Jumbos ready for postseason after successful weekend showing

The men’s cross country team finished strong in the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association (NEICAAA) Championships at Franklin Park last Saturday with an 18th overall finish. Teams from all three divisions competed at the meet and Tufts finished fourth out of all Div. III teams and third in the NESCAC.

“NESCACs is very, very good at cross country,” sophomore Chris Warren said. "Of the top seven New England teams right now, six of those teams are [in the] NESCAC and I think it extends farther. Generally in cross country NESCAC is one of the best in the nation."

MIT was the lone Div. III non-NESCAC team that beat Tufts at the NEICAAA Championships. A highlight of the meet for Tufts was beating Colby and getting revenge on Bowdoin, who had beaten Tufts at a prior meet.

“[The meet] went well," senior co-captain Marshall Pagano. "If you had told me the times that we ran coming into the weekend I’d have been thrilled. Guys ran really fast times, especially given the wet and cold conditions and it’s such a big meet that it’s a tough race to run a fast time in. Then on the other side, our rivals ran really well too, so that was like the other side of the coin. Middlebury and MIT and Amherst really stepped up and they beat us pretty good and we don’t want that to happen again."

According to Pagano, Tufts will look for revenge against Middlebury later this season, after beating the team earlier this season at Williams College. 

Despite the third place finish in the NESCAC, Pagano was disappointed that Tufts was unable to make up any ground against teams ranked above them. However, he believes Tufts is a team built for the post-season rather than the regular season.

“Some teams really try to crush every meet, but I think we are just focused on NESCACs and regionals,” Pagano said. “Our big training block was this past month and I think that’s part of the reason why some of these teams might have a bit of a leg up on us. As we get more into the postseason you begin to taper ... do a little less heavy lifting, a little less heavy workloads, and that way you’re fresher come race day.”

Runners competing in the postseason finished their regular season at Franklin Park, but the rest of the team will run in the Connecticut College Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 18th. There are 24 men on the roster, but only 12 will compete at NESCACs and again at regionals. Only seven men will advance to nationals in November, should the team secure a bid.

The New England region usually receives five to seven bids for nationals and Pagano is confident that a fifth place finish at regionals would secure Tufts a bid. Tufts' team has placed in the top 15 at nationals in two of the last three years, and Pagano believes this year’s team has the talent to finish top 15 again.

“In years past we kind of knew we were nationally bound come November, but this year we’re really going to have to work for it, which isn’t a bad thing,” Pagano said. “It makes it all that more exciting and all that more worthwhile if we can make it to nationals.”

Team chemistry has helped the team immensely. The team practices together nearly every day, has weight lifting practices in addition to regular practice on Mondays and Wednesdays and goes for longer runs on Sundays. Warren said those runs could range anywhere from 10 to 18 miles. 

“It’s that much harder as an opposing runner when you see opposing teams go by you in packs.," Pagano said. "You just get that much more down, that much more demoralized. We really try to work as a unit and pick people off one by one. When you see a pack of Tufts guys in the black uniforms with Tufts on the back, we can be an intimidating bunch.”

According to Warren, the team's senior leaders have stepped up this year with senior captains Pagano and Nicholas Guarnaccia holding spots in the top seven. He added that the team has impressive depth, however, with some sophomores occupying the top seven, and a small time spread between the top twelve.

Pagano said that of the four freshmen on the team this year, three will be competing in NESCACs and the fourth would be were he not injured, which bodes well for the team's future, especially considering the talented sophomore class.

The team’s success is also a testament to the program that coaches Ethan Barron and Michael Schmidt run.

“[Barron] and [Schmidt] are multi-time all-Americans, they are really students of the sport, and they are really smart guys," Pagano said. "I think, we just know going into regionals, we’re not going to be out trained and we aren’t going to be outsmarted by any of the other teams.”

Although the men’s cross country team will face stiff competition from a stacked conference this post-season, they feel up to the challenge, hitting the post-season on an upswing after a strong showing at the NEICAAA championships.