February 6, 1999

Fortunately for the MIT Men's Track and Field Team, the final meet of the Quad Cup Series versus Springfield College, who puts more emphasis on an Outdoor Track program, and Bowdoin and Westfield State, who simply do not have enough bodies in all of the events to make a serious challenge, was not supposed to be a difficult one. This is fortunate because middle distance star, Sean Montgomery, broke his big toe earlier in the week while running down some stairs. The Engineers were also holding out #1 Pole Vaulter, Sam Thibault, in hopes that his ankle might heel. Yet, the team rallied behind some tremendous individual performances to win easily with 266 points to Springfield's 131, Bowdoin's 101, and Westfield's 92.

The star of the meet, at least in terms of improvement, had to be freshman Robbie Gray. Robbie set personal bests in the dash with a 6.72 for the win, a 20-2 long jump for 4th, and a 41-0 1/2 in the triple jump for a 4th. Robbie will be concentrating on the 55 Dash for the remainder of the season.

The biggest improvement has to go to Sam Sidiqi '99. Sam went from a season best of 11-6 in the Pole Vault to a leap of 13-3. Sam's previous all-time best had only been 12-6. This vault qualified Sam for the New England Division III Championships.

In the High Hurdles, three of the four MIT hurdlers had personal bests, and the fourth won the race. In addition to Ravi Sastry '98, winning the race, Jordon Alperin '02 ran an 8.30 to place 3rd and qualify for the NE Div. III Championship, Peter Bluvas '01, ran 8.37 to knock .1 seconds off of his best, and Roger Nielsen '01, ran 8.70 to better his time by .3 seconds. Roger also jumped to an Indoor best of 6-0 in the High Jump to claim 3rd place.

Alex Rodriguez '00, had two personal bests, one in the 55 where he ran 7.05, and one in the 200 Meters where he ran 24.37.

The 600 Meter race also had two personal bests, one from senior Neal Karchem, and one from freshman Damian Plummer. Neal is rounding into Championship form as he ran 1:25.94, and Damian put himself back into relay consideration with a 1:28.40.

The 800 had all four MIT competitors run PRs. Leif Seed '99, charged to the lead with just over 200 meters to go, and won in 1:58.83 to qualify for the Div. III Championship. Distance star, Dan Feldman '02, ran his first half of the season and produced a 2:02.81. Both Leif and Dan had run the mile earlier, with Dan winning in 4:27, and Leif getting 3rd behind Mark Strauss of MIT in 4:32. Also setting personal bests were Alan Raphael '02, with a 2:02.96, and Ray Molnar '00, with a 2:05.05.

In the 1000 Meter race, Phil Loiselle '01, continued his improvement with a 2:35.96 personal best to win the race. Matt Yarosz '02, lended a hand with a 4th place finish of 2:45.67 for another personal best.

In the distance events, Albert Hung '01, ran a huge best in the mile with a 4:45.50 for 7th place. Ed Keehr '01, continued to surprise his opponents with another personal best of 15:39.37 in the 5000 for 4th place.

Todd Chamoy '99, set a personal best in the Weight Throw for the 2nd week in a row with a 49-5 3/4 effort, good enough for 2nd place in the meet.

The Engineers continue to get ready for the New England Division III Championships at Wesleyan College on February 19th and 20th with the last non-championship meet of the season, the Quad Cup Invitational at home vs. Coast Guard, Middlebury, Plattsburgh State, Springfield, Tufts, Williams, and WPI.