Key three week stretch lies ahead for cross country

So far, so good for the men's cross country team. But what transpires in the next three weeks will make or break the Jumbos' season.

"Everything up to this point in the season has been preparation," senior co-captain Jon Rosen said. "Not that we don't want to run well every race, but these next three races are what we've been gearing up for all year."

Tufts will compete in the NESCAC Championship this weekend at Middlebury, the ECAC Championship on Nov. 8 at their own Grafton course, and the NCAA New England Championship on Nov. 15 at Southern Maine.

If the Jumbos, currently ranked ninth in the nation and first in the region, finish among the top four teams at New England's, they will move on to race in the Division III National Championship Race at Hanover College in Indiana. Last year, the team failed to qualify for the first time since 1997, finishing sixth out of 35 teams. However, then-sophomore Nate Brigham advanced on the basis of his individual time and finished 11th in the country in nationals, earning All-American status.

The whole team is determined to join him there this year, but first up is the NESCAC Championship this weekend. The Jumbos, for their part, will line up on Saturday with an unusual label hovering over them: favorites.

"I'd be lying if I said we weren't favorites," Rosen said. "But we're not getting ahead of ourselves."

"We're definitely favored going in," junior Mike Don said. "But we don't want to be cocky, because we know other teams could slip by us."

Coach Connie Putnam, who trekked up to Vermont to scout out the course this past weekend, mentioned Williams, Amherst, Bates, and Middlebury as the team's primary competition.

Tufts has never won the league championship, but this looks like the prime time to break through. Teams can race twelve in NESCAC's, a factor that should play to Tufts' advantage as its overwhelming depth of talent should give them a chance to do a significant amount of displacing other teams' runners.

The Jumbo depth should also come into play the following weekend at ECAC's, when Putnam will be forced to split up his team for its final two scheduled races. The Jumbos' second seven will race in the ECAC's, while the top seven will rest up for the all-important national qualifying race.

"All season everyone's known that there are tough calls to be made by coach," Rosen said. "We know we're a deep team. I don't think it will affect anyone negatively."

The team has had a more than solid season thus far. It finished second in its first four races, twice by a mere point, and then finished third at the Keene Invitational while sitting out its top nine runners in preparation for the All-New England Championship. In that race, the Jumbos finished ninth out of 47 teams from Divisions I, II, and III, and first out of Division III schools. They followed that up by claiming the crown at the Twin Brook Invitational two weekends ago.

However, as impressive as the men's season has been thus far, it is all secondary to what happens from here on out.

"This is pretty much what we've been waiting for all season," junior lead runner Nate Brigham acknowledged. "It doesn't matter what we do at the beginning of the season; I mean, it's great to be good every single time out, but now it all comes down to a couple of days."

But while the team is excited, Putnam doesn't want his squad too juiced up.

"We want to run in a controlled, relaxed fashion and save emotion to pull out for when we really need it, which hopefully won't be until qualifiers or nationals," Putnam said. "We'd like not to go to that bank until the last hour."

Don and Brigham, both of whom have raced in Nationals before, understand the danger in getting too emotional or excited in any of the squad's remaining races.

"We want to have a certain level of intensity, but we don't want to get too psyched up and come out too fast and disappoint ourselves," Don said.

"We're trying to keep the pressure off the younger guys and put it more squarely on the shoulders of the guys who have been there before," Brigham said.

In preparation for the final stanza of its season, the team has changed its workouts, tapering from long runs to shorter, higher intensity drills.

"We want our legs to be quick but fresh at the same time," Don said. "We want to get to the point where we kind of float through the first three miles, and then bear down and go all out over the last two miles."

"I think we're all really happy with where we are right now," Brigham said, "and I think we'll be even happier in a couple of weeks."