Men's cross country aims high, falls short at NESCACs

The men's cross country team finished fifth out of 11 teams at last weekend's NESCAC Championship, failing to meet goals it set to help its efforts to qualify for Nationals.

The team had hoped to beat one of the top three teams in the league, which it felt was necessary to qualify for Nationals. Instead, the Jumbos finished with 123 points, behind expected front-runners Bowdoin (48), Williams (77) and Bates (116.). The team also allowed Connecticut College (122) to edge it out of fourth place by one point.

"Anytime you lose by one point it's irritating," coach Connie Putnam said. "Especially when it's to a team you think you should have beaten."

Sophomore Nate Brigham once again set the pace for Tufts, running the five mile race in 26:14.81 to finish twelfth overall. Junior co-captain Peter Bromka finished 20th in 26:34.18, while junior Peter Jurczynski stepped up with his best race of the year, setting a Grafton personal record with a time of 26:43.34 to finish third on the team and 24th overall.

"It's hard to explain," Jurczynski said. "I didn't feel any different from the other races. I guess it was just my time to break out. At no time in the race did I feel like I was not in control."

Sophomore Michael Don (26:54.38), continuing a steady progression back from injury, finished 32nd, and freshman Neil Orfield (27:06.51) placed 35th.

Several of Tufts' usual top finishers faltered on Saturday, while other runners rose to the occasion. Junior co-captain Jon Rosen, impaired by a foot injury, finished eighth on the team and 70th overall, and Ian Joseph, the race's 81st finisher, came in ninth on the team, instead of his usual fourth. Jurczynski's contribution was unexpected, and was accompanied bye a strong effort from seventh man Kyle Doran, a freshman.

Putnam didn't seem to mind the fact that other guys stepped up for the Jumbos.

"It's the best of all worlds to have competition within your own team structure," Putnam said.

But the coach does not want the team's top runners to falter when everyone else lowers their times, which is what happened to the Jumbos in the race on Saturday. The Jumbos' reflections on the race were filled with some disappointment, although this did not cast a shadow over their optimism for upcoming post season qualifiers.

"It was our course; we've been training there all year," Rosen said. "So it was disappointing that things didn't go right for us, but we'd rather have that happen now than in two weeks [at the qualifiers]."

"I really didn't race well," Joseph said of his low finish. "But I'll get my confidence back for the National Qualifiers."

Rosen said that some of the team's members "went out too fast and fell off quickly."

Putnam attributed this to big-race jitters for a young team, suggesting that their mental preparation might have been slightly off-kilter.

"We need to look at how we approach meets," Putnam said. "We need to find the right adrenaline level to not be nervous, but still race fast."

As for its failure to beat Connecticut College, the team seemed to think that result was somewhat of a fluke.

"Not to sound cocky, but if we race the way that we should, I don't think they'll beat us," Rosen said. "But coming so close to Bates is encouraging," he added, "because we've been keying off of them."

Still, there was no denying that the Jumbos were looking for higher than fifth place in their conference.

"You can sit around and make excuses for what went wrong, but I don't do that," Putnam said. "We'll fix our problems at practice this week."

This weekend the team will race in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship at Williams College. With all the top New England teams competing, as well as several from New Jersey and New York, the race should be a good final tune-up for the Nov. 16 NCAA New England Championships.