The men's cross-country team put on an impressive performance at its final home race of the season, winning the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) championship on Saturday. Although this was a rest week for many of the elite runners in the conference, all of the Tufts runners who competed had great races, putting them into excellent position going into the national qualifying race this Saturday.
Tufts finished first out of the 32 teams in the ECAC, holding a commanding 37-point margin over second-place Williams, which rested its top six runners. Crossing the line before any of the 244 competing athletes was senior Steve Kaye, who scored the first collegiate victory of his career. Kaye's time of 26:23 was his fastest at the Grafton course, and 15 seconds ahead of the next competitor.
"He went out hard and lost the pack early," sophomore Justin Lewis said.
Following on the heels of captain Matt Lyons all season, Kaye clearly showed that he had no problem leading the team when his teammate took a race off.
Following Kaye were senior Pete Rodrigues (27:01) and junior Dave Patterson (27:06), who finished seventh and ninth respectively. This was Patterson's fastest time at Grafton all season. Sophomore J.R. Cruz finished 14th overall with a time of 27:21 and set a personal career record for the Grafton course.
"Of course we are really happy to win," Cruz said. "It was a great tune-up race for qualifiers and we are really optimistic about our chances."
Sophomore Ben Smith followed in 26th place with a time of 27:41, the exact same time he ran two weeks ago at the Tufts Invitational.
Possibly running their final races of the season were freshman Adam Sharp and sophomore Justin Lewis. The eighth and ninth runners continued to improve and set course personal records with times of 28:12 and 28:18 respectively. Both runners will serve as alternates for the national qualifying race and nationals, if the team qualifies.
"The team is doing much better as a whole than earlier in the season," Lewis said. "We are going into the qualifier race very confident, but not over-confident."
Taking a rest week before the national qualifier race were Lyons and sophomore Jason Mann, who have been two of the most consistent runners all season. Resting for a week may give Lyons the opportunity to compete for a first place finish in the qualifier race.
The NCAA Regional Championship race will be held at Babson on Saturday at 11 a.m. This is clearly the most important race of the season, as it determines whether or not the team qualifies for the national race. Because of regional teams' performances at the national race in the past few years, there are five berths available for New England teams.
The competition for this race will be fierce but familiar. The clear favorite is Keene State, which has been unstoppable in Division III racing this season. In its last meeting with Tufts at the Keene State Invitational, Keene won by 27 points.
The probable next finisher is Williams, which has also fared well in the conference this year, although the Jumbos gave it serious competition in the NESCAC race two weeks ago. Williams slipped by with a 47-59 victory, but many of the Tufts runners feel as though the outcome might be different in this race.
"We are definitely within reach of Williams because we have improved so much," Cruz said.
Other competition includes MIT, Bates, and Brandeis, all of which have defeated and been defeated by Tufts in different races this season. In other words, this race will be extremely unpredictable, and it will take dominating races throughout the lineup to take a victory. A berth in the national race is a much more realistic goal, but Tufts is hoping for more.
"This will be the first race where all of our guys will get to race against all of their guys," Lewis said. "We are confident that we will do well."
