Tufts finishes 22nd at Nationals

Tufts men's cross country team ended its season with a 22nd-place finish at the Div. III NCAA Championship meet on Saturday. Although the performance was not quite as good as last year's 17th-place finish, the Jumbos were not far from making the jump to a better final position; they scored a composite 536, which put them only 80 points back from 17th and 130 points back from 13th. North Central College won the race with a composite score of 130, despite not having a runner place in the top five. Defending champions St. Olaf College came in second with a score of 143.

The consistent sophomore duo of Tim Nichols and Luke O'Connor led the Jumbos, finishing 69th and 80th respectively out of a field of 276. Nichols' time of 25:05.02 was only five seconds faster than O'Connor's, which testifies to the competitiveness of the race, as 10 other runners crossed the finish line within just five seconds. Both improved their times and placement drastically from last season's championship race, in which Nichols placed 100th (25:53) and O'Connor finished 157th (26:17). Their finishes relative to the rest of the field are better markers for improvement than their times because the meet was not held on the same course as last year.

"Tim [Nichols] and Luke [O'Connor], who have consistently been really good in the postseason, ran really solid," senior co-captain Nick Guarnaccia said. "I think that both of them could have run even better, I don't think anyone ran out of their minds. They ran where we expected them to run. I think that I made the biggest jump forward from regionals to nationals, but I didn't run that well at regionals, so I was definitely hoping to make that jump."

Guarnaccia finished 97th (25:20.6), almost a minute faster than his run at Nationals last year. Every place he improved was valuable for the Jumbos, as Tufts finished only a single point ahead of The University of Wisconsin Stout.

"I wanted to be top 100, so that was really nice to accomplish, barely by three places," Guarnaccia said. "Last year after finishing 160th I definitely wanted to make a significant improvement, so I felt like I did that and I was pretty pleased. [Tufts finished] 22nd, and I think we were hoping to do a little better in the rankings, but I think everyone really ran well and came together for a really good last race."

Senior Colin McCrory finished fourth for Tufts and 208th overall (25:59.8) in his first run at nationals, despite a painful knee injury which had prevented him from running the three days prior to the race. First-year Ty Enos was Tufts' final scorer, placing 246th (26:22.5) in his first national competition. Senior co-captain Marshall Pagano and senior Joe St. Pierre finished 259th (26:44.3) and 262nd (26.47.8) respectively.

"Ty [Enos] is a freshman, and this was his first college season and that's just like a lot," Guarnaccia said. "He's been incredible all season. I think he performed, again, like how we thought he would. It's just difficult to week-in week-out perform when you're a freshman. Colin [McCrory] didn't do as best as he could, but his knee was really banged up. He didn't even run the three days before the race just because [his knee] was hurting so bad. He was really running through the pain, so that was a really gutsy race. I think Marshall [Pagano] has been a little banged up and just tired, and Joe [St. Pierre] didn't run regionals and was swapped in for nationals and sometimes that's hard to just click in. You think your season is over and then you have to run again, so I think there were a lot of difficulties, and everyone ran well, but no one ran really really well."

The Jumbos had hoped to improve on last year's 17th place finish, but fell short. The team, however, graduated eight seniors in the spring, so this goal was ambitious from the start. The improvement of top runners Nichols and O'Connor certainly helped bring the Jumbos close, as did the addition of Enos late in the season. The level of competition at nationals is such that anything less than a perfect run costs much more than it would in any other meet, putting the relatively inexperienced runner at a disadvantage.

New England was the only region that received six bids to the National Championship meet, with no other region earning more than five. Tufts was the recipient of New England's sixth bid, which put the Jumbos in position to justify their berth.

"We beat the fifth team from every other region, so I think it was really good for [Tufts] and really good for New England to show how strong our region is and justify [our bid] on the national stage," Guarnaccia said.

Guarnaccia described the course as flat, which would normally mean much faster times. However, it snowed five inches three days prior to the race and then rained the two days before, so the course was muddy. Although the mud slowed the race down, Guarnaccia enjoyed the sloppy course. He said both O'Connor and Nichols fell at one point and lots of other competitors were falling on the slippery turns.

The team flew in on Thursday and three passenger vans drove roughly 32 fans to the race. Guarnaccia and the rest of the team is proud of the fact that Tufts is one of the only East-coast teams that consistently brings a contingent of fans to meets so far away.

"It's kind of fun because I spent my first two years road tripping out to watch the guys and then I ran my last two years, so I've seen both sides of it and they are both awesome. I think it's one of the coolest parts about being on our team because it's different from other schools," Guarnaccia said.

Guarnaccia pointed to the camaraderie between New England teams at nationals as something he enjoyed.

"It's really cool because you're competing and at each others' throats all season because we only compete in New England, and then we immediately get out there and we are all friends trying to beat other teams," Guarnaccia said. "I really like that."

Although this was the last cross country race for the Tufts seniors, most of the team also runs track and field in the winter and spring, so the team is far from disbanded.

"Pretty much all of us will go right into distance for track," Guarnaccia said. "The team sticks together a lot. What happens is we just expand because we go from our 20-25 cross country guys to being on a 65 person track squad with sprints and jumps and field events and all that stuff, so it kind of broadens."