The men's cross country team's season came to an end Saturday with an 11th-place performance at the NCAA New England Championship in Williamstown, Mass. The finish disqualified the Jumbos from consideration for an at-large bid to the NCAA National Championship race this weekend.
Tufts finished with 265 points, two behind the 10th-place Conn. College Camels, whom the Jumbos defeated by one point at the NESCAC Championship Nov 1. Middlebury and Bowdoin, two other conference schools that Tufts defeated at NESCACs, also out-performed the Jumbos this weekend, placing fifth and sixth, respectively.
Williams, which hosted the event, dominated the field of 49 teams, scoring 36 points, 86 ahead of second-place Amherst's tally of 122. Williams junior Edgar Kosgey crossed the finish line of the 8,000-meter course first with a time of 25:52.7 to win the race for the second straight year.
But it wasn't all bad news for the Jumbos, as junior Jesse Faller finished in second with a time of 26:03.5, 11 seconds behind Kosgey. Faller's performance qualified him for the NCAA National Championship race to be held in Hanover, Ind. Saturday. The trip to Nationals will be Faller's third, though it will be his first competing as an individual rather than as a member of the Tufts team.
"Jesse ran great," junior co-captain Nick Welch said. "I'm sure there's a part of him that is still feeling unsatisfied to not quite have been able to pull off the win, but he's running amazing and I have no doubt that it will all come together next week, and he'll surprise us all again with how he runs at Nationals; Jesse's best race is still yet to come this year."
After finishing third at Regional's last year, nine seconds behind Kosgey, Faller defeated the Williams junior by 11 seconds and 18 places at Nationals the following week.
"I think in a race where it's not such a man-to-man race, I have a better chance to beat [Kosgey]," Faller said. "At Regionals it was kind of me versus him right from the get-go. Nationals will be us competing against dozens of other talented runners, so he is definitely beatable."
Poor weather conditions factored into Faller's strategies, and he planned his race to minimize their effects.
"The conditions were a little bit sloppy and there was a lot of wind, so most runners did not want to be in the front of the race," Faller said. "They all wanted to sit behind someone and draft off of them, and I think most of the runners were intimidated by the front runners; none of the front runners really wanted to push the pace either for the start of the race, and that can be pretty typical for a large meet like Regionals.
"My strategy was pretty much to sit, to stay right in the leading pack for as long as I could, and if I was still with the leaders, try to make a surge with about a mile to go," he continued. "The race went out really slow, and so we were all in a jumbled mess for a good portion of the race, and then the leaders threw down some surges to pick up the race; I think that the leader threw down a surge that I couldn't keep up with, with about a mile to go, so I had to settle for second."
Welch finished second for Tufts, coming in 45th place out of 331 runners with a time of 27:21.9. Junior Ryan Lena was the next Jumbo to finish, crossing the line in 61st place in 27:35.2.
Sophomores Chris Brunnquell and Jeff Ragazzini rounded off the scoring for Tufts, finishing 77th and 80th with times of 27:54.4 and 28:01.2, respectively.
"Brunnquell ran very strong," Welch said. "A lot of what it comes down to in a meet is when a few guys are having off days, you need your teammates to run strong and pick up some of the slack, and he definitely did that for us, coming in as our fourth guy. I was really proud of the race he ran."
Sophomore Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot and freshman Connor Rose took 120th and 179th, respectively.
With the top two teams, Williams and Amherst, automatically qualifying for Nationals and the next two teams, Trinity and Brandeis, earning at-large bids, the Jumbos were disappointed that they would not return to the meet this year.
"I certainly share the feelings of disappointment with the rest of the guys that the season had to come to an end like this, but I'm still so proud of the work that we did throughout the year," Welch said.
"We didn't do as well as we were hoping," Faller said. "I think for a reach goal we were kind of going for a top-five spot for a Nationals berth, but we knew that it was going to take a good race to do that. Overall it was a disappointing finish, and it's going to be sad going to Nationals without the whole team."
Although the fall 2008 campaign has come to an end, the team is already greatly anticipating next season, as this year's squad will look largely the same in 2009.
"The upside of having some disappointment is that it serves as motivation," Welch said. "We know that we're a young team, returning everybody next year, and that's exciting; going through two more track seasons and over the summer, we're definitely thinking we'll be a stronger and better program in 2009, and I think we all expect to be challenging those teams that have been dominant this season."
