Gopher Men Dominate Big Ten Indoor Meet

With a sweeping team effort powered by clutch performances up and down its roster, the University of Minnesota men's track and field team defended its Big Ten Indoor title in dominant fashion on Sunday.

Scoring 160.5 points -- the second highest winning tally in the meets' 100-year history -- the Gophers outpaced runner-up Ohio State, second at 112.5, to win the program's second straight Big Ten indoor title.

The victory makes it three track conference track titles in a row for the Gophers, including the team's Big Ten outdoor crown last spring.

The Gophers were powered by individual titles from Aaron Studt (shot put, weight throw), Ben Peterson (pole vault), Ben Blankenship (mile), Harun Abda (600m), and R. J. McGinnis (heptathlon).

In additional, the team mined major points thanks to multiple placers in the pole vault, mile, 600m, heptathlon.

"This means a lot to the program," head coach Steve Plasencia said in a Gopher media release. "The way we've been able to keep things going it seems like it's been coming for the last 10 or 12 years. Right now, it feels like this team is a very strong team."

The Gophers entered Sunday's finals' competition in good position to win another team title, leading the meet after the first day by nine points and having good representation in Sunday's finals. Still, Plasencia didn't feel the Gopher third-ever Big Ten indoor crown was in the bag.

"I scored it out last night and I scored it conservatively," he said. "And actually had Ohio State having us by a few points. Our guys came out today and seized it, and there is nothing you can say but congratulations to them on that effort."

Starting with the first event on the track, Plasencia's team was on a tear on Sunday.

In the mile, Ben Blankenship jumped leader Craig Miller of Wisconsin on the final backstretch, held off Indiana's Andrew Bayer coming home, and roused the crowd with a celebratory veer across the lanes after the finish in his first-ever conference title.

Andy Richardson, who finished 6th in the event, and Paul Hilson, 7th, made it a 15-point tally on the team's ledger.

Not to be outdone the team's 600m contingent followed shortly with a 1-2-5 finish, for 22 points, thanks to true-freshman Harun Abda's win, Logan Stroman's 2nd-place, and David Pachuta's 5th.

From there on out, an average meet for the Gopher would likely have won the team title -- but there was little average in the Gopher this weekend.

Before the meet was out, R.J. McGinnis, Jack Szmanda, and Brock Spandl would seal a 1-2-3 finish in the heptathlon. Defending champ Matt Fisher would finish second in the high jump, Oladipo Fagbemi would match his place in Saturday's long jump with a 4th-place triple jump result, Travis Burkstand and Joe McFarland would place 3rd and 6th in the 800m, and Chris Rombough and Mike Torchia would finish 4-5 in the 5000m.

Most remarkably for the Gophers -- on a weekend when the remarkable became commonplace -- was Studt's weight throw victory for his second title of the meet.

As in the shot put the day before, Studt found himself in second place with one throw left to take. In a repeat of Saturday, Studt launched another back-to-the-wall winner to wrest another title in the nick of time.

"It meant so much for our guys to be able to do it at home," Plasencia concluded. "We don't get the opportunity to do things that often where people recognize what we do, you could feel it build within them. It seems like it's been building in them all indoor season."

Complete results of the meet can be found HERE.

The Star-Tribune's story on the meet is HERE.

The a Gophersports photo gallery from the meet HERE.

Photo by Gene Niemi.