April 7, 2001

In order to do better in the Championships, MIT's Men's Track and Field team had to hold some key individuals out of the Engineer's Cup so that they might heal enough to be productive later on. In doing so, RPI took advantage and outscored MIT by a score of 178 1/2 to 162 with WPI trailing with 46 1/2 points.

After a productive spring trip, the Engineers of MIT realized many injuries which were thought to be healed but had indeed returned. Brian Hoying (HJ, LJ, 400), Sean Montgomery (1500, 800), Rick Rajter (110HH, HJ), John Biesiadecki (800) were all held out of the meet. In addition, Sam Thibault, Tech's #1 vaulter had to miss for personal reasons. Nevertheless, MIT went into the meet with the intent of trying to win. With only the Triple Jump and Discus remaining, RPI had a 2 1/2 point lead. However, despite Kalpak Kothari's winning effort of 44-3 1/4 in the Triple and Chris Khan's second place effort of 152-11 (new freshman record) in the Discus, RPI outscored MIT 27-13 in those events. The scoring in the three way meet went 7-5-4-3-2-1 for 1st through 6th places with relays scoring 7-4-0.

The highest scorer for MIT was Craig Mielcarz with 20 points. Craig won the High Jump (6-4) and 110HH (16.42), placed 4th in the Long Jump with 20-5, and scored a valuable 4th in the 400IH with a 58.26. The only other double winner was freshman Brian Anderson with 4:03.12 and 1:58.98 winning efforts in the 1500 and 800 runs. Many personal bests were established but the most significant was provided by Sean Nolan, who came through with a 4:05.77 best in the 1500 good enough for 2nd place. Other wins were provided by Yuval Mazor in the 400 (50.54), Ed Keehr in the 5000 (15:30.81), Dan Kwon in the Pole Vault (13-6), and the 1600 Relay team of Mark Jeunnette, Anderson, Matt Lehman and Mazor (3:24.84).

One event that hurt MIT's score minimally was the 200. RPI's automatic timing system did not capture either section of the event and due to an inadequate budget did not have enough timers at the finish line to capture the times. In addition, the two timers they did have were told the camera had worked so they reset their watches before recording the times. The result was a win by MIT's Marc Washington in a hand time of 22.4 was for naught. MIT also appeared to garner 3rd and 5th, which would have given them a 4 point advantage over the final score.

Coach Halston Taylor feels the team gave it their all. "Whenever some of the top performers are out of the competition, a true championship team has others step-up to take up the scoring responsibilities. We did that for the most part. We have not produced the way we should in the horizontal jumps, and did not have a good day today in the Javelin or Shot Put. The rest we are giving our top performers should pay off in the Championships, which when combined with the others who are getting experience at taking up the slack, should produce better team results. I was proud of the effort today."

Next week, the Engineers take a trip up to Brunswick, Maine to do battle against Bowdoin, Tufts and UMass Lowell.