Women's Track and Field | DMR enters NCAA championship meet today as nation's top-seeded squad

    For the distance medley relay (DMR) squad of the women's track and field team, while the scene may be the same at Nationals at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. this weekend, the cast is very different.
    For the second year in a row, the Jumbos will enter the championship meet ranked first in the nation, this time after posting an 11:47.96 at ECAC Championships last weekend at the Gantcher Center.
    But nearly one year to the day after taking home the NCAA Div. III title in the DMR, only one Jumbo from the '08 relay team will take the track later this afternoon: sophomore Stephanie McNamara. After the graduation of DMR veterans Katy O'Brien (E '08) and former tri-captains Cat Beck (LA '08) and Kaleigh Fitzpatrick (LA '08) — who were three-quarters of a DMR team that broke the NCAA Div. III meet record en route to a second-place finish in 2007 — sophomore Amy Wilfert, senior quad-captain Jackie Ferry and classmate Halsey Stebbins have stepped in to round out the group.
    "Right now, we're seeded No. 1 in the nation, so there's definitely that pressure — we're going to have that target on our back," Ferry said. "I don't think it's pressure to repeat what they did last year; it's more just that we want to come in and run our seed.
    "We're only returning Steph from the team that won, and she's running the mile leg instead of the 1,200, so we're completely different — you can't even compare the two," Ferry continued.
    After submitting two provisional-qualifying performances, the group nailed the automatic qualifier on its home track in large part thanks to a strong start by Wilfert in the opening 1,200-meter leg and a solid anchor stint by McNamara. While the sophomore pair made the trip to cross country Nationals just last November, for Ferry and Stebbins, the NCAA experience is a bit newer. Ferry's last indoor Nationals experience came her freshman year in the 4x400-meter relay, and this weekend marks Stebbins' first time at the meet.
    "It's really exciting," Ferry said. "I mean, I've been working towards this for the past four years. Freshman year didn't go very well in the [4x400], so it's really nice just to have another chance to hopefully do better this time."
    "It's just such a big honor," Stebbins added. "You enter college with that kind of dream never knowing if it's actually attainable. To be here is just kind of surreal and very exciting."
    Coming off a race that marked an improvement of close to 10 seconds on their previous mark, Wilfert, Stebbins, Ferry and McNamara are ready for the chance to defend their top seed and national title.
    "I think we're going to be competitive with any team out there," coach Kristen Morwick said. "It's just going to be a matter of how fast it goes out and things like that. We may not be able to control everything, but if everyone runs the race they're capable of running, we're going to do really well.
    "I just think it's nice that we pretty much graduate two-thirds of the team and can still come back and be ranked No. 1. The ranking doesn't mean everything — I mean, that's why you run the race — but we have a shot. We have a really good shot to win it again."
    McNamara won't be done after the relay, however, as she will return the next day to race the 5,000-meter run. After putting up NCAA qualifiers in both the open mile and the 5k, Morwick and McNamara opted for the longer race after McNamara hit a personal record time in the 3,000 meters the day after running the DMR, a situation that simulated the approximate spacing of events this weekend.
    "I think she had her choice of either doing the mile or the 5k or both, and when the relay did so well, it just made sense to have her run fresh for the relay," Morwick said. "We're lucky we had the opportunity to put her in the [5k]."
    "I think we thought this would be maybe her best chance to score high in the event," Morwick continued. "It's more similar to cross country Nationals — she can just go out with the leaders and see what she can do. If she has a really good race, she could be in the top three, and who knows … I think top three is a really good goal for her."
    And unlike every season since 2004, the runners will not be the only Jumbos representing Tufts at Nationals. A testimony to the newfound balance achieved this season between the team's runners and field event specialists, freshman jumpers Nakeisha Jones and Dayorsha Collins will compete in the triple jump and the high jump, respectively.
    "To be able to get two jumpers here this year when we didn't have any the previous few years definitely is a testament to the fact that we are a much more balanced team," Ferry said. "Especially the fact that they're freshmen — they have three more years to do this."
    Jones has been awaiting this weekend's competition since January, when she landed an NCAA provisional qualifier in the triple jump in her first-ever collegiate meet. She followed up her opening performance with an even better one two meets later, surpassing the automatic qualifying standard with a jump of 39'3". Jones held the No. 1 mark in the country from that point until just last weekend.
    "She's excited," Morwick said. "She seems pretty laid back, but when she gets out there, she's really competitive. She's not going to want to lose to anyone that hasn't beaten her already. Some of her biggest competition is in New England, and she's beaten them before, so she kind of has the advantage in that way."
    Collins rounds out Tufts' representatives at Nationals, having received confirmation earlier this week that her provisional qualifier had made the NCAA cut.
    "It was definitely good to know that I was going," Collins said. "I knew I could compete with the people who had qualified automatically — I just didn't have long enough to practice or I don't have as good technique as they all have so far."
    And while Collins also posted her highest marks relatively early in the season, she is confident that she will be able to channel her successes this season to turn out a strong upcoming performance.
    "In the beginning of the season when I didn't have any tension or anything for high jump, I went there being like, ‘Just jump' — I had nothing to prove," Collins said. "Later, when I was trying to work on my technique and [was] overthinking, I wasn't able to jump as high, so now at the end of the season I'm thinking ‘Just jump' and do it naturally. That's just what I'm focusing on, and the rest will just fall into place."