It can be difficult to race against yourself, with very little competition to push you to your limits. But the women's indoor track and field team virtually did that last Saturday, travelling to Brunswick, MN, for what was scheduled as a tri-meet against the host Bowdoin Polar Bears and Springfield College, but ended up a Jumbos-Bears faceoff after Springfield pulled out.
Tufts capitalized on a weak field, triumphing 102-74 over Bowdoin, a score that belied the team's domination of the meet due to the way points are awarded in a dual meet. With three weeks remaining until championship gatherings begin, however, the Jumbos are looking for more challenging settings.
"It was an okay meet for us, but it definitely shows we have some work to do still," coach Kristen Morwick said. "We performed to the level of the competition, which wasn't very good. Every meet is a stepping stone towards the championships, [but] our kids run better when they're challenged more. There were a few races where it was all Tufts, and I don't think that was too inspiring for some of our kids."
Despite the lack of competition, the Jumbos qualified a host of athletes for the upcoming New England Division III Championships, held at MIT in three weeks. While Tufts failed to gain any additional national provisional qualifications after earning three in the team's two previous meets, the Brown and Blue notched three berths for the All-New England's in four weeks.
Senior quad-captain Lauren Caputo was victorious in the 3000 meter run (10:24.76 minutes), nipping Bowdoin freshman Neoma Palmer at the line by less than a second. Caputo qualified for All-New England's with the effort. It was her second All-New England qualification in two weeks after she claimed a spot in the 5000 meter event with a second place finish two weeks ago at Tufts.
"The 3K was probably the most exciting race of the day," Morwick said. "[Palmer] had pretty much beaten [Caputo] all of cross country season. With three laps to go [Palmer] took a pretty decent lead and Caputo just hung in there and in the last lap came round and passed her at the finish line."
Joining Caputo with All-New England marks were senior quad-captain Jess Trombly (26.33 seconds) and sophomore Rachel Bloom (26.39), who finished one-two in the 200 meter dash. The pair traded podium spots in the 55, with Bloom (7.53) edging Trombly (7.55) for the win.
"I personally wasn't too pleased with my performance, but it was hard considering we didn't really have very many people to run against," Trombly said. "So I think a lot of people maybe didn't run as fast as they wished to."
Senior Shushanna Mignott finished third in the 55 with a time of 7.82, joining Bloom and Trombly with sub-eight-second times. Mignott's day was highlighted, however, by her control of the long and triple jump events. The senior won both events with jumps of 4.90 meters (16-01.00 feet) and 10.57 meters (34-08.25 ft) respectively, well clear of Jumbo freshman MacKenzie Rawcliffe, who played second fiddle in both events as well as in the 55 hurdles.
"Shushanna had a great day; it was really encouraging to see," Morwick said. "The long jump is the best she's jumped since her freshman year."
Freshman Samantha Moland earned a return ticket to Bowdoin for the ECAC's on the first weekend in March with a second place finish in the 1000. Moland (3:07.01) finished a quarter of a second behind Polar Bear freshman Livy Lewis, and pointed out that Tufts faced challenges not just from the lack of opposition, but from themselves too.
"We've been doing a lot of intense workouts, so it was a challenging meet in that we were all really tired, but we just pulled it together and ran as hard as we could," Moland said. "But it was also tough because you had to run hard without faster people ahead of you, so it was all you up there on the track."
Moland also anchored the 4x800 relay team, which split hairs with Bowdoin (9:59.40), narrowly finishing on the downside of the scorecard with a time of 9:59.74. However, the Jumbos faced Bowdoin junior Kate Walker, a national qualifier last year in the 800, and Moland stuck right with her.
"[Walker] is really good," Morwick said. "[Moland] basically duked it out in both her races and ran great, so that was exciting to see."
Staring down the track to the start of championship season, Tufts is focusing on peaking at the moment those events arrive.
"We have a couple of more competitive meets coming up, which I think is really important when going into the championship meets," Trombly said. "Already having competed against really good competition [is important], and we just have to keep up our training."
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