April 17, 1999

Most of the meets between the Men's Track and Field Teams of MIT and Tufts are exciting, close meets. Fortunately, MIT usually comes out on top. The meet on Saturday lived up to both historical expectations.

While not completely healthy, the MIT team was healthy enough to have all but two of their athletes competing. Arturo Esparza, a freshman steeplechaser may have a stress fracture, and Matt Potts, a New England Division III place winner in the Pole Vault, was taking the MCATs.

The Long Jump was the first event to go off. Ravi Sastry took the lead in the Long Jump over favored Rommel Childress from Tufts with a 21-11 leap. Childress could not adjust his approach for the wind conditions and either fouled or was way behind the board. Ravi's hamstring is not healed but it felt good enough to go for it on his 2nd attempt in the finals. He hit the board well, kept his head up and extended to a personal best of 23-4 3/4, which qualifies him provisionally for the NCAA Championships. Jordan Alperin added a PR of 20-1 3/4 to take 4th place.

Being only a dual meet, the throwing events did not take long, particularly since neither MIT nor Tufts have very strong throwing teams right now. Tufts went 1-3 in the Hammer while MIT took 2-4-5 with Jason Dailey leading the way for MIT with a 141-5 effort. The Discus was sad for both schools. Tufts went 1-2-3 with the winning throw only going 118-11. The good news is that decathlete Peter Bluvas threw 108-5 to bolster his chances of doing well in the Decathlon in 3 weeks. Peter also came through in the Shot Put with a throw of 41-9 to claim second place. As expected, the best news in the throws came from Nikos Michalakis. The sophomore further improved on his varsity record with a heave of 198-9, which moves him to 5th on the national list .

Tech did well in all of the jumps, outscoring Tufts 41-23. MIT went 1-2-3 in the Pole Vault despite the absence of Potts. Sam Thibault and Sam Sidiqi both cleared 13-0 to tie for 1st (deciding not to have a jump off), and freshman Dan Kwon vaulted to a PR of 13-0, but claimed third based on more misses. Ravi Sastry, Jordan Alperin, and Roger Nielsen, who is returning to competition after missing two weeks, claimed 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the High Jump to keep the pressure on Tufts. In the Triple Jump, Kalpak Kothari had his season best of 43-7 1/4, but fell to Childress on his final attempt.

While the 800-5000 provided Tech with their usual domination of points (44-20), it was not quite as strong as hoped. Things got off on the wrong foot as David Patterson took the Steeplechase from Mike Parkins (9:36) and Mark Strauss (9:40.4). Parkins is just recovering from an upper resperitory infection and Strauss looked unusually tired. Phil Loiselle ran a season best of 10:00.6 to claim 4th. In the 1500, the Engineers went 1-2-3 with Sean Montgomery leading Leif Seed and Chris McGuire to the line with a sub 60 last 400. In the 800, Montgomery won again with a season best of 1:55.34, but Seed feeling the effects of a cold, managed only a third with a 1:57.95. Not being able to afford to relax with three events to go, the Tech distance runners came back in the 5000. Chris McGuire led the way with a 2:12 last 800 to win in a pedestrian 15:33.9. Dan Feldman added support after leading most of the way with a second place.

With Ravi bowing out of the sprints in order to preserve his hamstring for next week's conference championships, Tech got swept by Tufts in the 100 and 200. However, MIT returned the favor in the High Hurdles with Sastry leading the effort in a wind and hamstring hampered 16.25. Bluvas and Alperin ran well for 2nd and 3rd.

The 1 lap events went about even for MIT. Both Neal Karchem and Yuval Mazor ran season bests of 51.14 and 51.41 in the strong wind to claim 2nd and 3rd respectively. Todd Rosenfield added a 4th but did not finish well. With Leif running the 800, Tech did not have a strong leader in the 400 IH. However, Tony Pelosi came through with a PR of 59.8 to claim 2nd, and received support from Bluvas and Gus Blomquist running to 3rd and 5th place finishes.

The relays were scored 6-0, the point swing could be as great as 24 points. Fortunately, both relays went in MIT's favor, or it would have been a 4 point, and much more harrowing meet. In the 400 Relay, Ravi was forced to strain more than hoped when he had to make up a 4 meter deficit on the Tufts anchor to win in a season best of 44.20. In the 1600 Relay, Leif was unable to run do to his illness, so Mazor was put into action. With three of the legs having run both the 400 and 200 (20 minutes before), and Montgomery having run the 1500 and 800 meter runs, the outcome was anything but automatic. Rosenfield led off with a tired 52.1 to put MIT even with the Tufts runner. Mazor ran a strong 51.4 to bring MIT within 2 meters of Tufts at the handoff to Karchem. Neal ran his best leg ever (49.8) to give Sean the baton just 1 step behind Tufts. Continuing his streak of successful anchors (except the debacle in San Diego), Sean ran a 50.5 to pull the victory out at the end in 3:23.8.

Next week, MIT travels to Smith College for the inaugural NEWMAC (New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference) Conference Championship. Wheaton and Springfield will provide plenty of competition, but if Tech can stay healthy, the strength in the 800-5000 should prove lethal to the conference opponents.