Men's cross country races to top ten finish at All-New England's

Going into last Friday's All New England Championships, coach Connie Putnam stated that "a top ten finish would be very nice" for his men's cross country team.

This goal seemed tough because of both the quality and quantity of runners at the race: almost 50 teams from Division I, II, and III competed. In fact, Putnam's teams had achieved this feat just twice during his tenure at the school.

But Tufts did it for a third time this weekend, running to a ninth place finish out of 47 teams at Boston's Franklin Park, the highest the team has finished the race since the 1998 team also finished ninth.

Div. I powerhouse Providence dominated the event, placing runners second and third overall for a team score of 40 points. Brown (59), Boston College (127), Stonehill (202), UMass Lowell (216), Boston University (221), Quinnipiac (237), and Dartmouth (253) also finished ahead of the Jumbos (256), who were the top D-III school.

Junior Nate Brigham finished 18th overall at 25:04. Freshman Josh Kennedy finished in 25:43, good for 47th, while sophomore Kyle Doran was right on his heels, finishing 51st overall with a time of 25:48. Junior Mike Don (25:58) and sophomore Matt Lacey (26:05) finished 63rd and 82nd overall to round out Tufts' top five.

Putnam was especially impressed with Kennedy, who broke the Tufts freshman record time at the course.

"I usually try to stick with Lacey and [senior co-captain Peter] Bromka," Kennedy said. "This time, I was with Lacey for a couple of miles, and then I felt good and I went ahead."

Bromka sat out the meet with a leg injury, and Putnam thought his squad could have fared even better had it had his services.

"We need guys to race closer to Nate at the top," Putnam said. "I think Pete can do that."

As it was, the team was mostly satisfied with what it did accomplish.

"We went in with the mindset that we were going to beat all the Division III schools and finish in the top ten," Brigham said. "We did both of those, so we definitely feel pretty good about ourselves right now."

In order to finish first out of the D-III competitors, Tufts had to upend the Keene State Owls, ranked seventh in the nation in the Oct 7 poll, for the first time this season. The Jumbos, who were 11th in the rankings, were able to do so by an impressive 120 point margin.

"We wanted to beat these guys, and it definitely gives us some confidence," Putnam said. "We just can't get too overconfident, and we can't take it for granted that this is going to happen every time, because Keene is going to come for our throats at the qualifiers and we've got to be ready for them."

Tufts also finished an impressive fourth place in the sub-varsity race which immediately followed the varsity one.

"That's important, because one of our goals is to win the ECACs [in which teams race their second seven]," senior co-captain Jon Rosen said. "We definitely think that we can do it, and this was a good tune-up."

If the sub varsity race was a good tune-up for the ECACs, the varsity competition was great preparation for nationals due to the large collection of high level runners.

"The level of competition is so much higher than your typical meet," Brigham said. "It's a great opportunity to get to race against these types of schools."

"We always view the New England's as a preview for Nationals," Rosen said. "So this was a good meet for us."

Next week, the squad will race on the qualifier course which they will need to master to get to nationals. They compete on Saturday at the Maine State Invitational in Southern Maine, where the NCAA New England Championship will be held on November 15.