By Kim Hart
Daily Sports Writer
EAST LANSING - Michigan men's track coach Jack Harvey doesn't look like a scientist, but one must wonder how he came up with his experimental lineup for the Central Collegiate Championships.
He took a portion of the team, added a high jumper, sent one runner through an obstacle course, and came up one victory short of first place.
Michigan finished second at the meet with a total of 139 points, as points behind first-place Eastern Michigan with 148.5 points.
"We knew it was going to be close coming in," Harvey said. "The guys came back, and they ran hard. We had some second places where we should have had some first places, like Neil in the hurdles, but we ran him in the 55 dash and the hurdles as an experiment, and it didn't work."
Gardner competed in four events, running a total of eight times in the two-day period. He finished second in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 7.41 seconds and 12th in the 55 (6.64). He ran on two relay teams.
The distance and middle distance runners were a key component of the Wolverines' success this weekend.
Don McLaughlin had the only individual first-place finish for the team in the 800 with a time of 1:54.45. He was followed by Jay Cantin, who finished sixth (1:57.39), and Jeff Beuche, who finished seventh (1:57.52).
The Wolverines grabbed second-, third-, fourth- and 10th-places in the mile run. McLaughlin finished in 4:132.71, Scott MacDonald in 4:13.07, Jay Cantin in 4:15.80 and Steve Lawrence in 4:18.20.
McLaughlin, Cantin, MacDonald and Gardner also comprised the first-place distance medley relay team, which finished with a NCAA provisional qualifying time of 9:48.95.
"I was really happy with the 800," McLaughlin said. "The mile went out real slow and would have been better if it had come out quicker. Overall, we had some real good performances, and now we really want to do well at Big Tens."
Lawrence and MacDonald also ran in the 3,000. Lawrence placed second with a time of 8:35.63, and MacDonald third at 3:39.15.
Dave Barnett also came through for the Wolverines with a second-place finish in the 5,000 (14:45.92).
Damon Devasher finished second in the high jump after clearing 6-feet-9. Don Stenger finished second in the pole vault (15-feet-3 3/4). Brian Wildfong finished second in the shot put (52-feet-9 1/2). And Martin Bowman placed seventh in the long jump (22-feet-1).
Taiwo Okusanya jumped a distance of 44-feet-10 1/4 in the triple jump, and Alex Lengemann finished ninth in the long jump (21-feet-3 1/4) and eighth in the pole vault (14-feet-4).
Michigan had strong performances in the sprints as well. The Devasher-Steve Jenkins duo in the 55 finished third and sixth, respectively, with times of 6.44 and 6.56 seconds.
Jenkins, along with Edzra Gibson and Brian Theisen, had strong performances in the 200. Gibson finished fourth coming in at 22.10 seconds, Jenkins was fifth at 22.15, and Theisen took seventh place at 22.43.
Dwayne Fuqua finished in second place in the 600-meter run with a time of 1:20.15.
JEANNIE SERVAAS/Daily
The Michigan men's track team fell short of a first-place finish at this weekend's Central Collegiate Championships. The Wolverines finished second with 139 points, 9.5 points behind first-place Eastern Michigan.