Tech Prepares For New England Division III Championships With Numerous Personal Best in Quad Cup Invitational

The Quad Cup Invitational was set up as a Men's and Women's non-scoring meet involving only quad cup teams. The idea was to have a meet the week prior to the New England Division III Championships that allowed for good competition without the pressure of trying to double and triple people in order to win a meet.

At the time that the rosters were due it appeared that we may have to cancel the meet due to insufficient teams being entered, particularly women's teams. Finally, enough men's teams entered, but we did have to cancel the women's meet because only 1 team entered.

The meet provided great competition with teams from Williams, Springfield, Middlebury, and Plattsburgh State from New York. All together 17 season or personal bests were established.

The long sprint events were good ones for MIT. In the 200 Meter Dash, Marc Bourget '01, ran a season best of 24.76 to end his season on a good note. In the 400, Ed Tolson '01, Ashley Clayborne '99, and Adam Winkel '01, all ran season bests of 55.11, 55.37, and 55.78 respectively.

The 800 alone had 4 Tech runners with season or personal bests. Leif Seed '99, led the way with a season best of 2:00.68 in only his second week of running this season. Ken Walker '01, continued to run faster each week with a personal best of 2:01.73. John Biesiadecki '01, returned to competition with a band as he lowered his season best with a time of 2:03.91. Finally, Gus Blomquist '99, lowered his personal best a few hundredths to 2:04.53.

In the 1000 Meter run, Phil Loiselle '01, ran a personal best of 2:36.59 in a winning effort. Ray Molnar '00, continued to lower his time each week with yet another personal best of 2:40.71.

Sohail Husain '98, led three Tech runners to PRs with a 4:10.83 clocking. Also running personal bests were Kaoru Aou '00, and Albert Hung '01, running 4:31.92, and 4:36.34 respectively.

In the 3000 Meters, Chris McGuire '00, showed that he is ready for the Championships with an easy victory in 8:49.50. Liyan Guo '01, also ran a personal best with a time of 9:14.97.

There were only 3 bests in the field events, but they were big ones. In the Pole Vault, Sam Thibault '00 set a personal best with a vault of 13-09. Sam Towell '00, set a season best of 12-3 to probably make the NE Div. III field next week. Sam had major wrist surgery and had to have pins in his wrist for many months after a year ending vaulting injury last indoor season.

The other personal best was nearly a 5 foot improvement in the Weight Throw by Brian Wong '99, to 46-1 3/4.

Due to the meet nearly being canceled and the subsequent weakness in a few of the fields, 5 runners went over to Boston University to run in the Valentine's Day Classic. In the 400, Todd Rosenfield '01, ran a personal best of 51.97. Neal Karchem '99, joined Todd in running an indoor personal best of 52.75.

In the 1000 Meter Run, Joel Ford '98, showed he is ready to challenge the Varsity record in the event with a 2:30.22 season best.

Mike Parkins '99, tried to run a national qualifying time in the 5000 but got caught in a slow paced section. Mike could not pick it up enough to make up the time but did run a season best of 15:03.

Todd, Neal, Joel, and Martin Suresh '99, put together a season best 1600 Meter Relay time of 3:29.68. This time will put Tech in the fast section of the relay next week at the Division III Championships at Bowdoin.