MEN AND WOMEN SET MANY PERSONAL BESTS IN NEIAAA CHAMPIONSHIP

October 11, 2008

On a sunny, 65 degree, beautiful fall day, MIT's men's and women's cross country teams set many individual personal bests on their home course at Franklin Park (FP), but still have to be a little less than satisfied, as neither team competed as well as they know they were capable of running. On the women's side, Jacqui Wentz '10, once again led the team with a new personal best at FP of 18:30 as she placed 29th overall in the NEICAAA Championship (all divisions in New England) out of 301 varsity runners to lead MIT to a 15th place finish out of the 45 teams and 6th among the division III teams. In the men's race, Hemu Arumugam '10, continued his team leading ways with a remarkable 25:19. Arumugam, along with the return of a healthy Jake Ruzevick '09, (25:31), led the Engineers to a 12th place finish, and third among division III teams with 384 points.

The women ran first at 12:45. After being ranked in the top 12 in the country for the past three weeks, the Engineers had pretty high hopes despite missing two of their top seven. The unusually fast pace got to MIT as all of the Tech runners went from a strong first mile to a much slower second mile, anywhere from five to 25 seconds too slow. Wentz maintained a strong position up front while Andrea Bradshaw '09, moved from sixth position on the team up to fourth. Freshman, Janice O'Brien also moved up well. However, Anna Holt-Gosselin '11, fell back, as did Elizabeth Finn '09, Alicia Kaestli '12, and Adrienne Bolger '09. By the end of the third mile the women were much more competitive. Wentz through in a 5:55 final mile and had an outstanding kick to hold onto her position. All but Bolger came back strong, but the second mile did them in as they were only four points away from 13th place, which would have placed them ahead of two more division III teams.

Wentz's time made her the second fastest MIT runner all-time at Franklin Park. Bradshaw's time of 19:19 was the 10th fastest all-time on the MIT list with O'Brien being the 12th fastest at 19:25 and Holt-Gosselin the 13th fastest runner in MIT history with her time of 19:28. Running well in the women's sub-varsity race were Katherine Eve '12, in 19:43 and Tania Morimoto '12, in 19:50, giving MIT nine women under 20:00 while missing three others who have also broken 20:00 in the past.

In the men's race, Ruzevick took things out for MIT, coming through the first mile in 4:50 with Yermie Cohen '09, right behind him. Uncharacteristically, Arumugam went out strong in 4:56 along with Paul Welle '11. Just behind them between 4:58 and 5:00 were Gihan Amarasiriwardena '11, and Dan Harper '12. In the second mile, Arumugam moved up quite a lot as did Ruzevick, Welle and Cohen. During the third mile Cohen fell off the pace but Arumugam through in a 5:08 mile, which brought him within seven seconds of Ruzevick while Welle held strong with a 5:15 for a 15:34 split at three miles. In the fourth mile Welle fell off just a little but still looked strong. Arumugam caught Ruzevick right at the four mile mark at 20:35. The final mile saw Arumugam move up 10 places as he hammered home a 4:33 on the slightly short last segment of the race. Ruzevick finished strong with a 4:56, which cost him about seven places. All but Cohen finished strong, which moved MIT up a couple of places in the team standings.

Welle finished in 26:05, Amarasiriwardena in 26:18, Cohen in 26:29 and Harper at 26:30. Chris Wong 'G, also in the varsity race, started the race somewhat conservatively and was unable to move up significantly, finishing at 26:46. Racing well in the sub-varsity race were Trevor Rundell '09, ran 26:22 and Richard Prevost '11, finished in 26:23. Both would have finished ahead of Cohen in the varsity race.

Next week MIT heads west to Williamstown for the Plansky Invitational, their final race before the NEWMAC Conference Championship.