January 22, 2000

MIT Men's Track and Field team scored an easy victory in the second Quad Cup series with 225 points against Bowdoin College (158), Springfield College (128), University of Southern Maine (77), and WPI (9)to move to seven wins and zero defeats.

The Quad Cup is a 4 week series of meets among 16 Division III Colleges, a couple of Division II Colleges, as well as Colleges outside of New England who can add quality to the meet. The 4 team per meet format, while being the original intent, is attempted but not necessarily followed. Eight places score per non-relay event, with the scoring varying minimally, 9-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Each team is permitted 4 entries per event. Therefore, the maximum any team can score in one event is 27 points.

With this meet being the only potential easy victory for MIT this season, the home team wanted to try and get everyone on the team into an event, a feat that cannot be done in most meets. In order to not deviate from this attempt it was necessary for MIT to outscore it's opponents in the jumps by a large margin.

The Engineers more than came through, as they finished the Long Jump, Triple Jump, High Jump, and Pole Vault with a 60 point lead over Springfield and 72 over Bowdoin. Highlited in these events were season bests by Rick Rajter '03, Robbie Gray '02, and Brian Hoying '03, in the Long Jump; a near sweep in the Triple Jump with Gray, and Junius Ho '01, providing the season bests; a continued 1-2 finish by Craig Mielcarz '03, and Hoying in the High Jump, and a new PR by Steve Lefkowitz '00, in the Pole Vault.

The woes continued in the throwing events as Tech managed 0 points in both the Weight Throw and Shot Put. In part, this is due to a lack of throwers as MIT only has one weight thrower and shot putter, and he is the New England Division III runner-up in both the Pentathlon and Decathlon, which of course keeps him very busy.

The running events saw the return to good competition by many who had been injured during the pre-season. The added depth showed as MIT outscored their opponents in every event from the 400 - 3000 with the exception of the 600 where Tech scored 1 less than Bowdoin.

Tech's hurdlers led the way with a 2-3-4 finish by Ho (8.19), Rajter (8.19), and Bluvas (8.33). Yuval Mazor '02, had a spectacular run in the 600, narrowly missing the MIT record in the event by .15 seconds in 1:24.74. John Biesiadecki '01, ran his best time in the 800 by three seconds with a 2:00.73, leading his team's four places to 16 points. Sean Montgomery '01, and Dan Feldman '02, took care of business in the 1500 by finishing 1-2 as usual. Todd Rosenfield '01, led the 400 runners to a 2-3-4 finish with a 52.04 time.

Next week, Tech travels to the Coast Guard Academy to compete against Westfield State, WPI, and a rematch with Bates.