MEN'S TEAM FALTERS AT ALL NEW ENGLANDS, FINISHES 13TH OVERALL AND 4TH AMONG DIVISION III COLLEGES

 

Boston, MA

October 16, 1998

It was a great day for Cross Country or just about anything else you might want to do outdoors. It was an especially good day for the All New England Championships, pitting the best colleges throughout New England, regardless of division, against one another. This annual meeting always seems to inspire the best, or at least the initiative to do their best, from the competitors.

This day was no different as the entire complexion and strategy for the race was changed when the motivated runners came through the first mile in 4:29 on a somewhat wet course. The lead MIT runners got caught up in this ambitious pace as Mike Parkins '99, came through in 4:36 at about 30th position. he was closely followed by Mark Strauss '01, in 4:39 at 35th position, Dan Feldman '02, in 4:42 for 60th position, Sean Montgomery '01, in 116th position at 4:50, and Phil Loiselle '01, in 140th position at 4:55. In essence, this means that either the Tech runners were on their way to either a phenomenal race or a disastrous one.

While the results may not have been disastrous, they were certainly were not encouraging. In defense of his runners, Coach Halston Taylor said he was responsible to some degree for telling his team to go out in a specific range of places at the first mile rather than paying closer attention to the time.

Overall, Strauss was the first MIT finisher in 34th place with a season best 25:14. To go out in such a fast first mile and not lose ground is truly a gutsy and painful way to race. Parkins faded to 59th in 25:35, and he was followed by Feldman in 66th with a personal best of 25:39, Loiselle in 104th with a personal best 26:09, Montgomery in 113th with a personal best of 26:16, and Frank Johnston '00, the only one who had gone out with a sane pace of 4:59 at mile one, in 131st with a personal best of 26:32.

It is difficult to be disatisfied with a race that produces 4 of 6 personal bests and 5 of 6 season bests, but anytime the variance between the fastest and slowest mile is over 40 seconds on such a flat course, the runners are generally going out to fast and adversely affecting their overall performance. In this case, it meant losing to two teams MIT had previously beaten, Tufts, and Brandeis. Overall, MIT finished 13th among the 39 competing teams. Among division III colleges, MIT finished 4th as Williams also beat Tech with a fine 9th place effort to finish 1st among Division III colleges.

In the sub-varsity division, MIT ran more like they had planned to do. The front group broke up early as Chris McGuire '00, continued to make his way back to varsity status, and broke away a little early. Leif Seed '99, another former varsity member coming back from injury, went with him in 4:59 at the mile mark. Overall, 18 of 20 runners in the sub-varsity race ran season bests, one, Reid Andersen '01, by :50.

McGuire led the way with a 31st place finish in 26:32 to lead MIT to an 8th place finish, 2nd among Division III colleges to show the depth of the team. The time between the first and fifth runners was :42.

Next week, MIT travels to Grafton, MA to race Tufts and UMass Boston on Tufts home course.