Jumbos run to a disappointing 13th place at New Englands

The women's cross country fall campaign came to a definitive end at this weekend's NCAA New England Championship hosted by Westfield State. While the team had hoped that a top five finish would propel it to the NCAA National Championship race, the reality was as harsh as the weather.

"We just weren't prepared to handle a pace like that given the weather and the cold and the wet," coach Kristen Morwick said. "I give [our runners] credit, they went for it, but sometimes when you gamble big you lose big and unfortunately we can't pinpoint exactly why."

Overall the squad finished in an unexpected 13th out of 38 teams, well out of the fifth place position it was counting on. Williams ran away with the meet, with its top five scoring runners finishing in the top 15 in a field of 273 competitors. The Purple Cows also boasted the top individual finisher in freshman Caroline Cretti, whose time decimated the 6K course record. Rounding out the top five finishers, and the five teams that will make the trip to nationals, were Middlebury, Bowdoin, Trinity, and Wesleyan.

"Wesleyan's box started close to ours. One of our goals was to try to race against them because we knew they'd be our competition. It just ended up that they all ran really well and we just weren't able to stay up with them," senior Danielle Perrin said.

For a team that had many highs during the regular season, this NCAA qualifying race was perhaps the lowest of lows. At the start of the race, a crowd of 273 runners was greeted by snow flurries that intensified as the race took got underway. From the beginning, the race didn't go the way the Jumbos had planned, and they had a hard time recovering from a rocky start.

"We got split up in the beginning, with so many runners in the field we just couldn't pull together. Then it went out really fast at the beginning and it was hard to stay together right from the start," junior Lauren Caputo said.

Throughout the race there were extenuating circumstances that built upon each other and created a net effect that was essentially insurmountable. Junior Lauren Dunn, who usually finishes within the top four on the team, was tripped early on in the race and fell back to seventh overall for the team.

Freshman Becca Ades had a viral infection that affected the cartilage in her ribcage and she was not in a condition to compete anywhere near her peak form. Ades and Caputo usually feed off each other for the majority of the race. Another key injury was to senior Kristen Munson, who had strained her calf earlier in the week and the injury came back to haunt her during the race. With two of the top seven essentially incapacitated, the strength of the team was diminished. For the five remaining runners, the high speed pace of the race was unsettling.

"For me, the first two miles were very fast, I was at about 12 minutes at the two mile mark and at 40th place overall at that point. The fact that it went out so fast didn't help our pack," Perrin said.

There were some bright spots on the overcast day for individuals on the team. Seniors Mary Nodine and Heidi Tyson had good individual races, finishing 61st and 76th respectively, with Tyson running on par with her strong efforts throughout the season. Caputo's 29th place finish was enough for an All New England distinction, given to the top 35 finishers.

Caputo was also close to making the mark for the NCAA meet as an individual. The top nine runners who are displaced because their teams didn't make it to Nationals are given a bye to the meet, and Caputo was within five seconds and three places of earning a spot. As a junior, Caputo will be able take this experience with her and carry it over to next season.

Though the team was disappointed with the way the season ended, it is already looking towards the indoor track season and what may be a stronger distance squad than has been seen in past years.

"How we did in this race shouldn't be how we remember this season," Perrin said. "We had a great season, we just had a bad day and it happens. It's the best team we've had in a long time, and while bad races happen you can't dwell on them. All of us ran big PRs throughout the season, it just didn't happen at the same time on the same day. At this point, we're going to have an awesome track season."