The men's cross country team took home first place at the Conn. College Invitational on Saturday, with senior Jesse Faller leading the way.
The Jumbos posted a team score of 46 points to lead the 16 teams participating in the event. In a field of 214 athletes, Tufts' top five runners all finished in the top 16, with the top seven Jumbos placing amongst the top 28.
Faller outpaced junior Joseph Poulsen of Southern Connecticut State by three seconds, crossing the finish line at 25:17 to take first in the 8,000-meter race.
"I was very encouraged with how I ran," Faller said. "That's a good time for me early in the season. It gives me a good indication of what kind of shape I'm in. It was also a good platform for improvement, because I think I have the potential to improve a lot over the season, so this weekend was kind of a watermark of where my fitness is."
Senior captain Nick Welch followed 17 seconds behind Faller to claim fifth with a time of 25:34, while junior Jeff Ragazzini came in just seven seconds later — running a personal best time that was more than a minute lower than his previous record — to earn ninth place.
"I was really happy with my race," Ragazzini said. "It's the first time I've really put myself out there as a cross country runner, instead of track, so it was good to get that off my chest finally.
"I wanted to stay as relaxed as I could for the first three miles, because it was the first five-mile race of the year, and then after the first three miles, [to] not be afraid of anything and just throw as much coal on the fire as I could," Ragazzini continued.
Freshmen Matt Rand and Kyle Marks showed some impressive pack-running by finishing 15th and 16th with times of 25:56 and 26:01, respectively. Both were competing in their first collegiate 8K race, and they proved that their strong showings at the Trinity Invitational two weeks ago were no flukes.
"I was pretty pleased with it as my first 8K," Marks said. "My legs definitely felt the longer distance, but I was really happy with both my performance and the team's performance ... I tried to stay in a pack with myself, [sophomore] Connor Rose and Matt Rand, and I thought that if I could stay with them, then I'd be in a pretty good place both in terms of the team and time-wise, and then at the end I just held on and kicked."
Rose followed just three seconds behind Marks to claim 19th place in 26:04. The Jumbos' top seven was rounded out by senior Ryan Lena, who came in 28th with a time of 26:22.
"I thought the team ran excellently," Faller said. "A lot of people had PRs and finished high in the standings. It was certainly exciting to finish first as a team. I thought the freshmen had, on the whole, a solid showing in their first 8K. We had two freshmen at or below 26 minutes, which is an example of our team's depth."
"We showed incredible depth," Ragazzini added. "We've never had a team that was this deep before. We had two freshmen run unbelievably well — Rand and Marks — both in our top five."
To put the performances of Rand and Marks in perspective, Faller — a two-time All-American and the team's unquestioned No. 1 runner — finished in 60th place at the Conn. College Invitational his freshman year. But even with their early success at the collegiate level, the two first-years are still not satisfied.
"[Rand has] definitely motivated me and pushed me in all the races so far to try to be better, and I really hope that we can feed off each other and get better," Marks said. "Hopefully with some more endurance training and just getting a feel for the race as a whole, I'll know sort of what my body can take and have a better strategy."
The field of teams present Saturday included fellow NESCAC schools Bowdoin and Conn. College, as well as New England competitor Brandeis. Bowdoin finished second with a score of 66 and Brandeis claimed third with 111 points.
"We saw a few of our New England rivals in Bowdoin and Brandeis," Ragazzini said. "Brandeis held back two of [its] top five, but I think we were very happy with how we held up with them, coming away with a win from those two teams."
"I thought the competition was good for a meet this early in the season — competitive, but not over our heads," Faller added.
The Jumbos will next travel to Franklin Park in Boston for the All-New England Championship on Oct. 10.
"[All-New England's] will be a very different style of racing, because the field will be enormous and Div. I runners will be there, but it will be a chance to get accustomed to much bigger and much faster races," Ragazzini said.
Faller took sixth in the meet last year, leading Tufts to a 19th place finish out of 47 New England schools from all three divisions.
"It gives us a good look at other Div. III teams that we'll be racing later on in the season," Faller said. "I think finishing as high as I did last year was exciting, and if I can match last year's performance, I would be thrilled."
