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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Sophomore duo leads Tufts to Nationals

2014-11-17-Cross-Country-Regionals
Tufts placed sixth at the NCAA Regional Championship meet on Nov. 15. An at-large bid resulted in the teams heading to Nationals.

For the fourth straight year, the Tufts men's cross-country team has earned a bid to the Div. III Championship meet. The Jumbos finished sixth at the NCAA Regional Championship meet on Saturday with a score of 165 to earn the last at-large bid to nationals from the New England region. Colby won the meet with a score of 63, followed closely by Amherst (69 points) and MIT (70 points). Williams and Middlebury finished fourth and fifth respectively, and MIT was the lone non-NESCAC team to earn a bid from the Northeast. 

Sophomores Tim Nichols and Luke O'Connor finished ninth and 17th, respectively, to lead the Jumbos and earn All-New England honors for their top 35 finishes. Senior Nicholas Guarnaccia was third for Tufts and 44th overall. Senior Colin McCrory and freshman Ty Enos rounded out the Jumbos scoring, finishing 47th and 48th. Senior captain Marshall Pagano fell early in the race, but still managed to finish 85th, two seconds ahead of Tufts senior Greg Hardy, who finished 90th.

The Jumbos were unsure of whether or not they had made nationals at the conclusion of meet because only the top two teams are guaranteed bids. The strength of the New England region usually means more teams from the region get bids, but talented teams nevertheless often miss the cut.

"After everybody finished I think a lot of the runners on our team were kind of antsy because they knew we got sixth, but they didn't know if it was quite good enough for us to go [to nationals]," Nichols said. "We were just on the border of getting in ... but I think compared to the rest of the country we definitely deserve to [compete at nationals]. Our conference is very competitive."

The race was held on Saturday at Mount Greylock High School in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Despite the sunny sky, the temperature hovered around 35 degrees. Nichols explained that the Jumbos had run the course before, but the the temperature  was nearly 80 degrees the first time.

The main feature of the course is a large hill that racers must surmount twice. According to O'Connor, some runners can have trouble with the hill, especially the second time around. He was encouraged by the team's improvement from the first time they ran the course.

"Times from last time we were there improved a lot," O'Connor said. "Guys dropped a lot of time from Purple Valley earlier this season to regionals, which is exciting, so I want to see how that translates to a flat course."

O'Connor noted the solid turnout among fans as beneficial to the runners.

"We had a lot of fans come out, a lot of alumni come out and they were just cheering and yelling, so it's actually kind of deafening just running by them ... but that really gets you excited," O'Connor said. "It's great because there were little bits in the woods loop where you came out, and you were right by the field again, and you could hear everyone cheering, and it was just amazing to have so many fans out ... I'm just really glad that we got so many people out cheering on such a cold day. I think we had ... 70 bodies out there, which, three hours away, shows a lot of commitment."

For O'Connor, making nationals means another opportunity to improve. He predicts that the team will set a lot of personal records on the flat Ohio course because most of the courses in the Northeast are hilly, resulting in slower times.

According to Nichols, the team was excited to qualify for nationals because it meant that the seniors on the team would get the chance to race again.

"We have four seniors in our top seven," Nichols said. "I think it means a lot to them to end their cross country careers on a really great note, and going to nationals is ... the ultimate goal of the year, so I think everybody is really pleased and super, super hyped up about it."

The team's strong performance in the post-season thus far has resulted in the Jumbos jumping in national ranking from 29th to 24th, and they now hope to exceed those expectations. This improvement is due in part to rapid improvement from the underclassmen on the team, which bodes well for the team at nationals. Nichols and O'Connor hope to improve on their performances from the meet last season.

"Last year, I finished 100th, so [I'm aiming for] maybe top 75, top 50," Nichols said. "I don't know what the team will be able to do. I think we are ranked in the mid-20's in the nation, so I think to aim somewhere around there for a team standing would be good."

Both Nichols and O'Connor were impressed with Enos's performance at the NCAA Regional Championship meet. He began the season slowly due to injury, but has been improving consistently with each successive race.

"Enos, as a freshman, he's been getting better and better each race, and it's been a pleasure watching him get better as a runner," O'Connor said. "I really appreciated [my] freshman regionals experience, and I think him getting that experience is going to do wonders for him later on, even carrying on to this next weekend."

The Jumbos will travel to Mason, Ohio on Saturday to take on the other 31 schools that qualified for the Div. III Championship.