WAVERLY, Iowa – For the fourth time in his career senior Mitchell Black of the Tufts men's track and field team is the 800-meter national champion. Black won his fourth overall, and second consecutive outdoor title, with a stadium record time of 1:49.58 on Saturday afternoon.
Junior Luke O'Connor picked up the first All-American honor of his track and field career as he finished fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase on Saturday just before Black at the 2016 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships hosted by Wartburg College at Walston Hoover Stadium.
The Jumbos scored 18 points at the meet with Black scoring 10 with his win today, O'Connor adding five with his fourth-place finish, and junior Tim Nichols adding three with a sixth-place finish in the 10k on Thursday. They finished in a tie for 15th place, their best-ever team finish at the NCAA outdoor meet.
Running in an eight-man final, Black started out today's race like many others, in the middle of the pack in third or fourth place and stayed there for the entire first lap. After the first lap he made his move and quickly passed two runners to move into second place behind Andrew Sharp of Greenville. Black would stay there for a little bit, until the last turn where he was able to move right past Sharp and lead the entire straight-away. His time of 1:49.58 is a stadium record and was significantly lower than his 1:52.57 that won last spring. Sharp was second with a time of 1:50.10 and Cyrus Mason of Wisconsin La Crosse was third with a mark of 1:50.47.
Black, a 10-time All-American, was certainly the favorite in today's race as he entered with the top mark in the country: 1:48.60, which he ran at the Larry Ellis Invitational hosted by Princeton on April 22. He easily won his heat yesterday with a time of 1:50.42.
O'Connor's time of 9:16.53 was good for fourth place on the national stage today. Ryan Bylger won the race with a time of 9:11.98, Jordan Carpenter of Wisconsin Oshkosh was second (9:13.70) and Jarred Iacovelli of Cortland State finished third (9:14.62). O'Connor was a little more than a second ahead of fifth-place finisher Keith Sands of Augustana (9:17.93). There were 14 total runners in today's final.
This was the first All-American honor for O'Connor. This winter he attended his first track & field national meet with the 2016 Indoor Championships where he finished 14th in the 5k. He qualified for the 3,000-meter steeplechase this spring with a time of 9:04.53 which he ran at the ECAC Championships. It was 11th on the performance list going into the championships this weekend. On Thursday, O'Connor was just 0.12 away from the top time in the preliminaries. His 9:12.66 was fourth in the fast first heat.
Black won his first 800-meter title back in March 2015 with a time of 1:52.95 at the 2015 Indoor Championships. He then followed that up with a sweep in May as he took the outdoor 800-meter title with a time of 1:52.57. Black picked up right where he left off this winter, winning his third 800-meter title with a time of 1:52.48 this March. Today's win is his first sub 1:50 national title in the 800.
Earlier this week Black was announced as the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association New England Track Athlete of the Year for the second time this year, as he also won the award this past indoor season. In April, Black was one of two student-athletes in the county to be awarded the NCAA's 2016 Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship. He was the first recipient ever selected from the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC).
Black's victory is the 16th title won by a Jumbo team or individual since 2010. Tufts teams have won eight NCAA championships in men's soccer (2014), men's lacrosse (2010, 2014, 2015), field hockey (2012) and softball (2013, 2014, 2015). In addition to Black's four wins, Julia Borwne captured the 2010 Division III women's singles crown in tennis, Johann Schmidt won the 2012 and 2014 NCAA men's one-meter diving championships and Jana Hieber took the 2014 NCAA women's outdoor track 400-meter hurdles title.
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