VAULTERS CONTINUE TO RULE FOR MIT TRACK AND FIELD
May 16-17, 2008
MIT traveled west to Springfield College, host of the ECAC Division III Championship, to try to improve qualifying marks for the NCAA Division III Championhips the following week, or in some cases, try to make those qualifying marks. While over 20 MIT athletes qualified for this championship, only six made this trip, mostly because the team philosophy is to only continue those with a shot at making nationals but partly because the MIT students are getting ready for finals and are pretty fatigued from the previous three championships. Those six athletes performed well enough to give MIT a 10th place finish among the 52 scoring teams with 26 points.
Leading the way for Tech was once again the pole vault. Greg Tao back competing again, won with a near personal best of 15-5. Not vaulting his best, Omari Stephens still supported the Engineers quite will with his third place 14-11 effort. Patrick Barragan added a seventh place at 14-5 1/4.
In the shot put, James Oleinik continued to throw well. Oleinik claimed fourth place, throwing 49-5 1/2. The only other two athletes competing for MIT were Stephen Morton and Anthony Teixeira in the long and triple jumps. Morton had already qualified for nationals in the long jump but wanted to add the triple jump to his event list. Jumping into a light wind, Morton managed a sixth place with a lump of 22-1 3/4. Teixeira leaped to a very respectable 21-9 but did not make finals. In the triple jump, Morton only managed 44-5 1/2 in the trials before shutting it down under the pouring rain conditions. Teixeira could not find it this day, only jumping 43-5 3/4.
Down at Princeton University, representing MIT at the IC4A Championship, Joe Roy-Mayhew raced his way to a personal best in the 10K, running 31:30.12
Next week, Morton, Stephens and Tao will all represent MIT at the NCAA Championships at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.