October 30, 1999

Once again, MIT Men's Cross Country expected to have a difficult battle with the Coast Guard Academy for the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference Championship, and once again, MIT claimed an overwhelming victory. Mt. Holyoke College hosted the 2nd annual championship at the Ashley Reservoir. The mostly flat, but rocky, out and back course was handled quite well by the Engineers.

Coast Guard went out to the front in a relatively slow first mile. Dan Feldman accompanied the Bears, running cautiously with his injured ankle taped heavily. Chris McGuire and Ed Keehr were :04 behind, watching the race develop. Liyan Guo, Sean Montgomery, and Frank Johnston were another :03 back, behind many Coast Guard runners.

At the turn around, halfway through the race, MIT had moved slightly ahead of Coast Guard. Feldman was in first by a comfortable margin. Trailing Feldman were two Coast Guard runners, one of which was All-American Mark Akus. About :06 behind them was McGuire, followed closely by another Coast Guard runner. Another :08 back were Guo, Johnston and Montgomery, and two Coast Guard runners, all running together. The score at this point would have been 34-39. Even with the use of a two-way radio at the 1 and 4 mile mark, it was difficult to tell which team was pulling away at this point in the race.

At the four mile mark, the race was well in hand for the Engineers. McGuire had moved into a solid second place, and Keehr was just passing Steeple Chase All-American Jeff Rasnake from Coast Guard for third. Akus had fallen back, and Guo had moved into 5th. Johnston was having a solid race in 11th place, in spite of spending nearly the entire week in lab, missing significant amounts of sleep. Montgomery was not having a good race and was :11 behind Johnston.

Rasnake caught Keehr, but was unable to make up the ground on McGuire. Once Feldman ran away from everyone, he took it easy to protect his ankle on the rocky course and only finished :11 ahead of McGuire, who cut down on the margin by having an outstanding race himself. Keehr finished 4th and Guo remained in 5th. Montgomery rallied in the final mile to pass Johnston and end up in 9th position to round out the scoring for Tech. Johnston stayed in 12th and once again had the best paced race for MIT. Also defeating Coast Guard's 5th man, and every other team's 4th man or better, were freshmen Chris Testa and Sean Nolan in 15th and 16th place.

It was a great race for MIT, finishing with a delta of :28 through the first four runners, and 1:10 through seven. Coach Halston Taylor still feels that MIT is not where they should be, and feels significant improvement is needed if they are to make nationals in two weeks when they race in the Regional Qualifier at UMass Dartmouth on November 13. The top 5 teams, and top 7 individuals will qualify for the NCAA Division III Championships in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.