The 333 runners that stepped up to the starting line at the NCAA New England Regional cross country meet on Saturday shared one goal: securing their team's bid to the NCAA Div. III Championship this weekend. But the Tufts men's team came up just short of making the cut.
In an extremely competitive year in the New England region, the Jumbos took eighth in the 8,000−meter race hosted by Williams at Mt. Greylock High School in Williamstown, Mass. A finish of fifth or higher likely would have meant a spot at NCAAs.
The Jumbos did not completely lack national qualifiers, though. Sophomore Kyle Marks ran an impressive race, jumping 10 places from his finish last year to lead Tufts with a 13th−place finish in a time of 26:13. He earned an individual spot in this Saturday's NCAA Championships in Iowa.
"I tried to stick on to the end of the front pack, the front 15 or so runners, and not use too much energy but still stay in the hunt until the end and then kick with about 800 to go," Marks said. "That strategy played out well on Saturday. I felt like I was really fresh and had a lot of energy."
Marks' classmate Matt Rand finished just two seconds behind him, coming in 17th place.
Rand had finished first for the Jumbos in every previous race this season and earned All−NESCAC honors two weekends ago at the NESCAC Championship. Yet, as the top 16 runners in the field qualified for nationals, the sophomore was the top finisher Saturday to miss the cut, although his finish in the top 35 earned him All−Region honors.
"The whole season I've been trying to stay as close to Matt as I could, and I usually fall off the pace a bit, but this race I tried to stay three to five seconds behind him at most and not lose sight of him," Marks said. "I thought if I was still close to him with a mile left that I could kick it home and end up in a good place, because I knew that Matt would be close to the front.
"Matt has been consistently our best runner through the year, and he had another very solid day," he continued. "It was very unlucky to for him to not make nationals as a individual."
The top two teams in the region were MIT with 93 points and Williams with 101; both earned automatic bids. Brandeis (139) and Middlebury (145), third and fourth, respectively, were awarded at−large bids.
Next in the scoring came Bates, Wesleyan and Conn. College, all teams Tufts had finished ahead of last week at the NESCAC Championships. Tufts' top five runners combined for a score of 162 for eighth, a repeat of last year's finish. The Jumbos were just 17 points out of fourth and 12 from a fifth−place finish — two narrow margins.
"We knew that the team scores would be very tight, and we would all have to run our best to beat out the teams we were near in the rankings," senior co−captain Jeff Ragazzini said. "We didn't all have the A−plus day that we needed, so we fell a little bit short."
"There were probably nine teams in the region that could have made it to nationals, and I think it was just a matter of who had a really great day on Saturday," Marks added. "It's just tough when making nationals comes down to one race and we have an off race on that one day."
The Jumbos' third finisher was sophomore Tyler Andrews, who finished 39th in a time of 26:44. Just two seconds behind Andrews was freshman Ben Wallis in 41st. The final scorer for the Jumbos was Ragazzini, who took 52nd place in 27:00.
"I was pretty disappointed to fall short of my performance last year," Ragazzini, who was one of four Jumbos to earn All−Region honors in 2009, said. "My plan was to run a controlled first mile and then move up the way I did at NESCACs, but the race went out a little too fast for me to feel as strong as I wanted to at halfway."
"My coach in high school always told me 50 years from now, you will remember your teams and not your championships, and that was certainly the case this year," Ragazzini added. "While we didn't win the championships we had hoped for, we developed a sense of team unlike any that I've felt at Tufts."
Though the final result of the season was not as strong as the squad had hoped for, the Jumbos did have their successes this fall, highlighted by a third−place NESCAC finish. With Ragazzini being the only member of the regionals' squad who will graduate this year, the younger Jumbos are poised to improve. After all, their three top finishers this weekend were sophomores.
"We were a great team this year that maybe didn't put it together on the right day, and we can only learn from that going into next year," Marks said.
Though the Jumbos will not be flying as a team to Iowa on Saturday, they will be showing their support for Marks as he makes his first appearance on the national scene.
"Kyle definitely had the race of the day on the men's side," Ragazzini said. "I think he brought a great tenacity into the season and held his cards close to his chest until when it counted the most … It will be exciting to see how he fares against the rest of the country, but Kyle is a competitor who has a tendency to surprise everyone but himself."
Marks said he will prepare himself mentally in the lead−up to this weekend's race, joining a fast pack at its start and not investing too much until the end.
"There are seven other regions that will be there, and we're a lot more accustomed to New England runners, so it will be a very different experience for me," Mark said. "But I will definitely try to rise to the occasion, and I'm hoping to come away with a great race again."
