Big guns rest; harriers still ring

Few were surprised with the results of the Michigan men's track team's weekend. The Wolverines finished in second place - as expected - as they hosted the Central Collegiate Championships.

Michigan came into the meet with several injuries in a week when coach Jack Harvey wanted to rest some of his "big guns" for Big Tens and NCAAs. While many of the athletes performed in just one or two events, the results were nothing short of spectacular.

Michigan garnered four first-place finishes and placed second overall with 102 points, behind only rival Eastern Michigan's 167 pts.

Friday night was "an inspiration for me and the entire team," co-captain and sprinter Brian Theisen said. The men's distance medley relay earned an automatic bid to NCAAs, with one of the nation's best performances this year.

LOUIS BROWN/Daily Michigan harrier John Mortimer is out from under the weather and it showed this weekend. The junior won athlete-of-the-meet honors, Friday.

Michigan's distance medley was stocked with the best runners from both the sprint and distance squads.

Jay Cantin essentially ran the first leg of the 1,200-meters alone. Michigan had hoped that Eastern Michigan would supply a competitive relay squad. The Eagles, however, could not supply enough firepower to keep up with Michigan.

Dwayne Fuqua ran an impressive second 400-meter leg. Following him was Don McLaughlin in the 800 leg. The race was won thanks to a strong start by McLaughlin in his leg, but it was eight-time All American Kevin Sullivan who ran one of the most inspirational anchor miles this year.

Michigan needed 9:40 in the relay to earn a provisional bid to NCAAs. But it was Sullivan's 3:58 anchor mile that "put us over the top," Harvey said.

"We felt Kevin would run around a 4:01 or 4:02 in the mile, but it was Sullivan's time that was the difference between a provisional and automatic bid," Harvey said.

Eastern crossed the finish line second, nearly 20 seconds later.

Sullivan has now earned three automatic bids - in the mile, 3,000 and Distance Medley - and a provisional bid in the 800.

With the most recent bid, Sullivan has decided to forgo his bid in the 3,000 at nationals, and instead join his teammates in running the distance medley.

While the distance medley stole the show Friday night, Sullivan's distance partner, John Mortimer, garnered athlete-of-the-meet honors.

Mortimer returned to the spotlight after being under the weather the past couple of weekends.

He ran a comfortable 5,000 meters in 14:14.34 and earned a first-place finish by nearly five seconds. He followed up the 5,000 meters with a victory in the mile (4:12).

While this weekend gave the distance runners to rest, the sprinters used this meet to run a variety of races and polish up for Big Tens in two weeks.

Before the race, Brian Theisen said it was the responsibility of the "mid- range sprinters to step it up and earn some points for the team."

On Saturday, Theisen backed up his big talk with several big races. Theisen finished second, with a 7:45 - his best time of the year in the 55. On Saturday, he recorded a personal best in the 200 preliminaries (22.09), but slowed up in the finals (22.19) for a fourth-place finish.

"We will be ready," Theisen said. "Although many of our runners were injured, by the time of Big Tens, I am not saying it's impossible.

"If everything goes perfectly, there is no saying how high we could finish."

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