February 2, 2002

In 1992, the Greater Boston Championship (GBC) was disbanded. What used to be a very exciting track and field meet, pitting the area colleges against one another is back. Boston University hosted the renewed championship. Northeastern University took control of the meet early on with a combination of strength in the field events, sprints and hurdles to total a score of 133.5 points. MIT, powered by the 800-5000 events, in which they scored 40 of their 81.5 points, placed 2nd, just ahead of Harvard with 79 points, BU with 51, Bentley with 12 and Brandeis with 2 points.

After the all out effort last week against Williams College, MIT was careful to rest any athletes who were ill or even a little injured. Without a few of their top performers, Tech did not expect to have such success against Harvard and BU. In addition, MIT, uncharacteristically gave up some easy points, particularly in the long jump due to poor performances.

What did go well were the middle distance and distance events. Sean Montgomery and Brian Anderson started things off in the mile run. After a slow pace at the half way mark, coming through in 2:08, Montgomery and Jochen Dieckfoss from BU went at it for the next 800 meters. The two came through the three quarter mark in 3:10 and kept picking the pace up. Montgomery was never able to close the final 5 meters as Dieckfoss won in 4:10.31. Montgomery finished in 4:11.65 to automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships next month. Anderson fell off the pace with a quarter to go but still managed to even split a 4:15.98 for 4th place, which provisionally qualified him for nationals.

Forty minutes later, the two were back at it in the 800 meter run. This time Anderson took the pace out, coming through splits of 27, 55 and 1:24. Montgomery was the only one to go out with Anderson, slowly working his way up to him with 250 meters to go. Montgomery took the lead a ran a personal indoor best of 1:53.47 for the victory. Again, the time qualified him provisionally for nationals, which handicaps the performances on banked tracks. Anderson finished 2nd in 1:54.72, just missing provisional qualification.

The distance runners decided to go one up on the middle distance runners, with both Sean Nolan and Dan Feldman smashing the varsity record with times of 14:32.68 and 14:33.80 respectively for 1st and 2nd place. Both performances made the automatic standard for the NCAA Championship. Not to be overlooked, freshman Ben Schmeckpeper found his groove and just missed provisional qualification with a 4th place time of 14:56.66.

Second place performances were also achieved by Craig Mielcarz in the High Jump (6'6"), Dan Opila in the Pole Vault (13'9") and Chris Khan in the Weight Throw (54'4"), who improved his provisional qualifying mark for nationals.

Freshman Nathan Ball placed third in the Pole Vault, also clearing 13'9". The two relay teams, DMR and 1600 Relay, both placed third. On the DMR, Jesse Alejandro showed he is getting back to his 800 form with a 1:56 split. In the 1600 Relay, the quartet of Yuval Mazor, Matt Lehman, Gabe Sanchez and Montgomery ran a provisionally qualifying time of 3:20.45 for their fastest effort of the season.

Additional scores and personal bests were achieved by; Mazor and Lehman in the 400 with respective times of 50.18 and 50.52 for 4th and 6th place, Marios Michalakis earning a 6th in the Weight Throw with a 46-11 effort, Francisco Cruz with a 42-8 3/4 heave in the Shot Put for 6th place, Austin Neudecker and Victor Williamson combining for 4th and 5th in the Triple Jump with respective leaps of 43-0 1/2 and 42-10 1/4, Dan Kwon with a 6th place leap of 12-3 1/2 in the Vault and a tie for 6th by Rick Rajter in the High Jump with a 6-2 effort.

Next week, MIT will split their squad, sending a loaded DMR, Craig Mielcarz in the High Jump and Zach Traina in the 200, to BU for the annual Valentines Meet, and hosting the MIT Coed Invitational for Coast Guard, University of Rochester, Colby College, Connecticut College and WPI.