September 14, 2002
The dog days of September slowed the MIT men's cross country team down a bit, but it could not prevent them from putting together a near sweep over rival engineering schools, RPI and WPI. MIT's score of 16 points was one point more than a perfect score as the men from Cambridge placed 1,2,3,4, and 6 to outdistance RPI with 45 points and WPI with 85.
Right from the gun, Sean Nolan and Ben Schmeckpeper took control of the race, going through the first mile in 4:56 on the hot and humid day. A lone RPI runner, Keith Weiss, was right with them and his teammates were clustered close behind to give the impression they were taking the race to MIT. The difficult second mile had its usual effect of bringing opponents back to reality and placing MIT well ahead of the visitors from Troy and Worcester.
By the end of the third mile, it was apparent the weather was going to have an effect on the times as nearly all of the runners began slowing. It was equally apparent that MIT was slowing down less than RPI and WPI as freshman Steve Maltas moved into 3rd place and Craig Wildman was about to move into 4th.
With Albert Liu not racing due to the lack of sleep he had been missing as he finished his thesis, Brian Anderson knew he would have to step up to help his teammates. At the end of mile four he had moved up to the Weiss from RPI and Wildman. Apparently he had a furious last mile as he finished :06 ahead of Weiss to move into 4th. Weiss stayed tough and passed Wildman to prevent the sweep.
Giving support for MIT were Carlos Renjifo in 8th, David Gray in 9th, George Hanson in 10th, Fivos Constantinou in 11th and Eric Khatchadourian in 12th, all within :35 of each other.
MIT was able to manage a 2:00 delta for runners 1-10, a significant improvement from last week. Perhaps even more important was the fact that the top 5 runners were only seperated by 1:06, and this was without Liu.
Next week, the top 9 runners will make their way to St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN to run in the St. Olaf Invitational and take the opportunity to run on the national championship course. The remaining runners will race in the UMass Dartmouth Invitational.