By Jack Pfeifer // Photo by Kim Spir

EUGENE, Ore. – Chad Noelle, from the small town of Greene in upstate New York, won the NCAA 1,500 championship on Friday night, becoming the first native New Yorker to do so in 36 years.

Noelle, a junior at Oklahoma State, after following the extremely slow pace with the rest of the field of 13 (2:14 at 800), was in perfect position throughout the final lap, kicked to the front off the final turn and held on for the win, in 3:54.96, the slowest winning time in the event in 60 years.

“I felt pretty confident the farther the race went,” Noelle said. “I was ready for anything.”

Noelle, a highly recruited high school athlete, originally came here to Oregon, then transferred. He had never placed in the NCAA outdoor championships before.

“I’m still in shock,” Noelle said. “Words are hard to describe. I knew I could do it, but then actually doing it is another thing. And it felt really good to come back and do it at Hayward Field.”

He became the first native New Yorker to win this championship since Don Paige for Villanova in 1979. The last 1,500 or comparable mile time slower than this for the championship was in 1954 when Bill Dellinger ran 4:13.8 for the mile for Oregon.

New Jersey native Sam Mattis won the men’s discus throw for the University of Pennsylvania in dramatic fashion, throwing a lifetime-best 205-0 on his final throw to edge Tavis Bailey of Tennessee by 2 feet. Mattis, a junior from East Brunswick, N.J., had been trailing by just 2 inches and had five consecutive throws over 200 feet.

“I came in feeling really good,” Mattis said. “I had a bunch of decent practices leading up to the meet and I knew it was in me.”

Mattis became the first NCAA champ for Penn since Sam Burley won the 800 and Brian Chaput the javelin in 2003. He became the first Ivy Leaguer to win the NCAA discus since Vic Frank won the event for Yale in 1949, the same year his teammate Jim Fuchs also won the shot.

In the 800 final, Jesse Garn, who grew up not far from Noelle, in Marcellus, N.Y., held the lead with half a lap to go, again running off a slow pace, but he was passed entering the final straightaway and ended up 4^th. Garn, a junior at Binghamton, aggressively took the lead on the backstretch, fighting a strong headwind, and held it around the final turn. But Edward Kemboi of Iowa State passed him on the inside and went on to win, in 1:49.26, while Garn was three places back, in 1:49.74.

In the 5,000, Edward Cheserek, the Oregon sophomore who went to high school in Newark, completed a distance double, leading the Ducks to a second consecutive team championship. Oregon scored 85 points, 29 more than second-place Florida.

Thomas Awad of Penn, who attended New York’s Chaminade H.S., was near the front halfway through the 5,000 but faded suddenly and later stepped off the track.

In the discus, Noah Kennedy-White, a sophomore at Penn from Jericho, L.I., threw 176-8 and missed the finals. New Jersey’s Najee Glass finished 4^th in the 400, in 46.31, and ran a leg on Florida’s runnerup 4x4 team.

“I came in feeling really good. I had a bunch of decent practices leading up to the meet and I knew it was in me. The whole series was really the best series of the season for me.”

“I knew it was going to be far. I was hoping it would be a little farther than what was winning, and it was.”