In similar fashion to September's Jumbo Invitational, the men's cross country team split into two squads Saturday when it competed at the Plansky Invitational, hosted by Williams. The Jumbos took third among the eight teams in the 8,000-meter race and second out of three in the 5k race.
In the 8k race, Tufts continued to receive leadership from junior Jesse Faller and junior tri-captain Nick Welch, who finished within two tenths of a second of one another with times of 26:50.6 and 26:50.8 to claim sixth and seventh, respectively. The third Jumbo finisher was sophomore Chris Brunnquell, who came in 15th with a time of 27:18.6.
"[Brunnquell] ended up running as our third man, and it was a good race for him," assistant coach Mark Carberry said. "It was kind of a gut-check race for him, but he came through."
Brunnquell was followed by junior Ryan Lena in 16th place and sophomore Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot who finished 18th overall. The Jumbos' score of 62 points put them behind winner MIT and runner-up The College of New Jersey, who notched 31 and 45, respectively.
Three first-years led the charge for the Jumbos in the 5k, as freshman Phillip Grannan finished fourth overall with a time of 17:12.6. Less than one second behind at 17:13.3 was fellow first-year Connor Rose in sixth, followed by classmate Henry Frey in eighth with a time of 17:16.6. The final Tufts scorers were juniors Jason Hanrahan and Alex Landy, crossing the line in 11th and 12th place, respectively. Tufts finished behind Assumption College and in front of Williams.
"In the 5k, I was pretty excited to see Phil Grannan," Carberry said. "Phil may have run himself right onto the NESCAC team, which as a freshman is a pretty good place to be."
"I really wanted to stick with Henry and Connor, the two top freshmen," Grannan said. "So I was really just trying to work with them throughout the race.
"I think the course was kind of slow, but I think the three of us were pretty happy with how the race went," Grannan continued. "The only thing was that a couple guys passed us during the middle of the race that I think we should have stuck with."
With the split events at Williams, Tufts opted to put its stronger runners in the longer race.
"[It was] based on who was probably continuing with the season," Carberry said. "Who is going to go and race at NESCACs, as well as our regional meet, those were the guys who were in the 8k for the most part, and the younger guys [and] the guys whose seasons are ending pretty soon were in the 5k."
The team ran a strong race on the course and will return there Nov. 15 for the NCAA New England Championship meet, where they expect to go all-out at the more critical meet.
"We weren't looking to win [the meet] -- we were just looking to go out and kind of preview the Regionals course," Carberry said. "Nick and Jesse were tempo-ing for the most part, and the rest of the guys we wanted to see stay in a pack for the majority of the race and then break off a little bit."
"What we set out to do was run pretty conservative for at least for the first half of the race and more than anything else get a feel of the Williams' course, since we'll be there in a month for Regionals," Welch said. "Given that those were our goals going in, I think it all went very well."
The Jumbos will travel to Bates for the NESCAC Championship Nov. 1, but for those not competing at that meet the NESCAC Open Invitational takes place at two days prior at Wesleyan Oct. 30.
"We are right now right where we aim to be," Welch said. "It's a tradition that we're getting to used to after the last few years, where we are sort of the underdogs going into the postseason, but that's a position that were used to and position from which we've had success ... Leading into NESCACs, we're looking to surprise some people and start to bring together all the workouts and training and races that we've run in preparation for these next couple big meets."
"I think we have as good a shot as anyone out there," Carberry added. "We're a considerably young team, and we've got a lot of room to grow in only a few short weeks."
