The men's cross country team saw one of its season goals slip through its fingers this weekend, as it lost to the Bowdoin Polar Bears at the NESCAC tournament and settled for a second place finish. While the team has focused mainly on qualifying for the national tournament, it felt disappointed by not winning the title this weekend.
"It's always easy to be cavalier about the secondary importance of a meet the day before, but the day after it's always tough to eat crow," coach Connie Putnam said.
Bowdoin decisively won the meet on its home course, as it scored 46 points, compared to Tufts' 71. While certain runners, such as senior co-captain Ben Smith and fellow senior Jason Mann did not match their usual standards, the main factor hurting the team was its strategy.
In most meets, the Jumbos run a conservative course, starting slowly and attempting to catch their opponents from behind late in the race. Although this strategy has been successful for the team throughout the year, it backfired at Bowdoin. The men had never seen the course before and were unaware of how narrow it was and the amount of the race that went through the woods. In the end, the narrowness of the course played a significant role in preventing the Jumbo runners from catching their Bowdoin challengers.
Smith's cold slowed his regular pace, and he finished eighth in a time of 25:41. Mann, who is usually the Jumbos third or fourth runner, finished seventh on the team in 26:14. Despite these individual problems, the duo could not have made enough of a difference to propel Tufts to victory.
"Our strategy of running conservatively and packing it up backfired on us," Putnam said.
In the end, five of Bowdoin's men finished ahead of the first Tufts finisher, senior co-captain J.R Cruz, who finished sixth with a time of 25:30.
"We plan to be ready to run our maximum effort at qualifiers and Bowdoin chose to make a statement at NESCACs," Putnam said.
The emotional edge that Bowdoin brought into the race was purposely lacking in Tufts' corner and helped to create a deficit that the Jumbos could not overcome. The Polar Bears, who were racing on their alumni weekend and on their home course, created an atmosphere that the Jumbos could not subdue. Tufts is trying to save its most emotional race for Nov. 10 when it attempts to qualify for the national tournament.
"When we heard the results, we were initially disappointed, but as the day went on we realized how well we did run and how much better a race Bowdoin ran," Cruz said.
The semi-disappointing day at Bowdoin still had several Jumbo highlights. Senior Justin Lewis hit a personal record, with a fifth place finish on the team with a time of 26:14, representing a landmark for him in a year where he has struggled to overcome injury. Freshmen Nate Brigham and Michael Don also had notable performances, as they rebounded from tough races at All-New Englands to finish third and sixth respectively for the Jumbos with times of 25:50 and 26:24.
The men's varsity lineup will now spend another rest week preparing for what it hopes to be its best race of the season at the NCAA qualifiers. Putnam wants the runners to focus on sharpening their skills, but he is happy with the health of his team and the preparation its has put forth thus far in the season.
"We want to have adrenaline and emotion as we hit our conditioning peak at the qualifiers," Putnam said.
Meanwhile, as the varsity runners relax before the qualifying meet, the rest of the Jumbos will participate in the ECACs this weekend at Williams. The lineup will be missing its strongest runners, but Putnam feels that the team he will enter has the ability to break into the top ten and beat multiple, solid varsity teams. The race begins Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at Williams.
