TECH TAKES DOWN SPRINGFIELD AT HOME IN 3RD QUAD CUP

MIT Men's Track and Field Team came off of a poor performance last week in Lewiston against Bates College with a grand showing at home against Springfield College in Cambridge. MIT began well and finished even better as they outscored the Chiefs in the middle distance and distance events (800, 1000, 1500, 5000) by a score of 92-12.

Tech began with troubling results but okay scores in the Weight Throw, Long Jump, and High Jump. MIT was down to Springfield 25-29 at that point and really had not done too well. Ravi Sastry '98 won the High Jump with a leap of 6-0, and place 2nd in the Long Jump with a 21-2 effort. However, MIT only scored 5 more points in those two events. WPI was actually leading at this point with 33 points as they scored nearly half of their points in the first three events.

Quad Cup scoring is 9 points for 1st place and 7,6,5,4,3,2,1 for the next 7 places respectively. Each school is allowed 4 entries per event, so it is possible to score 27 points in an event.

In the 1500, Mike Parkins '99 led the 1,3,4,5 finish with a 4:02.41 solo effort that put the Beavers ahead to stay. Following Parkins were Phil Loiselle '01, Ken Walker '01, and Rich Rosalez '98.

Sastry remained undefeated in the High Hurdles with a 8.05 effort. Junius Ho '01 picked up another 5 points with a personal best 8.52.

In the Pole Vault, once again MIT asserted their dominance with 23 1/2 points. Leading the way was Matt Potts '00 with a vault of 12-06. Other place winners for Tech named Sam were Sam Thibault '00, Sam Sidiqi '99, and Sam Towell '00.

Todd Rosenfield lost his first quad meet in the 400 but ran a personal best of 52.61 for 3rd place.

The 600 was far better for the Engineers than in previous meets. Moving Neal Karchem '99 (4th with 1:28.38), and the return of Martin Suresh '99, led Tech to 12 points in the event.

MIT has not done well in the sprints this winter but not because Sastry is not running well and improving a lot. Ravi ran a big personal best of 6.78 to get a close second.

If there was any doubt who was going to win this meet it evaporated after the next two events (800, 1000). Mike Parkins remained undefeated with a 2:01.77, and was followed by a personal best from Gus Blomquist '99 who ran a 2:05.04 for 3rd place. Also placing in 6th and 7th were Ed Tolson '01, and Ray Molnar '00.

The 1000 was more of the same. Joel Ford '98 broke out of his slump with a 2:35.72 run for an easy victory. Personal bests by Sohail Husain '98 (2:38.55), Loiselle (2:41.15), and Walker (2:43.15) gave Tech 24 points in the event.

The remaining field events, Triple Jump and Shot Put, were big surprises for MIT. In the Shot, Patrick Dannen '98, threw nearly 1 1/2 feet further than he ever has (45-01 1/2) for 4th place. Mike Butville '98 followed with his own personal best of 42-09 for 6th. Kalpak Kothari '01 came from behind on his last jump to win the Triple with a personal best of 41-05 3/4. Following Kalpak were Tyson Lawrence '01 in 3rd and Ho in 6th.

The 200 continued to be a troubling event for MIT. Neal Karchem recovered well enough from the 600 to snag 7th place but that would be it for the Engineers.

The 5000 saw a great finish by MIT. Chris McGuire ran away with the race right from the beginning. However a great race developed for 3rd. Ed Keehr '01, Liyan Guo '01, and Mark Strauss '01, had worked their way up to 3rd-5th positions with a little over 3 laps to go. With 2 laps to go, McGuire lapped them and the Westfield State runner they had just passed. When the bell rang for the bell lap, the Westfield runner mistakenly thought it was for all of them, not just Chris. He sprinted past all of them and stopped thinking he had won only to find out that he had been lapped and was now losing 3rd-5th place. He continued, but could not muster the will to catch the Tech runners.

The relays were a formality and MIT used them to give some people a good workout. A dropped baton in the 1600 Relay gave Tech a last place finish and no points. However, the 3200 Relay was a surprising victory as outstanding efforts were contributed by Molnar, and Chuck Van Buren '98.

Next week, MIT is host in the final Quad Cup Meet of the season to rival Tufts, and Coast Guard.