Men's cross country grabs first victory of season

In a race where they were really just trying to get some practice, the men's cross country team finally won a meet.

Running at a controlled pace in order to get a feel for the course where the national qualifiers will be held, the Jumbos notched their first top finish of the season; easily blowing away the rest of the field of 12 teams at Saturday's Twin Brook Invitational at Southern Maine. The NCAA New England Championship will be held on the same course November 15th.

The top five Tufts finishers' places amounted to an impressive 37 points, 27 points ahead of second place MIT (64). Four Jumbos placed in the top ten and the squad's sixth and seventh runners finished ahead of every other team's fourth man.

"Given the competition, there was no way we should not have won," coach Connie Putnam said.

But if the competition was not tough, the assignment that Putnam gave his runners was. He asked the squad to go out at a pace of about 5:25 for the first mile and stick together for about three miles. This meant that Tufts' usual front runners had to slow their normal pace until the end.

"Now they can feel comfortable and confident with whatever happens during qualifiers," Putnam said. "If we get bottled up in a slow pack at the beginning, we now have that confidence to run for position and still qualify for a spot."

Freshman Josh Kennedy led the way for the squad, finishing in 27:02, good for second overall.

"When everyone was allowed to break out and run how they felt, he ran amazingly," senior co-captain Peter Bromka said. "I was watching him from about thirty seconds back, and it was impressive to see how easy it was for him to float past the top runners for MIT and Dartmouth. We told him we think he's one of the top freshmen in the region, and he ran like it [on Saturday]."

Finishing second and third, respectively, for the Jumbos and fifth and seventh overall were sophomore Kyle Doran (27:12) and junior Brian McNamara (27:14). Juniors Nate Brigham (27:20) and Mike Don (27:24) rounded out the Jumbos' top five, finishing tenth and 13th overall.

Putnam instructed Brigham, normally the team's lead runner, to take it easy and to essentially not waste a race. But even without Brigham at the fastest, the team still cruised to a comfortable victory.

"Even though we ran relaxed, it was good to come away with a win," Bromka said. "It was a nice confidence booster to run as a pack for three miles and to hear spectators say, 'here comes the Tufts pack.'"



"Our intent going up there was first to learn the course for qualifiers, and second to run close as a pack," McNamara said. "We felt if we did that and tried hard, we'd have a shot to win, and we did."

The team was happy to finally nail down a victory after a season in which they finished second in the first four races, often racing at only half strength.

"We would have loved to win some of those earlier meets, but coach knows what he's doing," Bromka said. "The whole season is planned out, and it's the end that's important."

This upcoming weekend is the team's only bye weekend of the season, and it plans to use it to travel to Middlebury to train on the course there. On Nov. 1, the team will return to Middlebury to compete in the NESCAC Championship meet.

Because of next week's bye and because Putnam viewed this past weekend's meet as a workout in itself, the Jumbos find themselves in the midst of a three-week workout cycle instead of their usual one week pattern. This should help the team rest up and work out kinks as they gear into their final, and most crucial, segment of the season.

After the NESCAC's come the ECAC's on Nov. 8, and then the national qualifiers back at Southern Maine. A similar performance to the one Tufts put on this weekend would then propel the Jumbos into the Division III National Championship meet.

"This is the perfect time of the season to start winning invitationals," Bromka said. "We hope to continue that trend."