Women Place Third at New England Div. IIIs As Men Claim Second
One week after securing an unexpected team title at the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference Championship, the men’s track and field team finished second at the New England Division III Championship last weekend. MIT secured just enough points to keep U.S. Coast Guard Academy at bay while Williams College pulled away for first place. The women’s track and field team finished third behind national powers Williams College and Amherst College.
The Engineers began the two-day competition with a tremendous effort in the 10k run, where three competitors set personal records. Joseph D. Roy-Mayhew ’08 took fourth overall in a hotly contested finish with a time of 31:35.61. Christopher Wong ’08 finished sixth in 31:54.31 and M. Brian Jacokes ’08 grabbed seventh in 32:10.97.
In the long jump, Stephen A. Morton ’10 carried over his leading performance from trials en route to a new personal best and first-place finish with a jump of 23’8”. Anthony D. Teixeira ’08 jumped 21’9” to finish third.
The second day began well for MIT as James R. Oleinik ’09 authored a win in the shot put with a toss of 49’8.5”. Meanwhile, Vladimir Sobes ’11 threw 186’7” to finish fourth overall in the javelin.
The first track events yielded success for MIT as Paul D. Welle ’11 finished fourth in the steeplechase (9:29.39) and Jake J. Ruzevick ’09 finished seventh in the 1500-meter run with a time of 4:00.62.
In the sprint hurdles, Teixeira placed fourth with a time of 15.44 seconds, although he had set a personal best during the preliminaries after blazing to 15.10. Teammate Omari S. Stephens ’08 finished sixth in the event with a time of 15.77.
After the hurdles, Stephens went back to work in the pole vault where he finished second (15’1”). Greg D. Tao ’10 knocked Stephens from the top spot after winning the vault for the second straight week with a clear of 15’5” while Patrick R. Barragan ’08 capped a strong event for the Engineers with a fifth-place finish.
MIT closed out the scoring in the triple jump and 5000-meter race. Mattias S. Flander ’11 took fourth in the triple jump with a leap of 45’3.75” while Roy-Mayhew capped a great weekend by finishing sixth in the 5k with a time of 15:12.95.
Women Finish Third
After finishing a close third at NEWMACs a week earlier, the New England Division III championship posed a challenge for the women’s track and field team. Despite poor weather conditions at the track and field complex of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the Engineers closed out the championship in third with 77 points just behind national powers Williams College (111) and Amherst College (81).
Despite having fewer competitors with qualifying marks than most of the top 10 teams, MIT remained strong near the top of the results. The possibility of repeating last year’s second-place team finish was still remote going into the final event, the pole vault. Quality efforts left them just short, as Emily Hwang ’09 added another gold to her season after clearing 11’1.75” for the win, while Karin E. Fisher ’11 finished fourth with a jump of 10’8”.
The team opened well on the first evening as MIT put 13 points on the board in the 10k run. Hana L. Adaniya ’08, Jennifer A. Doyle ’09, and Lauren L. McCarthy ’08 finished in third, fifth, and sixth, respectively. Adaniya’s final time of 37:39.03 met the NCAA provisional cut.
Jacqueline M. Wentz ’10 tallied MIT’s first points on the track in the steeplechase. Saturday’s contest found her chasing a pair of national automatic qualifiers and a meet record, and she was rewarded with a provisional national qualifying time of her own, 11:04.47, the second-fastest time in Institute history.
Two events later, Adrienne. M. Bolger ’09 placed fourth in a competitive 1500-meter run. With the top eight entries within six seconds, there was a bit of gamesmanship and tactics during the race: no one wanted the lead, but no one let the pace lag too much. The tightly-bunched seeded section did not start breaking up until after the bell lap. Bolger broke the line at 4:40.83, a new school record and just tenths of a second away from the NCAA provisional time.
Aline Thomas ’08 covered three throwing events in two days. The senior took second in the hammer on Friday (156’3”) and first in the shot put (40’1.5”) on Saturday, as well as a non-scoring 13th in the discus.
Also scoring points over two days was Hazel L. Briner ’11, who posted a fourth-place finish in the heptathlon with 3459 points.
In the short sprints, Margaret C. Leibovic ’10 placed fifth in the 100-meter final at 12.90 seconds, and seventh in the 200-meter sprint (26.49 seconds).
The final track points came in the 4x800-meter relay, where an inspired quartet of Andrea E. Bradshaw ’09, Wentz, Doyle, and Bolger ran to fourth overall after being seeded in the slow section. Passing the stick in 9:26.67, the performance was just two seconds short of the runner-up spot from the fast heat.
Senior Leanne M. Veldhuis ’08 rounded out the team’s stats with a 10th-place finish in the 400m hurdles in 1:06.93.