September 24, 2005

PHILADELPHIA - Freshman Umar Saeed, running just his second college race for New Jersey Institute of Technology, won first place in the Philadelphia Metro Invitational Meet on Saturday.

Saeed's winning time of 27:06 was 26 seconds faster than second-place Brock Silvestri (Richard Stockton College) and was the third-fastest time for the Philadelphia Metro Invitational Meet since 1979.

The Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference championship race will be held on the same Fairmount Park course on October 22 and CACC teams were also entered in the Philadelphia Metro race on Saturday

In his first race, two weeks earlier at Vassar, Saeed was edged late and came in second place by one second. On Saturday, he pulled away from Silvestri in the last mile, leaving no doubt as to the outcome.

Highlander teammate Pierre Bastie is captured 8th place in 28:28. Sophomore Duc Tran finished 32nd , with a clocking of 29:58 and captain Dave Kloc was 47th in 31:13. Kloc and Tran both bettered their conference championship times from last year on the same course. Freshman Mark Pares rounded out NJIT's top five, with a time of 32:17 (62nd).

As a group, the Highlanders place fourth among 16 teams and they were second among the CACC teams entered on Saturday.