MIT Defends NEWMAC Titles

Vahey, Kaba, Okeke and Cameron Earn Awards

 

April 30, 2016

The number of injuries and illnesses the MIT Track & Field teams have had to endure this season is unprecedented in the program's rich history, and while it may have slowed the progress of the championship machine, it has not stopped it.  The popular catch phrase "next person up" perfectly describes the spirit with which the men's and women's teams compete.  While the men steamrolled the competition at the NEWMAC Conference Championship, winning with a total of 304.5 points, 135 points more than runner-up WPI.  The women, low in numbers even without the injuries, persevered to win 201.5 to 174.5 to runner-up WPI.  This was the 16th consecutive title for the men and the eighth in a row for the women.

Both the men and women pulled two of their certain scorers from the 5K and the women pulled their 4x400 top seeded team while the men put in a B team, so the separation would certainly have been more, but the prevailing thought at the end of the meet was to be sure to be ready for next week's New England Division III Championship.

At the beginning of the meet hosted by the Coast Guard Academy it seemed the teams would be in store for a near perfect weather day.  Within thirty minutes of the start of the meet, the wind shifted direction, coming right off the water, dropping the wind chill to the low 40's.  Even more importantly, the Long Jump for the women and the Triple Jump for the men were now going into the wind, hurting those performances significantly.  While the marks were nothing special, MIT showed they came to play as the men placed 1-3-5-6 with Arinze Okeke '17 taking first place honors with a 21-10 1/4 performance, supported by Carrington Motley '16, Billy Ruschel '18 and Trevor McMichael '19.  At the same time on the track, Nicholas Waltman '18 led his teammates, Alex Knoedler '18 and Brian Gilligan '17, to a 2-3-4 finish in the 10K, running 32:47.02.  Using a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring format, and limited to four entries per event, per team, MIT took an early 42 points after two events.

Even the throws, which had not expected to produce a lot of points, got into the mix, producing 44 points.  Cody Bratten '18 won the Discus in a PR of 152-9, leading his teammates to a 1-4-6 finish, and also led his team to a 4-5-6 performance in the Shot Put.  Alex Noakes '16 placed third in the Hammer as his teammates supported with a fifth and eighth place.  Luke Gray '18, who added a sixth in the Javelin, had the performance of the meet for the men, placing third in the 110HH in 16.47, which gave MIT a 1-2-3 finish in that event.

In the Triple Jump, Okeke again won, this time with the wind at his back, with a leap of 47-11 3/4. It was also the only event in the meet where a team swept the top four places.  Ruschel jumped a personal best for second place with a 47-9 1/4 performance.  The current triple jumpers on this team own four of the top seven marks all-time at MIT with Motley at number two, (he did not even compete in the Triple this weekend in order to rest his legs for next week), Okeke at three, Ruschel at five and Angel Echevarria '16 at seven.  For his efforts, Okeke was voted the NEWMAC Male Field Athlete of the Year.

Cameron Scott '19 was the co-winner of the NEWMAC Male Rookie of the Year for his victory in the Pole Vault where he cleared a personal best 15-5 to lead his teammates to a 1-4-7 finish.

Taking the NEWMAC Male Runner of the Year was Michael Kaba '16.  Although Kaba returned from an injury that kept him out of competition the past two weeks, it was not obvious that he missed any time as he won the 110HH in 14.57, the 400IH in 54.78 and ran the second leg on the victorious 4x100 Relay that ran 42.11, the best mark of the season.  Supporting him in his victories, Chris Sweeney '18 was second in both hurdle events, the aforementioned Gray getting third in the 110HH and Richard Lu '16 adding a fourth in the 400IH.

Tre Albritten '18, in addition to anchoring the 4x100 Relay, won the 200 in 21.65 and took second place in the  100 in 10.86 despite his poor start.  Danny Newman '17, also a member of the 4x100 placed second in the 200 with a personal best 21.73.  States Lee '16, another member of the 4x100, and winner of the 400 in 48.62, pulled up in the 200 due to an injury to his foot.  That 400 was also a big event for Tech as they went 1-3-5-6 with Derek Barnes '16, Tom Frejowski '19 and Newman earning those places respectively.

Ben Freed '18, out with a broken bone in his foot since the cross country season, just started full impact running this week, but due to a dedicated committment to cross training was able to race this weekend in his primary event the 3000 Meter Steeplechase.  Aidan Gilson '19 led start to finish in running a personal best 9:35.21.  Freed got his feet wet, quite literally, with a second place 9:37.40, finishing in 36 for the final 200 over hurdles and the water jump, showing he had plenty in the tank.

With all their milers injured or in the Steeplechase, Tech brought some distance runners down to the 1500 and they performed quite well, placing 3-4-6.  Josh Rosenkranz '19 led the way with a 4:02.56 while Benji Xie 'G and David Walter '18 earned the other two places.

In the 5K, Rory Beyer '17, also recently back from injury, needed to qualify for the New England Division III Championship next weekend so after MIT pulled Xie from the 5K, it fell on Dennis Maloney '19 to pace the way to a qualifying time.  After a slow first 200, Maloney took the lead.  After a first 1600 of 4:54, Maloney picked up the pace a bit for a 4:52 second 1600 and then broke the field with a 4:49 final 1600 to win in 15:11.32.  Beyer stayed with Maloney through 3600 meters, but did not fall off badly, running a qualifying time in placing second in 15:18.79.  The men won 11 of the 20 events en route to the title.

The women had depth in two areas, the field events and the distances and took full advantage of both.  There was fear that with only one entry in the 100, 100HH, 400 and 400IH that WPI would simply score too many points for MIT to make up.  While WPI did outscore MIT in the running events 139 to 94, which would not have been as bad if MIT had kept their two runners in the 5K and run the 4x400 Relay, MIT returned the favor in spades by outscoring WPI 109 to 39 in the field events.

The distance runners got things started in a positive way with a 21 point effort in the 10K.  Camila Thanos '19 took the lead in the first lap once it was apparent no one wanted it.  She started out at an appropriate pace with a 6:11 1600, abut then slowed to a 6:21 as her teammate, Bailee Margolis '19 shared the lead duties.  Thanos again picked up the pace in the third 1600 to a 6:09 and then a 6:10, which is when she broke her teammates.  Another pair of 6:09's left her with nearly a 17 second lead as she won in 38:34.29.  Margolis finished third in 39:03.21 and Darby LaPlant earned fifth place honors with a 39:43.04.

Jackie Vahey '17 led the team by winning the Hammer with a throw of 167-5, then shattered her own record in the Discus with a 153-1 performance in winning that event.  She also added a second place in the Shot Put at 40-0.  For her efforts Vahey earned the NEWMAC Female Field Athlete of the Year.  Even without one of their key members, who was sitting out due to lower back problems, the throwers scored 56 points in just the Hammer, Discus and Shot Put.  Isabella Stuopis '16 won the Shot at 40-7 1/2 and Ariela Slutsky '18 added a second in the Discus, and fourth place in both the Shot Put and Hammer.  Dana Balek '18 added a fourth in the Javelin at 110-8.

Although the team has no triple jumpers, they certainly make up for it with the Long Jump.  Nneoma Okonkwo '18 placed second at 18-6 1/2 with Haley Strouf '18 jumping a personal best 18-0 1/2 for third place. Hannah Chen added a fourth at 18-0 1/4 and Natalie Alper '17 placed seventh at 16-9 3/4.  This was the first time in program history that three jumpers went over 18' in the same meet.

While the team is still adjusting to the loss of Cimmy Virdi '16 to an ACL tear, her vaulter teammates still took four places.  The vault had started going with the wind, but then the wind reversed so the vaulters were all getting hammered by the head wind, which certainly affected the heights and mental attitudes leading to achieving those heights.  MIT succeeded where others did not, placing 1-3-6-7 with Sherry Wan '16 leading the way at 10-11 3/4.  Jen Tylock '17 cleared 10-6, Makenzie Patarino '19 10-0 and Madeleine Waller '17 9-6 1/4.

No other victories were achieved on the track for the Engineers but they did run some strong performances.  Kendra Knittel '17 ran a PR of 58.55 in a perfectly paced second place finish in the 400, despite the strong wind.  She used the wind to her favor in the 200 to run a huge personal best of 25.16 for third place.

Okonkwo, added points on the track by placing fifth in the 100 with a 12.35 PR in the trials and then a 12.61 in the finals.  She also place seventh in the 200 in a new PR of 25.94.

Hannah Chen '18 ran a season best in the 100HH to place second in 15.03 and then lost for the first time this season in the 400IH.  She did not accelerate going into the final hurdle while her opponent did as she lost in the final 20 meters in 63.01.

In the middle-distance events, with Maryann Gong '17 taking the meet off to let her injury heal up, were not up to normal strength.  Bailey Tregoning '19 showed her inexperience as she took the lead going into the wind and too early in the race.  By the time she hit the homestretch into the wind a second time she had lost it all, barely holding onto third place in 2:19.02.  Clementine Mitchell '18 had her best race ever, focusing much better than in the past to place third in the 1500 in 4:46.50.  Nicole Zeinstra '16, running out of the slow section with no competition as it is the first time she was racing the 1500 this season, placed fifth in 4:52.20.

In the final event for MIT with the results of the Discus and 200 still not in, all four 5K runners toed the line.  Thanos and Zeinstra were two of them and both were almost certain to place pretty high.  However, at the 1200 mark the scores came in and it was obvious MIT could not be caught so Coach Halston Taylor had both drop out of the race to save as much as possible for next weekend.  In the meantime, Mary Eccles '18 took the lead intending on running a hard pace despite the strong wind.  One opposing runner went with her, letting Eccles do all the work until 600 meters to go.  Eccles ended up in second with a 17:49.57 and Jenny Xu '19 ran 18:16.69 for third place.

Next weekend the women will be going for their fourth consecutive New England Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championship while the men will be going for their fourth title in five years.

 

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