Junior Amy Wilfert will be returning to the NCAA Div. III Women's Cross Country Championship, but this time she will be going alone.
With a seventh place finish at Saturday's New England Championship at the University of Southern Maine, Wilfert qualified for the NCAA Championship to be held Nov. 21 in Cleveland, Ohio. Last year, classmate Stephanie McNamara, who has been injured for the entirety of this season, joined Wilfert at nationals.
But Tufts' 12th place finish in the field of 47, a drop from last year's fifth-place showing, means Wilfert will be the team's lone representative in Ohio. Middlebury and MIT tied for the team title, each scoring 63 points, and earned the region's two automatic qualifying spots at the NCAA Championship.
Wilfert ran the six kilometer course in 22:05.2, a mere half-second ahead of three trailing runners, but a good 30 seconds behind MIT senior Jacqui Wentz, who took home the individual medal. As one of the top seven runners on a team that did not qualify for nationals, Wilfert earned an at-large, individual spot at the championship.
"It went about how I expected," Wilfert said. "I was shooting for the top five. Maybe I wasn't as aggressive as I could have or should have been. I ended up kind of losing the lead group of runners two miles into the race. Rather than trying to keep going and hold on to them, I got a little complacent, and was just doing whatever to stay where I was instead of being really aggressive."
Wilfert placed 14th last year, and will be making her second consecutive trip to the NCAA Championship. McNamara was Tufts' top runner last year, finishing in fourth place and helping the Jumbos to sixth place overall, just outside the top five teams that all qualified for nationals.
Tufts tallied 327 points at the New England Championship — an average finish of 65th in a field of 315 runners. Even with a healthy McNamara, the team would not have placed inside the top five.
"Overall there weren't really any surprises," sophomore Anya Price said. "We all ran the race we were capable of running, and the results were as expected. We were hoping to go to nationals and we knew it would take some phenomenal efforts, but I'm satisfied in the solid performance from the team."
Price was the second Jumbo to cross the finish line, coming in 64th place with a time of 23:36.0. She was somewhat disappointed with the result, having placed 40th at last year's Regional Qualifier.
"I would have liked to have placed a little higher," Price said. "From the start there were very large clumps of people, which made it difficult to pass large amount of people. I was happy with my effort, but I think I should have started more firmly and established my position in the race."
Sophomores Bryn Kass and Sadie Landsdale scored next for Tufts in 64th and 79th place with times of 23:36 and 24:03, respectively. Freshman Grace Hafner was Tufts final scorer, and the fourth underclassman in the squad's top five. Junior Jen Yih was Tufts seventh top runner, setting a personal record in the 6K after having fought off a lung infection in previous weeks, according to Price.
"We have freshmen in our top seven and sophomores who hadn't been to regionals before, and they were able to easily adapt to the high level of competition," Price said. "It's a whole different strategy. We are very young team, and from this meet we can take the fact that we have a lot to learn as a young team and apply this competitiveness to high level next year."
Due to the course difficulty and conditions, most of Tufts' runners recorded times slower than they had at the NESCAC Championships, in which the Jumbos came in seventh.
"It didn't really start raining until the gun went off, so the course was not wet until we got on it," Wilfert said. "But no one enjoys running in the rain. The conditions were less than ideal."
"It was not the most physically challenging course," Price added. "It was difficult in places and it could wear you down mentally turning around the field over and over again. We got a good grasp of it seeing it the day before, and previous course such as Williams and the NESCACs [at Trinity] prepare us for those hills we ran on."
Wilfert said that she will have a light workout on Tuesday and then leave for nationals on Thursday morning, so she can get to see the course Thursday and Friday. At nationals, she will hope to trump last year's 48th-place finish.
"I'm shooting for the top 35, which would make me an All-American, and ideally I'd place in the top 10," she said.
