Men's and Women's Teams Run Over Competition in Engineer's Cup
September 9, 2006
After three weeks of unseasonably cool weather, the heat returned with a vengence today in the Engineer's Cup. The 85 degree temperatures affected everyone's performances but not the inevitable outcome of MIT finishing on top of their fellow engineers from RPI and WPI. In the men's race, the men from Cambridge nearly swept their competition, finishing 1-2-3-4-7 for a 17 point victory over 54 for RPI and 71 for WPI for their 10th consecutive victory in this meet.
MIT went out hard for the first mile and took most of the competition with them. By mile two there were only a few remaining competitors, four from RPI and one from WPI to break up MIT's top 12 runners. Jake Ruzevick and Kevin Brulois had taken control of the lead by mile two. The third mile saw Ruzevick pull away from Brulois and the Alex White from WPI move up to third. One of the RPI runners fell back leaving three betwenn MIT's top 15. The trend continued in the fourth mile. Brandon Pung and Joe Roy-Mayhew passed White to give MIT their 1-2-3-4 advantage and Trevor Rundell seemed to be closing in on fifth.
At the finish it was obvious the heat had taken its toll with times running 30 to 60 seconds slower than the week before when temperatures were 20 degrees lower. Ruzevick finished first in 26:30. MIT's delta for 1-5 was :57 and 1-7 was 1:10. The harriers from MIT need to improve at handling the heat as well as a fast early pace if they are going to fair well against the better teams from New England.
The women seemed to handle the heat much better than their male counterparts. The predicted close finish among the three teams never materialized as MIT quite literally ran away with an easy victory despite a few top runners being out with sickness and injury. Once the dust had settled, MIT finished with 21 points to 46 for RPI and 72 for WPI.
At the mile mark, Maria Monks and Jacqui Wentz from MIT were locked in a battle with Cathy Molloy and Lauren Carter from RPI. A WPI runner was a little behind and then three more RPI runners and one WPI runner were mixed in and just ahead of a group of five MIT runners. WPI appeared out of contention but the anticipated battle between RPI and MIT was taking shape.
Monks put the hammer down in the second mile and totally opened up the race. Molloy was able to stay about 10 seconds back at the two mile mark with Wentz just five seconds behind. The biggest change was the fact that three more MIT runners (Hana Adaniya, Alisha Schor and Jennifer Doyle) had passed all other runners to give MIT a commanding lead.
In the final mile Carter of RPI had passed two MIT runners to get back to fifth place. Doyle had moved up to fourth in 19:55 for her first sub-20:00 performance. Adrienne Bolger and Elizabeth Finn joined Adaniya and Schor to finish 6-7-8-9, putting seven ahead of RPI's third runner and sweeping WPI.
Next week, MIT travels to Twinbrook cross country course in Cumberland, Maine to race host Bates, Keene State and Southern Maine.