October 2, 1999

MIT's 10th-17th runners took to the trails on Saturday to see how many varsity teams they could beat. Their quest took them to the top half of the field as they finished 12th out of 28 teams. Led by freshman Albert Liu (47th), Tech started out slow in the back half of the field and moved their way up to finish with outstanding performances.

The first mile was perhaps a little slow for MIT, but most of the rest of the field was a little too anxious to cover the 1st mile. Albert, Mark Jeunnette '01, and Kenny Walker '01, were back in about 120th position at the 1/2 mile mark. They were followed by George Hanson '03, Stanley Hu '00, and David Bailey '02 about 25 people back, and Yuval Mazor '02, and Alan Raphael '02, 10 or so more runners behind.

By the 2 mile, Albert had already pulled away from Mark and Kenny in his attempt to catch the other runners. Kenny and Mark continued to work together as they also picked off their opponents. George and Stanley were about 9 seconds back, but running very well together with David only a step behind.

At mile 3, Albert had pulled over :20 ahead of Mark and Kenny, and running a very aggressive race. Mark and Kenny were still together but had moved up very little in this mile. Stanley and George were almost up to their teammates ahead as they ran a very good mile. David had fallen off the aggressive 3rd mile of his teammates and was begin caught by Yuval.

Mile 4 proved to be the slowest of the day for all the Engineers, but most kept it to within :40 of their fastest mile, which was the very flat 1st mile. Albert gained another :15 on his teammates as he continued to move up in the field. Mark had begun to pull away from Kenny as he started to feel more confident knowing the finish way getting near. George ran a very strong 4th mile, catching and passing Stanley. Yuval caught David, and they began to work together to beat opposing runners.

At the finish, Tech continued to pass people in the home stretch. After Albert's fine performance, which would put him in most team's top 5, Jeunnette finished 75th, Walker 82nd, Hanson 86th, and Hu 93rd to round out the scoring for MIT. Mazor finished his best cross country race ever in 98th as he passed Bailey (99th) at the finish. Raphael, also having his best race ever finished 105th.

The top 9 did not race so that they could put in a week of extra hard training and give the others a chance to race in the varsity section of the meet. Next week, the top 9 fly out to Wisconsin to race in the National Preview meet against most of the top teams in the country.