Powered by six individual wins, the MIT women's track and field team captured the NCAA Division III New England Championship for the first time in program history on Saturday, Feb. 21.
Junior Jacqui Wentz took first place in both the 1,000 meters and the mile while senior Andrea Bradshaw ran an outstanding 800 meters to help the Engineers capture the regional championship. Sophomore Hazel Briner won the pentathlon while setting a school record on Friday for the Cardinal and Grey as well.
Bradshaw set a school record while achieving an NCAA Provisional cut time in the 800 meters, finishing in 2:15.18. Wentz's mile time was just a second and a half off her Institute record pace set last week. She followed that performance by setting a personal record in a victory at 1,000 meters with a time of 2:59.18. In the 55-meter hurdles, junior Amy Magnuson (8.44) and freshman Portia Jones (8.49) went one-two, as both hit NCAA Provisional marks. The 4x400 meter relay team gave Tech its final event win of the day, knocking off the second-place team from Tufts with a time of 4:02.73.
Jones also broke a pair of her own MIT records in the 200 and 400 meters. In the 200 meter, Jones ran to a fourth-place showing with a school record time of 26.10 seconds. She then achieved an NCAA Provisional qualifying mark -- and broke her own Institute record by more than a second -- by finishing two laps of the track in 58.69 en route to a second-place finish.
On Friday afternoon, Briner captured 3,072 points in the pentathalon, courtesy of first-place finishes in the shot put and 800 meter and second-place in the high jump and 55-meter hurdles. Her point total surpassed Nydia Clayton's record of 3,063 points, set in 2001.
Tech's total of 134 points was enough to hold off second-place Williams (118) and Tufts (108), the defending New England champions.
MIT will compete in the New England Collegiate Indoor Championship next weekend at Boston University.
