Jumbos earn first New England title

All season long, the men's cross country team has focused on the November trifecta of championship meets: NESCAC's, ECAC's, and the NCAA New England Championship.

On Saturday, Tufts won this Triple Crown by capturing its first ever New England championship before crazed teammates and fans at Southern Maine. The victory qualified the team for Saturday's Division III National Championship meet in Hanover, Indiana, sent the Jumbos into jubilation, and, on the heels of a NESCAC title and an ECAC title, left no doubt that Tufts is the best Division III team in New England this year.

Led by junior Nate Brigham, Tufts jumped out early on the field of 38 teams and held course throughout on the way to its third consecutive championship victory. Tufts' top five accumulated a score of 74, allowing them to solidly outdistance Keene State (98), Williams (107), and Amherst (145), all of whom also qualified for nationals.

Brigham turned in his best race of the season for the Jumbos, finishing second overall in the region behind MIT's Ben Schmeckpeper with a time of 25:55. Freshman Josh Kennedy ran a 26:05 to secure a top ten finish at seventh overall.

"Kennedy was exceptional," junior Brian McNamara said. "To do that as a freshman is very impressive."

Putnam was also impressed, but said that "Kennedy had exactly the kind of race I expect him to at this point."

Sophomore Kyle Doran (26:34) finished 19th overall with junior Brian McNamara (26:35) right on his heels in 20th place overall. Sophomore Matt Fortin finished in 26th place at 26:47, while sophomore Neil Orfield (26:50) and senior co-captain Peter Bromka (26:57) finished 27th and 30th overall, respectively.

As usual, Tufts' victory was the result of a team effort. The score of Keene's top three runners was seven points less than that of Tufts' top three, but the Owls could not match the Jumbos' depth, as Orfield and Bromka finished ahead of Keene's fourth man.

"Running in seventh, I could see everyone ahead of me, and I knew if we held pace we would win," Bromka said. "I knew I didn't have to advance, I just had to stay ahead of Keene's number four guy."

All seven Jumbos who ran earned all-New England status by virtue of finishing in the top 35.

"Before the race, coach told us about an article from Keene where their coach kind of slighted us, so we had some motivation there," Bromka said.

"We thought we were better than Keene, but until you prove it in a race it doesn't mean anything," McNamara added.

"It was great to finally get the job done," Brigham said. "There was a lot of talk before the race about people saying we didn't have the guys to roll with Keene. We showed that we've got the guys to roll with them."

Tufts' win marked a near perfect second half of the season. At the end of October, Tufts finished first out of Division III schools at All-New Englands and then captured first at the Twin Brook Invitational. But that was just the warm-up to what has thus far been a perfect month.

"All season we've been looking to November," McNamara said. "The first half of the season was OK, but we really peaked at the perfect time."