September 11, 1999

MIT's Men's Cross Country team traveled to Saratoga State Park in New York, the home course for RPI, to participate in and defend the Engineer's Cup this past Saturday. MIT has not lost the cup since 1990, when Tech's top three runners were led astray on WPI's course, causing their disqualification and MIT's loss. Without number one runner Dan Feldman, who was observing Rosh Hashanah along with three of his teammates, the other runners on the team responded with a much improved race over last week, which resulted in a lopsided victory with MIT having the low score of 23 points to RPI's 48, and WPI's 65.

Expecting the course to be nearly all grass and dirt trails, the MIT team came prepared with their spikes. Unfortunately, the course had nearly 1/2 mile of parking lots, concrete bridges, and roadways to cross. Most of the Tech runners with recessed spikes took out their spikes. Others either left their spikes in or ran in their training flats. This was a lesson learned regarding bringing both racing spikes and flats to each race. The humidity was certainly down from the last two weeks, and even though the sun was high and hot, the MIT runners were ready to get started.

Eric Worhunsky of RPI took the pace out hard on the hilly course. Ed Keehr '01, grew impatient and broke from the race plan to cover the distance between Worhunsky and MIT's chase group. At mile one (5:20), Ed was only :03 back, but the remainder of Ed's group (Liyan Guo '01, Phil Loiselle '01, and Chris McGuire '00) was all spread out 2-4 seconds back, mixed in with a couple RPI runners and one WPI runner. The remaining MIT groups were sticking to their plan, running a good pace, and working together in groups.

At mile 2, Ed was still behind but closing. MIT's lead group was still in disarray but beginning to regroup it seemed. Sean Montgomery '01, was beginning to make a move from his group to try and come and help the struggling lead group. Sean Nolan '03, and Frank Johnston '00, were also making a move but were a little over :20 back already.

Mile 3, which was a repeat of mile 1, saw Keehr sprint to the lead and take command of the race. Montgomery was now with the chase group of Guo, Loiselle, and one runner from both RPI and WPI. McGuire was not having a good race and was falling back more each mile. Nolan and Johnston were not gaining on the lead group but they had caught up to all opposing runners in-between.

Mile 4, repeating mile 2, saw very little change. Duane Crammond from RPI made a break at the 4 mile mark from Guo and Loiselle in an attempt to catch Montgomery, who was trying to catch Worhunsky. Keehr had opened up a 100 meter lead at this point and was home free.

Ed finished with a fine time of 26:53, winning by 13 seconds. Montgomery came in third, and was followed by Guo in 5th and Loiselle in 6th. Nolan, Johnston, and McGuire finished 8-9-10 respectively to finish out MIT's top 7.

Others running well were Kenny Walker '01, Mark Jeunnette '01, George Hanson '03, Stanley Hu '00, David Bailey '02, Reid Andersen '01, and Alan Raphael '02. All these runners nearly equaled or bettered their time from last week's easier and slightly shorter course.

Next week the Engineers travel to Maine to take on Bates and Tufts on Bates home course.