WOMEN TAKE NEW ENGLAND DIVISION III CROWN WHILE MEN TAKE SECOND, LOSING BY 1 POINT

May 3-4, 2013

At the New England Division III Championship, hosted by Colby College in Waterville, Maine, MIT was seeded first on the women's side of the ledger while the men were seeded third going into the competition. For the men, Tufts was seeded to score 123 points to 95 for Bates and 69 for MIT. The women were seeded to score 127 to 109 for Tufts. MIT competed with the intent of winning both.

The first event for the men was the Decathlon. Adrian Samsel '16 was seeded 10th based on the rookie's only attempt at the event back in April. Samsel broke out of the gates with some great performances on day one, including a 21-4 3/4 effort in the Long Jump, and at the end of those five events he was in first place. Samsel and everyone else knew that day two included events he was just learning, particularly the Discus, Javelin and Pole Vault. By the end of nine events he had dropped to sixth place. The final event, the 1500 is a pretty solid event for Samsel, but he went with the leader, which took him out to a 31 first 200, which pretty much ended hopes of him moving up in the overall score. He held on pretty well, running 4:34 for the 1500, but this dropped him to seventh place. He was only 61 points out of fourth, which a 4:27 would have secured. Nevertheless it was a new freshman record for MIT in the Decathlon and two more points than the team counted on. Unfortunately for MIT, Bates College earned first and fourth for a solid 15 points.

The only other event in which MIT scored on day one was the 10K. Tech had five entries in the event and hoped to have all of them score (top 8) although with the talented field this was asking a lot. The pace started out ridiculously slow, over 90 second 400 pace through the 200, but then it picked up a bit to hit 83 at the 400, the exact same pace as the women's 10K. All five MIT runners were up at the front, biding their time through the first mile at 5:15 the second mile at 5:08 and the third mile at 5:09. Towards the end of the fourth mile the pace dropped to a 73 400, but when that did not shake up the top nine runners, Allen Leung '15 and Matt Jordan '15 took over the lead, settling back to 76-77 pace. With eight scoring places and nine runners still in contention it was time to shake things up. The fourth mile was 5:03, but it was not until the end of the fifth mile when the pace really picked up going into the final lap of the fifth mile as the leader dropped a 72 for a 4:59 mile. Benji Xie '15 went with the leader as the nine split up very quickly. Roy Wedge '14 sort of hung off the leaders, never more than three seconds back from second place. Leung was back in fifth-sixth, losing about five seconds per quarter as he was running 75's while the leaders were pushing 70's. Jordan and Matt Deyo '16 were fighting it out with a Bates runner for seventh, eighth and ninth. In the final lap Wedge showed the determination that won him the title as a freshman as he dropped a 63 to go from fourth to second in 31:24.53. Xie got nipped at the line by Wedge and a Williams runner, placing fourth in 31:25.62. Leung was unable to muster a kick but finished a solid sixth in 31:47.08. Jordan, who had fallen off, pulled a Wedge like kick of his own (65) to squeak into eighth place in 31:49.53. Deyo just missed scoring, finishing ninth in 31:49.65. Bates pulled down first and seventh for 12 points. MIT grabbed 17 points. At the end of day one MIT was looking at a 42-19 deficit.

For the women the start was a little stronger. The two day Heptathlon event is conducted on Friday and Saturday, unlike the Decathlon, which is Thursday and Friday. Jackie Konopka '14, the top seed had a solid first day, sporting performances of 15.35 in the 100HH, 5-3 1/4 in the High Jump, 32-3 3/4 in the Shot Put and a 26.99 into the wind in the 200. This had her easily locked into first place entering day two.

Tilly Taylor '15, suffering from a groin injury, was having trouble maintaining her speed in the crossover part of the approach in the Javelin throw. This and a lack of emotion had her in second place entering the final round of competition. She was passed early in the round to fall back to third. This seemed to wake her up as she added four meters to her mark with a 138-9 throw for second place. She had been seeded third so the additional two points was important.

In the Long Jump, an event in which MIT was not expected to score, both Michelle Johnson '15 and Jackie Brew '14 made the nine person final even though their marks were 16-9 3/4 and 16-5 3/4 respectively. Johnson, in fifth at the start of finals, kept getting passed and was unable to improve her mark as she finished in eighth. Brew improved to 16-8, but remained in ninth.

Elaine McVay '15 was seeded first in the 10K, but was in question with a hamstring that had continued to cramp up on her even on general runs. She declared herself ready to go and had the mind set to get the job done. Right at the start McVay and two other runners pulled away from the field, running a 5:38 first mile. MIT's other three runners followed the plan, which was for Kaitlin Allen '14 to run 91 second 400's and for Shivani Kaushal '15 and Kali Benavides '15 to run 92's. Allen found herself moving up steadily through the pack although she was running more like 89-90 pace. The second mile for the leaders was a 5:42 and McVay looked great. However, during the third mile her hamstring again cramped, forcing her to slow and lose contact with the two leaders. Allen continued to run with two others, vying for sixth, seventh and eighth positions. McVay held onto third place in a respectable 36:22.25 performance. Allen was unable to out kick the others but managed eighth place in 37:39.64. Although they did not score, Kaushal's 38:33.45 and Benavides's 38:48.20 were very strong performances.

Day two was incredible in many respects. First, the men fell ridiculously far behind, at one point trailing 73-19 as Bates went 1-2 in the Discus, and 1-6 in the Steeplechase in two early events without MIT scoring a point. That is where the tide began to turn. First on the track, the quartet of Michael DuPlessis '14, Michael Kaba '16, Nick Diamantoni '15 and Tyler Singer-Clark '14 ran a 41.91 from lane eight, never seeing their opponents, to win the title. This was despite poor handoffs on both ends of Kaba's leg as he left late on the front end and put the baton out too early on the back end. Unfortunately Diamantoni pulled his hamstring slowing down too quickly, but Josh Duncavage '13 is back to full health so the Engineers may not miss a beat.

Bates picked up two in the 4x100 and then came back with a strong third in the 1500, an event in which MIT did not score, giving Bates 81 to 29 for MIT. Up on the horizontal jumps area, some freshman magic was taking place as Arinze Okeke '16 defied gravity to improve by over a meter to take first place at 47-04 1/4. Carrington Motley '16 had a nice PR of his own, jumping 47-3 for second place. Yet another freshman, Angel Echevarria, had a personal best of 44-9 1/2 for eighth place and a nice 19 point event. Okeke's mark was a new freshman record.

Back on the track, Singer-Clark remained undefeated for the season, taking the 100 in 10.98. He was supported by DuPlessis with a second place 11.08. Josh Duncavage added a fifth place with an 11.21 after running 11.14 in the trials. Bates did no score in the 100 or Triple Jump, but did add points in the 110HH, where MIT hoped to score, but did not. The score now stood at 70 for MIT and 90 for Bates.

In the 400, again MIT was depending on freshmen to get the job done. MIT was seeded for nine points, but States Lee '16 would have none of that. Lee defended his indoor title while lowering the MIT freshman record to 48.20. Teammate Derek Barnes '16, the former freshman record holder, placed fifth in 48.91. Bates did not score and now MIT was only 6 down.

The 400IH had the potential to be a big event for MIT, but it did not quite work out that way. Michael Kaba continued to have a rough day as he was probably warming up for too long and out in the sun much too long. He struggled to get his step to the hurdles on each one but still somehow managed to run 54.38 for sixth place.

So with still being 3 down and the 800 coming up with Bates having three runners in the seeded section the feeling was MIT had to draw a line in the sand. Pat Marx '13 did just that, running a 1:52.33 to take third place while Bates only managed fourth. Marx ran a perfect race to set a season best.

With opportunities getting less and less, MIT was inspired by Marx's effort. Singer-Clark, Lee and Barnes took care of business in 200. Barnes won the section fastest section in 22.23 and Singer-Clark won his third event with a season best, and tying his personal best in 21.62. Lee earned fourth place in 22.22. The 19 points gave MIT 112 to 95 for Bates and the first lead of the meet.

In the Pole Vault, MIT got a superb performance from Ben Schreck '15, who added a foot to his MIT mark, clearing 15-3 for sixth place. Cyrus Vafadari placed third, also at 15-3 while Bates earned eight points, thus adding one more point to the lead.

The 5K was next on the track, but while that was going on, Bates was adding a 1-2 finish in the Shot Put for 18 points to tie the score at 121 to 121. MIT had six competitors in the 5K while Bates had two, but their two were seeded higher and were both fresh, while MIT's top seeds were all coming back from the 10K the day before. Benji Xie stuck to the leaders despite an injury he had been enduring for a couple of months and the obvious fatigue from the 10K. The other MIT runners were game but could not stick with the top eight past the half-way mark. Xie ran an excellent and gutsy 14:52.07 for third place, but Bates took second and fourth to give them 134 to 127 for MIT with only the relays to go.

With very few opportunities to run 4x800 relays in the spring and the rule being that all seeded times have to come from the outdoor season, many good teams were in the unseeded section while Bates and MIT were pretty much uncontested in the fast section. Bowdoin College had a loaded team in the unseeded section and with no competition ran 7:41.86. MIT knew they needed to finish no worse than one team behind Bates and were aware of what Bowdoin had done in the first section. Bates simply had more firepower and ran an incredibly inspired 7:40.10 to take first place. MIT did their best, with Sam Parker '15 running 1:56.2, Jared Forman '13 1:57.8, Harrison Hunter '15 1:58.9 and Marx going out in 52.4 but only finishing in 1:57.7 for a cumulative time of 7:50.89. MIT did finish third overall, which put them 11 behind with one event to go, making it impossible to win the meet.

In the final event, the 4x400 relay, Tech was still hoping there was a miscount in the score, so were going for it nevertheless. They were not at their best after a long day under very sunny skies, but Kaba (49.6), Lee (49.0), Barnes (50.1) and Singer-Clark (48.2) did run 3:17.26 for the victory. Bates did not score and left with a one point victory. Tufts finished a distant third with 71 points.

The women's meet was exciting for most of the meet, but did not quite bring the same drama as the men's meet. To set the story, Tufts was very strong in the throws and pretty strong in the sprints. They had balance elsewhere but almost nothing in the middle distance and distance events, which was MIT's strength.

Day two began with the continuation of the Heptathlon, which Konopka continued to dominate. Her long jump of 15-8 1/4 was nearly a foot off her best, but her Javelin was a season best of 93-6 and her 800 was an excellent 2:29.78 to give her a total of 4420 points, just off the MIT record of 4431.

MIT tried to score in the 100 and 4x100, but were unable to do so. Jackie Brew '14 did make finals in the 100HH, taking the final position in the finals. In the finals she was unable to move up but did gain MIT a point.

MIT's strength is on the oval and that was about to be known. First, in the 3000 Steeplechase, Martina de Geus '14 ran a strong and steady race for a 10:52.03 PR, good for second place.

Brooke Johnson '13 was about to do her one better. In the 1500, Johnson, Sarah Quinn '16 and Louise van den Heuvel '14 went out in a safe, but reasonable 76 quarter and 2:30 800. Johnson moved at this point with a 71, stringing out the field as no one was ready for the move. She closed in 52 for the final 300 as she was still speeding up when she crossed the line in 4:33.05 for the victory. Quinn, whose calves have been having problems since early February, still placed fifth in 4:36.63, while van den Heuvel followed in sixth in a personal best 4:36.79.

Tufts gained points in the Hammer and Discus as well as the Shot Put, putting up 38 points in those events while MIT earned five. Isabella Stuopis '16 pushed up her MIT rookie record and moved up her seed by throwing 41-8 1/2. Christine Labaza '14 just missed scoring in both the Shot Put and Discus.

On the track, Tufts won the 4x100 Relay as well as earned 12 points in the High Hurdles. They also earned five in the 100 and eight in the 400IH. MIT was in a hole and with only the Pole Vault, Triple Jump, 800, 5K and 4x800 to go for scoring opportunities.

The Engineers got to work. In the Triple Jump, Michelle Johnson took fourth place with a leap of 36-7 3/4. In the Pole Vault, in typical fashion, MIT pulled down 19 points as Lauren Kuntz '13 took first with a 12-7 1/2 jump. Her teammates, Cimmy Virdi '16 placed third at 11-7 3/4 while Sherry Wan '16 finished in sixth with a personal best 11-1 3/4.

On the track, Alexandra Taylor '14 ran a season best of 2:15.20 to place fourth in the 800. Tufts scored, but only earned two points to MIT's five.

Going into the 5K and final two relay events, MIT was down by 1/2 point to Tufts. Without knowing how the relays would break for Tufts, MIT went with their six entries, five of which were doubling back from the 1500, 3000 Steeplechase and 10K. The only fresh body was Nicole Zeinstra '16 and her quads and calves were tightening up on her with every run. Brooke Johnson, Elaine McVay and Sarah Quinn were set to take the lead and run 83 second quarters against the relatively weak field while Martina de Geus, Zeinstra and Kaitlin Allen were planning to run 85's. For the first two miles the top group did their job with McVay yielding slightly to her cramping leg. At that point they had over a 100 meter lead and no one was gaining. Allen was too fatigued from the 10K and was unable to hang with her group. At 3200 meters Zeinstra was holding on but de Geus felt great, relatively speaking, and moved the pace up slightly. Johnson, Quinn and McVay all cruised in 1-2-3 (17:31.05, 17:43.50, 17:46.96 respectively) with de Geus close behind in fourth at 17:52.13. Zeinstra managed a nice kick down the final straight to take seventh in 18:11.62. MIT totaled 31 points to seal the victory.

MIT did not enter the 4x400 with the victory in hand. In the 4x800, the quartet of Cindy Huang '15, van den Heuvel, Margaret Coad '15 and Taylor nearly set an MIT record as they placed third in 9:14.56. Huang split 2:17.4, van den Heuvel a PR 2:18.0, Coad a 2:22.6 and Taylor anchoring a 2:16.3.

The final tally was MIT 126.5 to 93 for Tufts. Host Colby earned third with 78 points just three points up on Williams.

Next week, at the All Division New England Championship hosted by Stonehill College, MIT will reduce its squad down to those who have a shot at going to the NCAA Division III Championship in three weeks.

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