October 19, 2002

On a day threatened by rain, but otherwise perfect for cross country, MIT ran a less than aggressive race and could not catch the Jumbos of Tufts University at the James Early Invitational at Westfield State College. MIT ended up 2nd with 85 points in the 27 team field, behind Tufts 72 points.

A casual start, combined with passive middle miles, prevented MIT from running their best race. In the first mile, Sean Nolan and Ben Schmeckpeper let Chris Kapfer of the US Merchant Marine Academy get a 4 second lead, and never tried to close the gap. Without freshman star Steve Maltas in the lineup, the Engineers depended on Albert Liu, Brian Anderson, Carlos Renjifo and Craig Wildman to close the usually large delta and run with the opponents 3rd, 4th and 5th runners. While Tufts had five of their runners in front of MIT's 3rd runner at the mile, it seemed the Engineers were close enough to perform their usual magic and close the gap by the 4th mile.

Mile two showed improvement for the chase group but Tufts still had a large advantage, as did Coast Guard. Nolan and Schmeckpeper were waiting for each other to make a move, but neither did. Anderson and Liu moved up in the field, as did Renjifo and Wildman. As they entered the woods, not to be seen again until they were 600 meters from the finish, it seemed that Tech was in control and should come out ahead.

When they returned to the field for the finish, Nolan was in a solid 2nd place, 4 seconds behind Kapfer. Schmeckpeper was in 4th, 6 seconds behind Nolan. Anderson did his job of closing the gap by finishing 1:05 behind Nolan, and with Maltas in the lineup, it would have been enough. But without him, there were not enough Engineers to run with Tufts, who put 4 runners between MIT's 2nd and 3rd runners and another between their 3rd and 4th. Coast Guard, missing their number 1 runner, was not able to make up for their loss, finishing 3rd with 108 points.

MIT needs to a little better if they hope to defend their NEWMAC Conference Championship on November 2. A healthy Coast Guard squad will be too much to handle with this type of effort. The NEWMAC Championship will be hosted by Wellesley College and run on the local golf course.