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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Tufts places fifth at Purple Valley Invitational

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The Tufts men's cross country team competed at the Purple Valley Classic over the weekend.

The Jumbos traveled to Williamstown, Mass. on Saturday to compete in the Purple Valley Invitational at Mount Greylock High School. Led by the second consecutive top-10 performance from sophomore Luke O’Connor, the team placed fifth overall out of 21 teams.

NESCAC rival Colby took first place at the meet with a score of 55, followed closely by Williams with 63 points, MIT with 72 and Amherst with 89. The Jumbos' 120-point, fifth-place finish was the fourth best by a NESCAC team, ahead of Middlebury, who finished with 152.

Colby sophomore David Chelimo won the meet with an impressive time of 25:42.0. Only one other runner, Williams senior Colin Cotton, finished the race under 26 minutes with a time of 25:45.2.

The highlight of the day on the individual level came from O’Connor, who won the season’s first race at Bowdoin two weeks ago. O’Connor finished the eight-kilometer course in a time of 26:31.5, earning him an eighth-place finish. After receiving NESCAC Performer of the Week honors last week, O'Connor continued to showcase how much he's improved over the summer.

O’Connor attributes his early success to the tough work the team has been putting in at practice.

“Doing a hearty amount of hill workouts has seemed to really help build our strength and endurance in the races," O'Connor said. "I think maintaining the strength from the hills and mixing in quicker repeats, like we have been doing, will get us where we need to be.”

The team had great performances across the board, as all five Jumbo scorers finished within 47 seconds of O’Connor. At 21st overall, senior co-captain Nick Guarnaccia finished second for Tufts with a time of 26:59.2. Sophomore Tim Nichols finished close behind with a time of 27:00.7, placing him 22nd overall. Senior co-captain Marshall Pagano ran the eight kilometers in 27:17.2 for 35th place, and senior Colin McCrory finished in a career-best 27:17.9 for 36th place overall. In addition, according to coach Michael Schmidt, Tufts runners Bobby McLaughlin and Ty Enos also had career-best races, finishing in 27:27.6 and 28:28.9 respectively.

“I thought the Purple Valley Classic was a good day for the Jumbos,” Schmidt said. “Not a perfect day, but a strong early season meet and nice to give the guys a chance to see where the NCAA New England Regionals will be held. Our plan was to work well as groups over the second half of the race in a larger field -- the race on Saturday was well over triple the size of our first race. The guys succeeded in finding and pulling each other along throughout the race, [we] just need to inch all of our packs a bit higher by the end of the season.”

Tufts was happy to beat Middlebury, a higher ranked team than the Jumbos, and proved they can contend with the top New England teams for their fourth straight NCAA Championship berth.

“I think the biggest thing is just to get a little more sharp and a little more race ready," Pagano said. "We just came off a tough training block so I think everyone wasn't quite as sharp as we could have been for this past weekend.”

Entering the Purple Valley Invitational, Tufts was ranked 30th in Div. III, but after the team's strong showing, it may be able to leapfrog Middlebury (previously 29th) and  make its first appearance in the top 25.

The Jumbos will have a week off to sharpen up and then will take the short trip to Franklin Park in Boston for the NEICAA Championships (New England Opens). Schmidt knows success will follow hard work and believes in his guys.

“The tightness of our group has been great -- we have a strong core who work well together in practice and then translate it to our races," Schmidt said.