Cross country teams make strong strides in competitive races

Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams ran at meets this weekend with mixed results. Nevertheless, both teams look to draw important lessons from the meets heading into the All-New England Championship.

The men’s cross country team competed in the Paul Short Run at Lehigh in Bethlehem, Pa. on Saturday, competing with 33 Div. I and seven other Div. III schools. The team finished 40th overall in the 8K Gold race, with a score of 1040, beating out only Hofstra’s score of 1054.

Tufts posted an average time of 26:30, but Utah State’s average of 24:46 and score of 77 secured them the best performance overall.

According to official results, senior co-captain Brian Reaney held the Jumbos' best time of 26:15. Finishing right behind him was fellow senior co-captain Dylan Jones, with a time of 26:16. Overall, Reaney and Jones placed 187th and 189th respectively.

“I was happy with the race," Reaney said. "I feel like it was an improvement from last week, which was also a pretty good race for me, so it feels good to feel that I’m chipping away at the times. I think I’ve been doing a good job moving up through [the] race."

Also running in the top seven for the Jumbos were seniors Hiroto Watanabe (26:35), Colin Raposo (26:39), Rory Buckman (26:43) and Andrew Doherty Monro (26:56) and sophomore Peter Horvath (26:47). First-years Phillip Hempstead (27:49) and Neerav Gade (27:12), along with senior Tom Doyle (26:59), ran for the Jumbos as well.

Reaney said that the team knew going into the race that they would be facing tough competition, since they were seeded in the Gold event this year, rather than the Brown event of last year. All but seven of the teams at this year's Gold race were Div. I. Reaney added that while the course was flat, it was muddy, which slowed their pace.

Although the team did not place highly overall, Reaney was still satisfied with the team’s showing, especially as they plan for the rest of the season.

“Something that’s cool is that we were focusing on Middlebury and Amherst who are seeded above us right now, [and] we’d love to be able to beat [them] at the end of the season. We didn’t come as close to Middlebury as we wanted to, but we did fairly well against Amherst in terms of where we were last week, so we’re going to look to keep moving up on them,” Reaney said.

Looking forward, the men's team will be competing at the All-New England Championship at Franklin Park on Saturday. Reaney says that the team hopes to test out its members who did not run at the Paul Short Race, including newer members of the team and runners coming off injuries. The team hopes to gain some experience on the course, because the NESCAC Championship will be held there on Oct. 27.

Meanwhile, the women’s team continued its successful season this week, putting up a strong performance at the Maine State Meet Invitational at Bowdoin on Saturday. The Jumbos placed third with a score of 89 in the 6K race.

Of the 18 schools competing, only Brandeis and Bates beat out Tufts, with scores of 39 and 43 respectively.

Several Jumbos had excellent days. Junior Lydia Heely led the team with a time of 22:50, finishing eighth overall to spearhead the team’s success. Senior Olivia Barnett crossed the finish line shortly after, finishing 16th overall with a time of 23:22, despite this being her first race coming off an injury.

“It was a good race. This was my first race of the season because I broke my foot last season, and I had to get surgery in January, so I wasn’t able to run until June," Barnett said. "So I took some time off at the beginning of the season, and we decided that I would race this weekend. My strategy was to be conservative and not go too hard, and save myself for the rest of the season. I went into the race just wanting to get through it. I haven’t raced in 10 months, so it felt really good. I didn’t push myself too hard, I felt like I had more left at the end, which is good. It made me super excited for the season and what’s in store."

Finishing 19th overall was senior Jennifer Jackson, who put up a time of 23:25. Coming in 22nd was sophomore Alexandra Wolf, with a time of 23:31. Sophomore Olivia Martin finished 26th with a time of 23:39.

Having five top-30 performances was a great result for the team, and they hope to continue this success throughout the season. Barnett remarked on the team’s hopes for the season.

“I think good things are coming for our team. Our team is looking strong this year, we’ve been doing really well. We have some good solid [first-years],” Barnett said.

Also running for the Jumbos were sophomore Melissa Rowland (24:23) and junior Ann Roberts (24:31), who rounded off the team’s top seven. Other runners also equally impressed: sophomore Cameron Rusin (24:32), first-year Lucy Tumavicus (24:43), sophomores Maura McCormick (24:44) and Johanna Ross (24:45), first-year Alex Walter (25:00), sophomore Hannah Nelson (25:15) and first-year Heidy Acevedo (25:22) all finished in the top 100 of the nearly 250 runners competing. 

The women’s team will also be running at the All-New England Championship at Franklin Park on Saturday. Barnett said that the team will be looking for another strong performance.

“We’re going to go practice and basically do the course on Tuesday," Barnett said. "Our mentality for this race and the whole season is to stay positive and stay healthy, because injuries are so common with running. It’s important to take care of ourselves and make sure that we’re the best we can be, prepared for race day. It’s important to work as a team and use each other as motivation. We’re a really strong team, so we’re really ambitious to win.”