MIT Men's Track and Field Competes at Sean Collier, Larry Ellis Invites

Senior Marshall Wentworth, Recap courtesy of MIT

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & PRINCETON, N.J. - The No. 20 nationally ranked MIT men's track and field team competed at both the Sean Collier Invitational, held in Cambridge, and the Larry Ellis Invitational, hosted by Princeton University, over the weekend. Neither meet was scored as the Engineers were looking for marks to qualify them for postseason competition, which begins next Saturday with the NEWMAC Championship.

Freshman Aidan Gilson (Florence, Mass.) got things started on the right foot for MIT at home with a first place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in personal best time of 9:43.13. His mark also is ranked the best this season in the NEWMAC. Sophomore Alex Knoedler (Canon City, Colo.) added to the top finishes with first in the 10,000-meter run in 33:16.35, more than five minutes better than the second place mark.

The 400-meter dash runners for MIT swept the top-3 finishing position as senior Derek Barnes
(Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.) crossed the line first in 49.13 and was followed by junior Danny Newman (St. Charles, Ill.) in second (49.45) and freshman Tom Frejowski (Chicago, Ill.) in third (49.98 - a new PR). MIT's "B" 4x100-meter relay team rounded out the list of winners for the Engineers on the track as the quartet ran a time of 42.49.

In the 800-meter run, both freshman Nathan Munet (Elkhart, Ind.) and classmate Christopher Mutty (Arlington, Va.) notched personal best times with marks of 1:56.92 (fourth) and 1:58.80 (seventh), respectively. Later in the meet, Frejowski, Munet, Gilson and junior Henry Tareque (Ossining, N.Y.) took third as MIT's A team in the 4x400-meter relay team in 3:23.43.

In the field, sophomore Cody Bratten (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) and senior Marshall Wentworth (Oakland, Calif.) had the best finishes for MIT on the day both with second place marks in their respective events. Bratten threw the discus a NEWMAC best and personal best distance of 149-feet, 7-inches (45.59m), while Wentworth cleared a height of 14-feet, 11-inches (4.55m) in the pole vault.

The other top performance for MIT in the field came from senior D. Carrington Motley (Pittsburgh, Pa.) who leapt a distance of 46-feet, 5.5-inches (14.16m) for third place in the triple jump.

At the Larry Ellis Invitational, MIT was represented by senior Benji Xie (El Dorado Hills, Calif.) who ran a time of 15:19.92 in the 5,000-meter run - 66th fastest in the event.

MIT returns to action next weekend at the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Championship, hosted by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Events are expected to get underway at 11:00 a.m.