 and 45-10 1/2 to move to number nine on the all-time MIT triple jump list. Obinna Anyanwu placed seventh in the long jump at 19-11 1/2 and sixth in the triple with 43-4 1/2.
MIT also had individual victories in the pole vault, 1500 and 3000 steeplechase. In the vault, freshman Greg Tao, led the way with another 14-8 3/4 effort. Patrick Barragan and Nate Sharpe tied for fifth at 12-9, a personal best for Sharpe. Yermie Cohen ran a personal best of 3:58.57 to score a three second personal best and a major upset over the favorite from Springfield. Arumugam placed fourth in 4:03.75 and Khatchadourian won the slow section to place sixth overall in 4:04.29. Johannes Schneider, another freshman, won the steeplechase fairly easily, running away from the field in the first two laps and holding on for a 9:44.19 victory. Chris Bruce placed third in 10:04.76 and Kevin DiGenova finished fourth in 10:08.74.
While not dominating their event, crucial points were scored by James Oleinik and Tony McDonald in the discus. An event heavily favored towards Springfield, Oleinik and McDonald stopped the bleeding by placing fourth and fifth with two personal bests of 135-4 and 132-10 respectively. Oleinik also placed third in the shot put with a throw of 48-2 1/2.
While not winning their events, the 400 and 800 runners represented themselves very well. Liam Fedus led the way in the 400 with a fourth place 50.21, followed by Stephen Oney in 51.54 for seventh and Ulzie Rea in 51.69 for eighth. Matt Bieniosek mistimed his kick just slightly and got caught just before the finish to place third in the 800 in 1:58.34. Bill Phipps braved the headwind at the end of the first lap and paid the price, placing fourth in 1:59.05. Yermie Cohen double back from the 1500, running 1:59.92 for sixth.
In the hurdle events, Teixeira added to his jumping points by securing a second into the wind in 15.69. Aron Walker sprinted and jumped his way to a seventh place finish in the 400IH in 58.51.
To close out the meet, MIT ran their best 4x400 relay by over four seconds this season. Oney led off with a very fine 51.3 to put MIT in the thick of it. Bieniosek ran 51.1 to keep Tech in position. Rea ran a great 50.4 but faded just enough to give Coast Guard and Springfield the lead at the handoff, which caused Fedus to run into the back of the finishing Coast Guard runner. This killed his momentum and made it too much for him to catch up despite his 50.0 leg. MIT finished in third with a 3:23.08.
Next week MIT travels to Springfield for the New England Division III Championships being run on Friday evening and all day Saturday. With Williams and Tufts seeded one and two MIT hopes to break into the trophy group with a third place finish but will look to upset any team not performing its best.