CONSTANTINOU LEADS ENGINEERS IN UMASS DARTMOUTH INVITATIONAL
September 17, 2005
The course was relatively slow due to part of the course being soggy from all the rain the day before, but the competition was anything but slow at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational. Fivos Constantinou continued to show that he has added cross country success to his resume as he led MIT to an eighth place finish in the 33 team field. Constantinou ran 25:35 for a personal best, finishing 13th overall and seventh among collegiate athletes.
MIT held out three of their top five runners, Kevin Brulois and Eric Khatchadourian, in order not to over race them and Trevor Rundell, who is nursing a minor injury. Despite the loss of top finishers, the Engineers, ran and competed well. Nearly everyone on the team ran a controlled, well paced race and as a result, many ran personal best times despite the wet conditions.
Freshman, Jake Ruzevick, ran a very good race, running with Constantinou through 2 1/2 miles before falling back. Nevertheless, Ruzevick placed 19th overall and was the top freshman among the collegiate runners with a time of 25:53.
In the sub-varsity race, Brian Jacokes ran an outstanding race. Jacokes placed fifth after moving up in the field throughout the first three miles. Jacokes was followed by teammates Steve Nicholson in eighth, Tyler Abrams in ninth, Rocco Repetski in 18th and Matt Bieniosek in 19th to earn second place as a team among the 15 teams competing in this race.
Next week, MIT will run everyone healthy enough to do so at the Jumbo Invitational hosted by Tufts University at their Grafton, Massachusetts course. The men's race will start at 1:00.