Resting its varsity lineup for the upcoming NESCAC Championship meet, the Tufts’ men’s cross country team placed 13th out of 18 teams at the Conn. College Invitational on Saturday. Freshman Sam Little was the top finisher for Tufts with a time of 27:05, good for 42nd in a field of 122 runners competing for their teams. The event was won by NYU, with the Coast Guard Academy, Conn. College, Keene St. and New Paltz St. rounding out the top five.
The weather made it much more of a challenge for all of the runners on the course on Saturday, and senior co-captain Nicholas Guarnaccia gave the runners credit for performing so well on what he deemed a tough day. Though the course conditions were unexpected and adverse, the Jumbos understand that when it comes down to race time, they have to be ready for anything.
“At the end of the day you gotta go out there and just run, even though the conditions obviously suck,” Guarnaccia said. “Last weekend we ran at Franklin Park and it was that Saturday where it just rained all day, so it was like mud half way up our legs. So there’s not that much you can do to prepare. In terms of conditions being bad, the main thing is just training to be mentally strong, because you’re going to get thrown a lot of bad conditions throughout the season. At the end of the season it might be snowing, because we are going up to Middlebury in two weeks.”
But Tufts' top performer, Little, felt that the weather actually played to his advantage.
“Compared to Open New Englands, which was raining and forty-five degrees, the heat was very welcome for me," Little said.
Placing second for Tufts behind Little was freshman John Greenberg, who finished with a time of 27:54, just one second before sophomore Michael Caughron, leaving them in 73rd and 75th place, respectively. Behind them, junior Alex Apostolides finished 84th in 28:15, senior Joe Poupard finished 96th in 28:35 and sophomore Chris Warren ran the course in 30:42, leaving the Jumbos with 370 points, far behind the winners on the day, NYU, who finished with just 64.
Little’s goal for the season was to earn some valuable experience, and he felt that the meet at Conn. College was a success in that regard.
“[I felt] what it was like to toe the line, race competitively and actually score," Little said. "Usually I fill in behind because I'm not in the top seven yet, but I actually got to be in the front.”
In two weeks on Nov. 8, Little will be racing at ECACs and is excited to take on his first championship race on the Westfield State course, where Tufts will be looking to best its second place finish from a year ago.
But before that comes the NESCAC Championship, to be held at Middlebury, on Nov. 1. Last year, the Jumbos placed third at the conference meet. They find themselves with an interesting team composition that will make a big difference in how they fare this season. Rather than having a superstar that can place in the top five, the Jumbos have a solid top three that run well together, meaning that Tufts will be relying on strong performances up and down the lineup if it hopes to stay on the podium at NESCACs.
In that meet, the Jumbos will be looking to chase down Williams and Middlebury, the top two teams in the NESCAC from last season. With just two weeks left before the meet, it's time to see if the Jumbos are ready to make that step.
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