Women's Cross Country | McNamara follows in O'Brien's footsteps at Trinity Invite

    For the second consecutive year, a member of the women's cross country team ran away with the win at the annual Trinity Invitational. And for the second consecutive year, she did it in 16:31.
    As last year's senior tri-captain Katy O'Brien (E '08) did before her, sophomore Stephanie McNamara led the Jumbos on Saturday with a first-place showing in the 2008 season opener.
    "[Coach Kristen Morwick] just told me to go out with the leaders," McNamara said. "I had to kind of figure out who was there from different teams. She said to go out nice and easy in the first mile and then see where you're at and how you feel and kind of work the next mile-and-a-half and go for the win."
    McNamara, whose time was 21 seconds faster than that of second-place finisher sophomore Lyra Clark of UMass Lowell, was followed by classmate Amy Wilfert, who was second for the Jumbos and fourth overall with a 17:04 clip.
    "[Wilfert's] freshman year is behind her, and the nerves and adjustment to [college running] that goes with that are gone," senior tri-captain Betsy Aronson said. "She had a strong summer of training … and she's been able to put in consistent mileage, so she's really starting to break out into following Steph and being up there in a No. 2 spot. She's really matured as a runner in the last year."
    The Jumbos also took home the team title, tallying 45 points on the hilly Wickham Park course. Tufts dominated the meet, with second-place Stonehill finishing at a distant 95-point mark. Each of the Jumbo runners placed within the top 16, with freshman Anya Price in 12th, clocking a 17:38, and senior Amy Hopkins and junior Lisa Picascia taking 15th and 16th, respectively.
    "It was a good meet – better than last year," McNamara said. "There was much better competition and more teams that came, so it was a little bit more indicative of what we can do in the middle of the season. Last year we scored seven of the top 10 at Trinity; that's great, but it doesn't really say much if you don't have competition."
    Freshman Bryn Kass also joined Price in the Jumbos' top seven in what was part of a solid racing debut for the freshman class.
    "The freshmen ran really well," Aronson said. "They tend to get a lot of nerves in the first meet. We had two freshmen in the top seven and the rest ran really good, confident races. We were happy with the way it worked out."
    Tufts' overall score was helped by a pack-running strategy, something the team struggled with during last year's season.
    "We were pretty close together with our top runners, which is good for us," Aronson said. "We tend to have front-runners, so we were happy that we had a lot of packs."
    Like the other meets that precede championship season, while the Jumbos were happy with their performance, they viewed the meet more as an opportunity to assess themselves and prepare for later meets more than anything else. Consistent with that focus, the meet featured a 4,000-meter run, shorter than the traditional 6k course.
    "It's nice to go into the season running a shorter race," McNamara said. "We'll be running a 5k next weekend and the course is pretty hilly, so it was good to try something a little shorter, especially for some of the freshmen who had never had a collegiate race. It was good practice — they have one meet under their belt, and now we're just going to move forward."
    The Jumbos will now look ahead to next weekend, when they host the only home meet of their season at their hilly home course in Grafton, Mass., where Tufts University Veterinary School is located.
    "Grafton is a very tough course, but seeing as we came off a relatively good hill workout [at Trinity], we'll keep working on what we've been doing," McNamara said. "It's just getting more mileage under your belt at the right pace — basically what the beginning of the season is all about."