Women’s cross country took first place at the Connecticut College Invitational at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, Conn. on Saturday. The Jumbos, who are currently ranked No. 13 nationally, topped the field of 21 teams in the 6,000-meter race, beating national rivals No. 9 Middlebury and No. 6 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in the process.
The race for the top spot was extremely close, as Tufts narrowly edged out second-place Middlebury by seven points, 63 to 70.Claremont-Mudd-Scripps placed third and was also close behind Tufts, scoring 78 points. There was a clear separation between the top three and the remaining teams in the race, as DeSales University finished in fourth with 114 points and Brandeis finished fifth overall with 197 points.
Junior Brittany Bowman placed third overall and led the Jumbos with a personal record time of 21:43.0.Senior Kelly Fahey finished second for Tufts and sixth overall with a time of 22:01.5. Tufts' third finisher, sophomore Natalie Bettez, ran a 22:12.7 and placed 11th overall. Senior Lindsay Atkeson finished 20th overall in 22:33.5 and senior tri-captain Samantha Cox finished 23rd overall with a time of 22.37.3 to round out the scoring for Tufts.
Senior tri-captain Alice Wasserman ranked 26th and was the sixth place finisher for Tufts. Sophomore Kelsey Tierney finished three seconds behind Wasserman, placing 27th with a time of 22:47.3. All seven of the Jumbos top runners placed within the top 30 finishers.
Bowman felt that the experience the team gained in the Paul Short Invitational, where it faced off against Div. I schools on Oct. 1, was a big help for the team in this race.
“At Paul Short the whole race was so dense, it was easy to get lost, but here it was easier to find our place and it was kind [of] an easier race to run because we could look ahead and see people. So I think Paul Short was a good race to kind of get the feel of racing without having people to look ahead for, so it made this race feel easier,” Bowman said.
Coach Kristen Morwick said that while there were positive aspects of the race, there are areas that the team can still improve upon.
“I thought that it was probably [Bowman's] best race of the season. [Fahey] had a really great race; she matched her personal best on that. [Bettez] looked really good. I would say though, the middle of our pack was good [but] not great though. They know that they can improve," Morwick said. "Some people were just tired because they had raced the previous week and others [were] just shaking off the dust from not racing, so once we’re all on the same schedule, which we will be going forward, and [have] a smaller group to focus on, we can start chipping away at some of the things that have been holding us back.”
Several first-year runners also performed well. First-year Gia Kim placed 33rd overall with a time of 22:57.0 and was the third fastest first-year at the race. Her classmate Nicole Kerrigan finished 49th in 23:21.6 and was the fourth fastest first-year.
The Jumbos will spend the next two weeks training hard for the approaching championship races. According to Morwick, the team is aiming for a top-two finish at the NESCAC championship, coming up on Oct. 29 at Colby College. The NESCAC championship is followed by the NCAA regional championship on Nov. 12.
Jumbos take first at Connecticut College Invitational
