ALUMNI/AE MEETS SHOWCASE YOUNG AND OLD IN ANNUAL COMPETITION
September 2, 2006
The remnants of Hurricane Ernesto held off long enough to allow for excellent running conditions at the annual Alumni/ae cross country meets at Franklin Park. The runners, both current and "Has Been" (a term affectionately given to the ex-MIT runners) performed extremely well in the first meet of the season.
The first meet was the women's alumnae meet. The alumnae were not able to gather a full team to participate, but those who did, ran very well. Martha Buckley led the way for the alumnae as she finished eighth in 20:37. Betsy Eames, the most recent alum finished 10th in 20:53. Jen Gaugler completed the course in 15th, running 23:12 and Fran Weld finished in 16th, running 23:49. Meri Silberstein and Alisa Lehman showed up for support.
The varsity displayed their young talent as two freshmen took the top two spots. Maria Monks held a five second lead at two miles over Jacqui Wentz but when Monks made a wrong turn, Wentz took advantage and the victory, 19:43 to 19:57. Despite four top runners not running due to injuries or minor pains that may turn into injuries, the varsity took the next five places as well. The best part was they were all within 12 seconds of each other, giving the top seven a delta of :37. Third through seventh runners were Rachel Niehuus (20:08), a new-comer to cross country, Alisha Schor (20:10), Adrienne Bolger (20:10), Elizabeth Finn (20:11) and Jennifer Doyle (20:20).
Next on the course was the men's race. While the varsity squad had plenty of young talent on display with very adequate summer mileage, the "Has-Beens" had equal or better talent, more mileage and more experience. Ben Schmeckpeper, Sean Nolan and Fivos Constantinou took off across the field at the start and never saw a varsity runner again (unless they turned around to look back in the distance).
Nolan ran a well paced race and overtook a slightly fatiguing Schmeckpeper to win easily in 25:25. Constantinou also took advantage of Schmeck's fatigue, claiming second place in 25:40. Scmeck finished in 25:48 for third and the guaranteed victory due to the 1-2-3 sweep. Jake Ruzevick made a gallant effort at breaking up the threesome but due to some stomach problems he had to settle for fourth with a 25:56. Kevin Brulois rallied late in the race after a dismal second and third mile to finish fifth in 26:17. Chris Bruce ran a great race, coming back after missing all of 2005 with an injury, finishing sixth in 26:30.
Eric Khatchadourian ran behind the varsity's second group early in the race then moved up to pass the varsity's top freshman in the final mile, finishing seventh in 26:42. Brandon Pung, the aforementioned freshman, ran a strong race but faded a bit in the final stages, finishing eighth in 26:46. Another freshman, Jack Bourbonnais, ran 26:55 to finish as the varsity's fifth man. Craig Wildman had to drop out of the race due to a pulled hamstring, but ageless Terry McNatt made up for it with a strong 27:36 at age 41 as the fifth man for the alumni, giving them the 25 to 32 victory.
Other alumni racing were Bob Collins (28:30) at age 45, Eugene Tung (28:46) at age 40, Mark Feldmeier (31:12) at age 32, Sumner Brown a truly amazing 31:56 at age 62 and James Williams (32:30) at age 38. Helping to cheer their team were Yuval Mazor and Chuck Van Buren.
The varsity were too spread out among the top four, but four through eight finished within 16 seconds of each other. Both squads will be home next Saturday to defend the Engineer's Cup against RPI and WPI. The women race at 1:00 and the men at 1:45.