January 15, 2000

MIT's Track and Field team traveled to Lewiston, Maine Saturday to compete in the season's first Quad Cup against Bates, UMass/Lowell, and USM. The Engineers rallied from their underdog position to win the meet with 183.5 points to UMass/Lowell's 179, Bates' 169.5, and USM's 60.

After receiving the seeds on Friday night, the MIT track team's first reaction was one of "how can we possibly win this one". The second response was, "let's do what we have to do to win this meet". The seed performances, which are turned in by the head coaches, had Division 2 powerhouse, UMass Lowell, favored to win with 221 points. Host, Bates College, was favored to garner 2nd place with 151 points, while MIT was seeded 3rd with 135 points. Bringing up the rear was up and coming University of Southern Maine with 90 points.

MIT had two things in their favor, one, all of their performances had been on the tight turns of the MIT track, and two, all of their performances had come in single gender meets where time between an athlete's events is minimal. Tech hoped to respond to the higher level of competition, run faster on the Bates' track, have the athletes returning from injuries compete well, and hope the intensity of this meet helped them and hurt their opponents.

The first event to finish as a final, even though the field events had started an hour before, was the Mile Run. Sean Montgomery '01, almost back to full health from an early season recurring knee injury, responded reasonably well to the fast pace of Matt Twiest of Bates, and finished 2nd with a 4:21.36. Dan Feldman '02, ran a personal best with a 4:21.59 to finish 3rd, and Chris McGuire '00, finished 6th with a 4:26.02 performance. MIT was behind Bates 16 to 18 right out of the blocks.

The Weight Throw was next, and Bates did not hesitate to capitalize on the throwing woes of MIT by sweeping the first 4 places to score 27 points. Peter Bluvas '01, came through for Tech and earned a 5th place for 4 points. However, being down 45 to 20 after 2 events was daunting.

The High Hurdles, an event where MIT was only supposed to score 6 compared to Lowell's 23, had to be the turnaround. In Tech's favor were the trials where all four MIT entrants qualified for the final with three season bests. In the final, Rick Rajter '03, ran another PR of 8.15 to earn 3rd place. Junius Ho '01, did not run a season best, but he did run well, placing 5th in 8.33. Craig Mielcarz '03, ran his second season best of the day, placing 7th with a 8.40. Peter Bluvas finished 8th, also with a season best of 8.54.

The next event, the 400, was another event that Lowell was seeded to score big in with 24 points. Bates and MIT had something to say about that as they both scored 9 to leave Lowell with 16. Todd Rosenfield '01, placed 4th with a best of 51.45, and Yuval Mazor '02, placed 5th with a 51.46. The score after 4 events was Bates 64, MIT 42, and Lowell 38.

The High Jump, an event MIT hoped to dominate, went very well. Both Mielcarz, and fellow freshman, Brian Hoying, cleared 6-5 to earn 1st and 2nd respectively. Rajter also tied for 5th to give Tech 19.5 points.

The next two events, the 600 and 55 went Lowell's way as they scored 33 points to Bates' 12, and MIT's 14. Matt Lehman '03, led the way for Tech in the 600 with a 1:27.44 for 5th place, while Marc Washington '03, did the same in the dash with a 6.87.

The results of the Long Jump, an event that MIT was hoping for some big things, was perhaps the only event of the day that did not go in Tech's favor. Rajter came through with a season best of 20-02 3/4 for 5th place, but no other Engineer made the finals.

Montgomery came back with a vengeance in the 800, running away with a 1:58.84 victory. A supporting cast of Alan Raphael '02, (4th), John Biesiadecki '01, (6th), and George Hanson '03, (7th) all ran season bests to give MIT 19 points and the lead over Bates by 1 point.

Feldman and McGuire returned to the track in the 1000 along with Phil Loiselle '01, returning from injury, to total 8 points, although Lowell scored 20 to lead the meet 13 points . Feldman ran a 2:36.16 for an excellent performance, but Bates had tied MIT's score.

The 200 was the biggest surprise of the meet for MIT. Favored to score 0 points, Mazor, Rosenfield, and Kamal Mokeddem all ran bests to score 8 points. Bates scored 12 and Lowell 10, but it could have been much worse.

The Pole Vault and Triple Jump, two of MIT's best events, proved the difference in the meet. In the Vault, Dan Kwon '02, Dan Opila '03, and Matt Potts '00, placed 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively to give MIT 15 points and bring them within 1 point of Bates and 10.5 of Lowell. Rajter, once again came through to win the Triple with a PR of 44-0 to finish with 22.5 points. Rick was supported by Kalpak Kothari '01, Robbie Gray '02, and Junius Ho '01, with 3rd, 4th, and 5th places respectively.

The lead was now in MIT's favor at 153.5 to Bates 142.5, and Lowell's 140. However the Shot Put was not looking good for MIT as Bluvas failed to the make the finals by 2". Lowell retook the lead by scoring 21 points.

MIT returned the shutout favor to Lowell by taking 18 points in the 5000 to go into the relays with a 8 points lead over Bates and 10.5 points over Lowell. The marvelous job in the 5000 was not by the usual cast of Feldman and McGuire. Instead, Liyan Guo '01, led the way with a 15:49.42 2nd place finish. Running a PR, freshman Sean Nolan ran 15:49.99 for 3rd. Still trying to get back in condition after a season ending injury in Cross Country, Ed Keehr '01, ran to a 6th place, while freshman Albert Liu ran a very well paced race to claim 7th in a PR of 16:43.99.

The relays were being scored 9-6-3-0, so as long as MIT earned no worse than 2nd place in both relays, they would win the meet. Realizing that both Lowell and Bates had very good relay teams, MIT brought back all their best runners to answer the bell one more time. Both relays were won by UMass Lowell, but MIT easily handled 2nd place to secure the victory and stay undefeated.

Next week, MIT is at home vs. Bowdoin, Springfield, and USM.