Boston, October 4 -- Talented teams from across the nation converged on Franklin Park for the National Preview Invitational, hosted by MIT. In all, eight of the top 25 ranked Division 3 teams were in attendance, including four of the top ten. MIT put up a solid performance, placing 6th overall in the 15-team field, with 173 points.

Perennial powerhouse North Central College from Illinois, currently ranked #2 in the country, ran a controlled race early on, then took command decisively, and romped to victory with 32 points. The NCC scorecard showed a 1-2 finish, with two more runners in the top eight.

Brandeis University, ranked #6 nationally coming in, secured second place with 83 points, with #10-ranked Haverford (PA) College tallying 90 for third place, UC-San Diego (#14) scoring 96 in fourth, and Tufts University (#5 in latest poll) taking the fifth with 114.

The Engineers began the race with somewhat forced aggressiveness, as the field set a furious pace for the first mile. Junior co-captain Mike Parkins led sophomore Chris McGuire and freshman Mark Strauss through that point in 4:52, and found himself behind a pack of 15-20 runners. The field swarmed through behind them, and as MIT's second wave of senior Sohail Husain, sophomore Frank Johnston, and freshmen Phil Loiselle and Liyan Guo passed the mile post in 5:10, they found themselves with a horde of runners to catch.

Parkins worked ahead in the second and third mile, moving up to 11th in 15:15 for 3-miles. McGuire got separated in the crowd and found himself dropping 8 seconds his teammate. Meanwhile, Strauss was hanging tough, just 3 seconds in arrears of McGuire.

Husain took charge of the second pack, pushing his pace and pulling Johnston and Loiselle along in his wake. The trio passed through 3-miles in 16:10, on solid PR pace, and reeling in some of the more foolhardy entries.

The final mile produced its usual fireworks. Parkins maintained his hard charge, but was overtaken by one runner and finished 12th in a PR 25:16 -- the third best MIT performer since this course was standardized in 1992. Only Ethan Crain's 24:40 and Jesse Darley's 25:06 in the 1994 All-New Englands are faster.

Strauss overtook McGuire around Bear Cage Hill, and stormed to 23rd place in a PR 25:34 (#4 ever for MIT), with McGuire 26th in a near-PR 25:40.

Big PR's were posted by Loiselle (26:38 in 55th place), and Husain (26:41 in 57th), to close out MIT's scoring. Johnston missed his PR by 3 seconds (26:51 in 61st).

In the Sub-Varsity race, PR's fell like bowling pins. Sophomore Ray Molnar led the attack on the time list by finishing 17th in 27:50, a PR by over a minute. Also bettering previous marks by such a margin were freshmen Aaron Adler (20th, 27:56) and Ken Walker (24th, 28:10). Senior Chuck Van Buren, sophomore Stanley Hu, and freshmen Ed Keehr, Albert Hung, Reid Anderson, and Amay Champaneria all posted their all-time best clockings as well.

The Engineers' next contest will be on Friday, 17 October, at Franklin Park in the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association (NEIAAA) Championships. This race features the best competition of the season, with Division 1 and Division 2 teams lining up with we Division 3 squads to determine where we all stack up in the New England scene. The Engineers have historically run well against the elevated competition, as indicated by the fact that 17 of our top 25 all-time best performers at Franklin Park have run that time in the New Englands (four of the remaining eight did so in this Pre-Nationals race).

The Varsity Race will start at 1:30, with the Sub-Varsity squad toeing the line at 2:30.