Following last weekend's brief respite from racing, the men's cross country team should be physically and mentally rested for the postseason, which begins on Saturday with the NESCAC Championships at Amherst College. The NESCAC race represents the first significant meet of the season for the Jumbos, currently ranked 11th in the nation, who are expecting to battle Trinity and Williams, the number-two team in New England, for the title.
"Williams is definitely the team we are most concentrating on," junior Jason Mann said. "They have beaten us every time we have seen them [this season.]"
"Trinity is in the back of our minds," senior co-captain Adrian Wilairat said. "They sneak up on a lot of people."
In the most recent battle between Tufts and the powerful Williams squad, the Ephs finished in seventh place, five spots ahead of the Jumbos, at the All-New England Championships on Oct. 13.
While Tufts has not run in a meet since the New England Championships, a week of rest was very beneficial for Mann because it gave him more time for his broken wrist to heal.
When the Jumbos last lost to Williams, Mann was just returning from his injury, and ran with a cast on his right arm for the first time. Usually the fourth runner on the team, Mann's cast adversely affected his balance, and he finished fifth behind standout freshman Jason Lamoureux. After more than two weeks of running with a cast, Mann hopes that he has finally adjusted to it.
"[Mann] probably has more outright courage then most runners I have seen in my 32 years [of coaching]," coach Connie Putnam said. "Going out and attempting to run after that injury shows the man's courage."
"That was a really bad race two weeks ago [at the All-New England Championships], and I'm not comfortable running that slowly," Mann said. "I have to run the same way I did before I broke it."
In order for the Jumbos to have any chance of knocking off Williams, not only must Mann return to form, but Lamoureux must maintain or improve upon his performance from two weeks ago. Then, he drastically reduced the delta between himself and Ben Smith, who finished third overall for Tufts.
"Hopefully [Mann] can get back up with [Smith], and Lamoureux can keep moving up," senior co-captain Dave Patterson said.
"[Mann] is doing a lot better, and [Lamoureux] has improved in the last two weeks," Wilairat said. "They are both looking really good."
While Mann and Lamoureux are the two key runners for Saturday's race, the whole team will face the challenge of running at Amherst's new course, which none of the Jumbo runners have ever seen before.
The new course utilizes parts of the old the course, which some of the senior runners competed on during their freshman year, and features many additions, including a path around a hayfield.
"It is a totally revamped course," Wilairat said. "There is tough uneven footing and no flat streaks. It is hilly and rolling."
"The course is also freshly cut and wet," Putnam added.
In fact, the course is so difficult that the winning time for last week's race at Amherst was 27:29, an extremely slow mark for an 8-K college race.
To combat the difficult course, the Jumbos must run a strategic race. "If the team goes blazing out of the starting line, we will crash," Wilairat said. "We are looking to run strategically, smart, and together, and to get on Williams' back early."
"Williams is loaded with talent," Putnam said. "[They have] perhaps twice as many talented kids as we do. We use them as benchmark."
Despite the odds, Tufts remains confident that, if everything goes right, it can dethrone Williams.
"On any given day, we can beat [Williams] if we run our best race," Putnam said.
"We have not run our best against Williams," Mann said. "Obviously I'm not going to predict victory, but I think if we do [run our best race] we can beat them."
If the Jumbos can overtake the Ephs, it will be revenge for the damage that Williams inflicted upon Tufts this season and also during last year's NESCAC Championships, when the Jumbos finished second behind Williams at Hamilton College. Interestingly, the Jumbos were able to bounce back from last season's second place finish at NESCACs to beat the Ephs at the National Championships.
Mann (15th overall) and Patterson (16th overall) are the only two returning Tufts runners who finished among the team's top five runners at last years NESCAC Championship.
"Its important to do well at this race," Wilairat said. "It's the start of the postseason, and we always look to have a good race at NESCACs."
