By Todd Chamoy
Team Member
The varsity track team entered their meet this past Saturday expecting
some stiff competition. The athletes knew that they would have to come
out strong and set the pace early on. They did just that.
Facing arch-rival Coast Guard and several less powerful teams from WPI,
Colby, and UMass-Dartmouth, MIT took an insurmountable lead early and
coasted to a 93 point victory. The Engineers dominated their rivals in
the 1500m, where Daniel S. Helgesen '97, Joel S. Ford '98, Arnold H.
Seto '96, and Joshua D. Feldman '97 finished first, second, third and
fifth, respectively. MIT swept the top four places in the long jump, led
by Ravi V. Sastry '98, who also won the 55 high hurdles and placed third
in the triple jump and fourth in the high jump.
Leif Seed '99 had done some pole vaulting in high school, but his place
on this track team was as a sprinter... or so he thought. He was kept
out of Saturday's meet due to injury, but was called upon with less than
a day's notice to pole vault. Because there were only seven entries in
the pole vault and eight scoring places, coach Halston W. Taylor made a
strategic move and entered Leif in the event. All Leif needed to do was
clear the opening height of nine feet and he was guaranteed at least
eighth place. All Leif did was clear ten feet and place sixth in the
event, earning three more points to add to MIT's total.
With eight scoring places in each event, and against such solid
competition, every point counts. MIT exemplified this philosophy by
placing at least three athletes in thirteen of the fifteen non-relay
events. This is especially impressive considering that the team is
limited to just four entries per event.
Perhaps the most exciting race of the afternoon was the 500m, where
Edgar R. Ngwenya '96 inched out a Coast Guard runner at the finish line
to win by eight-hundreths of a second. Edgar trailed by a few meters
going into the last straightaway, and turned on the afterburners to try
to catch the leader. Edgar ran so competitively in such a close and
exciting race that coach Taylor threw his arms up in excitement as Edgar
crossed the finish line, showing more emotion than we've seen from him
since his son Spencer was born not one year ago.
Stand-out athletes from the meet include Sastry, who placed in four
events; Lincoln Bonner '97, Bo Light '96, Akin A. Aina G and Hung Q.
Hoang '96, who placed in three events each; the six or so other athletes
who placed in multiple events; and finally every athlete that showed up
on Saturday and left knowing that he competed to the best of his ability
and left everything he had on the track.