CANTON, NY - Tufts junior Mitchell Black pulled away from the pack and won the first heat of the 800 meters with ease at the 2015 NCAA Div. 3 Men's Outdoor Track & Field Championships hosted by St. Lawrence University on Friday. He posted a 1:50.60 time.
Black advances to the NCAA Outdoor 800 final on Saturday at 3:05 pm. He will be attempting to add an outdoor 800 national title to the indoor NCAA 800 crown he earned back in March.
The seven-time All-American was the #2 qualifier in the NCAA Outdoor 800 with a 1:49.83 time which won the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association (NEICAAA) title at MIT on May 9. Only Buffalo State junior Austin Becker ran a faster 800 during the Division III outdoor season (1:49.74).
Black is the top returnee to the NCAA Outdoor 800 field. He was the runner-up in the race last season with a 1:51.30 time. Along with Becker from Buffalo State, Carnegie Mellon senior Thomas Vandenberg, who was fifth indoors, enters the outdoor 800 as the #3 seed (1:50.05).
The 1:50.60 time today by Black was second among the 20 who ran in the 800 preliminaries. Wartburg's Daniel Bonthius posted a 1:50.28 finish to win the second heat. Vandenberg's 1:50.68 was fourth overall in the preliminaries. Carleton's Donson Cook-Gallardo was behind Black in the first heat at 1:51.08. Becker did not qualify for one of the nine finals berths (1:51.65).
Competing at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on March 14, Black won the 2015 NCAA Division III indoor championship in the 800 meters with a 1:51.94 time. The NCAA title was the first by a member of the Tufts team since Fred Jones won the triple jump at the 2006 NCAA Outdoor Championships. Black's was the first in a running event since David Patterson was first in the 3,000 meter Steeplechase at the 2001 NCAA Outdoor meet.
Black entered March's indoor meet ranked #1 in the 800 meters. He was the fourth runner in DIII indoor 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.
Also part of Tufts' eighth-place 4x400-meter relay (3:18.80) at the '15 NCAA Indoor meet, Black was selected as the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association NCAA Division III National Track Athlete of the Year for the indoor season.
Black was also third in the 800 indoors in 2014. He has three relay All-American honors indoors and another outdoor 800 All-American award from 2013 (seventh place). Earlier today, he was announced as a Capital One Academic All-District 1 ® Men's Track & Field / Cross Country Team member.
This is the sixth straight national championship for which Black has qualified since starting his career for head coach Ethan Barron's Tufts program. His qualifying time for this year's race is the school record.
#
