With 37 teams to compete against, women’s cross-country had stiff competition at the Connecticut College Invitational this Saturday. Still, the Jumbos held their own, placing seventh out of 37 teams in the Blue race, where the teams’ top runners participated. This was an incredibly successful race for the Jumbos, and many of the teams’ top seven runners finished with new personal best times. The Jumbos finished sixth out of 37 teams in the White race. MIT won the Blue race, and Williams won the White race. Tufts scored 217 points in the Blue race and 124 points in the White race.
The Jumbos successfully worked as a team, especially among the top five who all finished near one another. Having runners that run similar times in races can help keep a team’s score low and more challenging to beat, even against many of the competitive teams that they raced against on Saturday.
“Our spread from our first to fifth runner was only 43 seconds, which shows we are in a really great position to enter the competition season knowing we have a competitive edge to our team,” junior Jaclyn Turner wrote in an email to the Daily.
Racing at similar paces can also help runners train better in practice and grow closer as a team. The Jumbos hope to continue using this to their advantage as the season progresses and races get more challenging in the postseason.
Turner hopes this will help the Jumbos become even more competitive in future races. Though Turner commended the teams’ impressive times on Saturday, she believes that the Jumbos are still only getting better. The Jumbos will use their teamwork to push for even better races on the individual level.
“Looking at the results from all of our races this season, it’s clear to see that we are capable of racing a really competitive ‘spread’. The main goal of the rest of this season is to just keep moving towards what we know we are capable of and to bring each other along in our individual successes,” Turner wrote.
The tight spacing was the most impressive part of this race for the Jumbos, but there were many commendable individual performances as well.
In the Blue race, Tufts’ top finisher was junior Elizabeth Donahue who continued her incredible season by placing 19th with a time of 21:44.6 — her personal best. First-year Zoe Margolies came in second for Tufts and 36th overall. She crossed the finish line in 22:04.4, which was a season best. Sophomore Katya Henisz came in third for the Jumbos and 53rd overall, running a 22:21.4.
Junior Lexi Dean came in fourth for the Jumbos, and sophomore Sophia Carpenter finished fifth. Dean finished 54th overall in 22:21.8, and Carpenter finished 58th in 22:27.7. Junior Grace Ogden and Turner came in sixth and seventh for the Jumbos, running 22:38.1 and 22:49.0, respectively.
In the White race, sophomore Sonia Olson finished first for the Jumbos with a time of 23:08.4. First-year Phoebe Bryar (23:13.8), first-year Logan Elie (23:15.0), first-year Eleanor Whitehouse (23:16.1) and junior Vivian Lau (23:20.5) all finished within the top 30 in the White race.
Turner explained that she was impressed by and grateful for her teammates, who all ran solid races and in many cases finished with a season record or overall personal best. Turner appreciated how reliable cross-country is because the team will still be competitive even if one runner has an off day.
“The amazing thing about this team is that, even when you might not have the best day on the course, you have six other girls racing with you who you know are going to have your back and put in the work to still have a competitive resulting score,” Turner wrote.
Though Tufts had an impressive showing overall, they fell near the middle of some of their NESCAC opponents in the Blue race. Williams and Amherst scored ahead of Tufts, ending in third and fifth place. The Panthers slightly trailed the Jumbos, coming in eighth place. Though the Jumbos are a good team, they have tough competition in the NESCAC. This will be especially important in the coming weeks as Tufts goes on to NESCAC championships.
Turner explained that this race has given her a positive outlook on the rest of the season. This was cross-country’s final race of the regular season, and they’ll be moving on to the NESCAC and NCAA championships.
“Five of the seven of us racing in the varsity race PR’d; it goes to show that our hard work is paying off and that we are building a really special team capable of achieving our goals this season,” Turner wrote.
Cross-country hopes to carry the fast times they saw in the Connecticut College Invitational into the NESCAC Championships on Nov. 2 at Bowdoin College, where they’ll compete against many of the teams they were in tight competition with at Connecticut College last weekend.
