TECH LEADS OFF SEASON WITH WIN IN SPRING FLING MEET

March 29, 2006

MIT traveled to Clermont, Florida for their spring break trip, looking for some good warm weather training and competition.  After a couple days of good, hard workouts Tech lined up in the Spring Fling Meet against Colby College of Maine and Grinnell College of Iowa.  Only having brought 19 of their team members there were some holes in the lineup, but the same was true with the opposing teams.

MIT claimed every running event they entered, including the relays, with only the 400IH being void an MIT runner.  The only double winner in the running events was David Blau, running 11.1 and 22.34 to claim the 100 and 200 meter races with excellent early season performances.  The only other double victor was Omari Stephens, who won the pole vault at 13-0 and the 110HH in the personal best of 15.88.

Other victories were earned by Alex Rothberg in the 400 in 51.17 with a very well paced effort.  Placing second and fourth, also breaking 52 seconds were Ulzie Rea and Alex Rothberg.  In the 800, Dave Reshef ran from behind, nearly even-splitting a 2:01.74 victory.  Joining him in third and fourth were Matt Bieniosek and Fivos Constantinou.

Constantinou earlier ran away with the 1500 victory, leading from start to finish, winning with a fine time of 4:04.97.  Yermie Cohen supported with a fourth place effort.  Chris Bruce also led from start to finish, running 10:12.22 in the 3000 steeplechase.  Bruce went out in a very strong pace but faltered in the final two and a half laps.

Jake Ruzevick did not have a good day, possibly suffering from exhaustion, but ran to victory anyway in the 5000.  Eric Khatchadourian was the only entrant in the 10K, but his 33:16.06 was nevertheless a strong early season performance.

MIT won both relays, winning the 4x100 in 43.94 with two to three alternate legs.  The second handoff was the only poor one, one which required Thad Wozniak, the outgoing runner to slow down significantly at the end of the exchange zone to received the baton from Dan Rodgers.  Blau and Rothberg took care of the two ends to bring Tech to victory.  In the 4x400, Rothberg led off with a less than perfect 52.5 effort. Rodgers also ran slower than his open time, only clocking a 52.5 leg.  Reshef ran a superb 52.3 was a personal best 400 relay leg.  Bieniosek put the victory away with a 52.7 anchor.

Uzoma Orji did not have his usual superb meet.  All the field event athletes worked really hard on Monday and Tuesday, even working out the morning of the meet.  The fatigue showed as the big man only threw 53-2 1/2 in the shot put to win.  He was only able to claim second places in the discus and hammer as he just could not get anything going.  Chris Bateman took the long jump with a leap of 19-8 1/2 to lead a three man sweep of the event.  A notable second place effort was put in by James Oleinik in the shot put with a throw of 45-2 1/2.

On Saturday, MIT travels to Gainsville to compete against Division I power houses in the U. of Florida Diet Pepsi Invitational.