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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Jumbos place 11th out of 26 at Conn. College Invitational

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The men's cross country team competes in last year's Nationals, where it placed 22nd.

The men’s cross-country team sustained its successful season at the Connecticut College Men's Invitational this past weekend, finishing in 11th place, with 269 points, out of 26 teams. The eight-kilometer race was run at Harkness State Park in Waterford, Connecticut on a crisp Saturday afternoon.

MIT won the race with an impressive 49 points. Conn. College followed with 95 points. Coming in third was Carleton-MI, who had traveled from Michigan for the race, finishing with 106 points. Points were calculated by adding together the place numbers of the top five runners for each school.

The team was led by sophomore Ty Enos who finished the eight-kilometer race in a speedy 25:55.0, coming in 19th out of the 295 runners who donned their spikes for this race. (Enos is also a cartoonist for the Daily.) Following him was sophomore John Greenberg, whose admirable time of 26:33.0 was good for 54th place overall. Coming in third for the Jumbos and 59th overall was first-year Dylan Jones, who ran a blazing 26:38.9. First-year Colin Raposo was the Jumbos' fourth place finisher. He completed the race in 26:45.8, earning him 64th place overall.

"Ty went out really strong," Jones said. "He was in the top five for the first mile of the race, and from there he stayed near the front pack and ran a really terrific personal record."

Rounding out the top five for the Jumbos was first-year Tom Doyle, who, with a swift time of 26:53.7, came in 73rd place overall. Classmate James Gregoire finished with an identical time but came in 74th after losing to Doyle in a sprint at the finish line. The seventh-fastest Jumbo was first-year Hiroto Watanabe. His time of 26:58.4 was good for 79th place.

"It was great to see my teammates out there running their hardest, trying their hardest, [and] I was really impressed with how they all did," first-year Christian Swenson said. "Ty ran a great race. John ran a great race. Everyone who ran today really did a great job, especially considering we are starting to get to the point of the season here [when] it's a little colder out."

According to Jones, the most challenging parts of the course were the ones run on sand.

"The course was really flat which made it pretty fast, but some of the trails were on sand which definitely slowed people down," Jones said.

The layout of the course, however, also proved to be an important contributing factor to the Jumbos' success because the flat trails made it easier for runners to pass their competitors.

"It was a really nice and open start with lots of room to move around and get ahead of people," Jones said. "It was not too tight a course, so people were able to pass throughout the [race]."

Many of the team's runners were given the day off to prepare for the post-season, which begins in late October.

"The entire team is really excited about the championship season beginning," Swenson said. "We have all been training really hard all season for this, and we all want to just go out there and...run our best times once the post-season begins."

The men's cross-country team will take a short break before resuming its season at the NESCAC race, which will be held on Oct. 31.