To say that Tufts was dominant at Saturday's Coast Guard Invitational in New London, Conn. would be an understatement.
The Jumbos obliterated the competition, capturing seven events and 201 points en route to a first-place finish among a field of 10 teams. Tufts' total far surpassed that of second- and third-place finishers, host Coast Guard and Mt. Holyoke, who tallied 150 and 66 points, respectively.
Despite their strong showing, however, the Tufts runners were not entirely happy with their performance.
"We were definitely undermatched," sophomore Aubrey Wasser said. "A lot of the teams are pretty small, and it was a small meet. Coast Guard just got a brand new track, so it was their first home meet."
Poor weather conditions also prevented the Jumbos from racing to their full potential.
"It was very cold - a lot colder than it should be this time of year," freshman Hayley Marcus said. "It didn't snow, but it was very chilly and we were within yards of the water so there was that extra cool sea breeze coming off of that. When it's colder, it's just harder to get loose and you're a little more uncomfortable because you're wearing more layers. It's definitely sort of hard to get going, and it just makes times for everyone a little bit slower."
"When it's that cold, it's hard to perform well even for distance runners who prefer it colder than the sprinters do," Wasser said. "I didn't even break a sweat warming up."
Despite the difficult racing circumstances, junior Cat Beck turned out first-place victories in the 800-meter run, with a clip of 2:18.32, and the 1,500-meter run with a 4:40.66 mark, narrowly missing the NCAA provisional qualifying time of 4:40.20 in that race. Along with classmates Kaleigh Fitzpatrick, Joyce Uang and Anna Shih, Beck also secured the top spot in the 4x400 relay, finishing in 4:14.07.
Other winning performances included sophomore Paula Dormon's 11.25-meter throw in the shot put, Fitzpatrick's 10.66 showing in the triple jump and sophomore Susan Allegretti's 12:22.64-run in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Although the Jumbos' B squad of Wasser, Dorman, junior Jenna Weir and freshman Andrea Ferri won the 4x100 relay race in 51.91 seconds, they did not earn team points with the victory, as only one team per school can be designated to accumulate points in the race. The A team of senior Jessica Mactas, Fitzpatrick, Wasser and freshman Logan Crane had already been chosen, but they were disqualified during the race.
"On the third handoff, between Kaleigh and Logan, they ran out of the zone," Wasser said. "For Logan, once she gets going, she's really fast and the timing just didn't work out. Kaleigh couldn't catch her."
Tufts was also hampered by injuries, as three of its top runners - senior Sarah Crispin, junior Katy O'Brien and sophomore Jackie Ferry - watched the action from the sidelines. Additionally, Tufts was not able to run a relay team in each class, as it customarily does at its second spring meet.
"Because it was such a cold day, people who have been having some injuries didn't run," Wasser said. "We sort of consolidated the relay teams and just sort of ran the people who were feeling all right."
"We just have a lot of girls injured or on the verge of injury," Marcus said. "We thought it would most benefit our team if we didn't do them so that girls could be better rested. It was sad that we didn't get to do it because it's a really fun thing, but if girls are hurt, you don't want to aggravate anything. They probably made a smart judgment call to say they didn't want to participate."
With only two invitationals left on the schedule before the team heads into the NESCAC Championships at Middlebury April 28, the Jumbos are starting to feel the pressure to qualify for playoff contention.
"We're looking ahead to NESCACs," Wasser said. "It's unfortunate that the season is really short, so there's limited time to qualify, but at the same time we want to try to rest our injured athletes as much as possible so that they can try to compete in the postseason."
