WINSTON-SALEM, NC – Junior Mitchell Black of the Tufts men's indoor track & field team won the 2015 NCAA Division III Championship in the 800 meters on Saturday with a 1:51.94 time.
Competing at the JDL Fast Track, Black was one second faster than Michael Harnish from Lebanon Valley College who posted a second-place 1:52.95 finish.
The NCAA title is the first by a member of the Tufts team since Fred Jones won the triple jump (49-7 / 15.11m) at the 2006 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships hosted by Benedictine University in Illinois. Black's was the first in a running event since David Patterson was first in the 3,000 meter Steeplechase (8:53.74) at the 2001 NCAA Division III Outdoor meet.
On Friday, Black had clocked the fastest time in the 800-meter preliminaries to advance to Saturday's final. He won his preliminary heat in a time of 1:52.91.
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| Mitchell Black leading the pack early in the NCAA 800 meters race |
After just over an hour of rest following the NCAA 800, Black was joined by freshman Andrew DiMaiti and juniors Alex Kasemir and Francis Goins for the 4x400 meter relay. The quartet clocked a time of 3:18.80 to grab the eighth and final All-America spot. The group entered the meet as the #8 seed after recording a 3:15.34 time, converted to 3:18.47, at BU on February 27. The All-American honor is the second for Kasemir and Goins, and the first for DiMaiti.
Between Black's victory and the 4x400's eighth-place finish, the Jumbos tallied 11 points for 15th place of 66 scoring teams at the NCAA meet. Bates was the only NESCAC squad to finish ahead of Tufts, as the Bobcats' 16 points was good enough for ninth. Wisconsin-Eau Claire won the national title with 62 points.
Black's NCAA victory is the 11th by a Jumbo team or individual since 2010. Jumbo teams have won NCAA championships in men's soccer (2014), men's lacrosse (2010 and 2014), field hockey (2012) and softball (2013 and 2014). In addition, Julia Browne captured the 2010 Division III women's singles crown in tennis, Johann Schmidt won the 2012 and 2014 NCAA men's one-meter diving championship and Jana Hieber took the 2014 NCAA Women's Outdoor Track 400-meter hurdles title.
Black entered the meet ranked #1 in the 800 meters. He became the fourth runner in DIII history to run a sub-1:50 in the event, timing 1:49.16 at Boston University's David Hemery Valentine Invite on February 13. The time was the fastest in Division III since Ben Scheetz of Amherst set the DIII record of 1:47.43 at the NEICAAA Championships in 2012.
For NCAA qualifying purposes, Black's time was converted to a 1:50.72 due to the banked track at BU.
Black's qualifying time also broke his own school record as well as earning him the NCAA Division III Men's National Athlete of the Week honor from the USTFCCCA. The 1:49.16 finish was also within the USA Track & Field indoor qualifying standard (1:49.50).
Black is now a seven-time All-American indoors and outdoors. He was third in the 800 indoors last season (1:52.17) and was the national runner-up outdoors last spring (1:51.30). He also now has three relay All-American honors indoors and another outdoor 800 All-American award. This is the fifth straight national championship for which Black has qualified since starting his Tufts career.
This past Wednesday (March 11) Black was named the 2015 New England Region's Men's Track Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
Black also ran Tufts' best times in the 600 meters (1:20.21) and the 1,000 meters (2:28.24) this season. His performance in the 1,000 won the New England DIII title. He also anchored the 4x800 relay which won the New England DIII race with a 7:57.32 time.
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