Jumbos finish 11th at nationals

As junior Nate Brigham said, "Some days you either have it or you don't."

The men's cross country team just didn't quite have it Saturday at the Division III National Championship race in Hanover, Indiana, finishing 11th out of 24 teams.

The result was far better than the 23rd place finish the team earned in its last nationals two years ago, but it was also short of the squad's goal of a top six finish, which would have been Tufts' best finish ever in the race.

Calvin College dominated the meet, placing its top five runners in the top sixteen overall for a cumulative score of 48. The next closest competitor was Wisconsin Stevens Point with 128 points, while the Jumbos finished with 298.

Freshman Josh Kennedy and sophomore Kyle Doran, both running at nationals for the first time, came out conservatively but gained momentum throughout the meet and ended up leading the way for the Jumbos. Kennedy finished 40th overall in the nation with a time of 26:10, while Doran finished two spots back in 42nd place at 26:14.

"I'd run in big meets before but never this big," Kennedy said. "I figured the race would settle after a mile, but the initial pace held for about a mile and a half. Obviously I wish the team had done better but I thought I did OK. I passed a lot of guys down the stretch instead of getting passed."

Kennedy attributed the fact that the initial pace held for so long to both the quality of the runners and the fact that guys were probably overexcited to be racing in nationals.

Doran, like Kennedy, was pleased with his personal performance despite the squad's worse-than-expected showing.

"Today was a pretty good day for me personally," Doran said. "But the team does better when I'm back in third or fourth and that's the way it should have been."

The team's usual lead runner, Brigham, who earned All-American status in last year's nationals and was coming off a dazzling race at the New England qualifiers, finished 67th overall in a time of 26:40.

"I was in the top five or ten at the mile mark, but I just didn't have it today," Brigham said. "When Kennedy went by I tried to team up with him, but he was having such a good day that I couldn't. Same with Kyle Doran."

Sophomore Neil Orfield and junior Brian McNamara finished back to back in 74th and 75th place overall with times of 26:46 and 26:47, respectively. Finishing sixth and seventh for the Jumbos in nonscoring positions were senior co-captain Peter Bromka at 99th with a time of 27:08 and sophomore Matt Fortin in 123rd overall at 27:34.

The Jumbos got out to a solid start, with Brigham up with the leaders and McNamara off to a fast start as well, but the two faded throughout the course of the race. The temperature at Hanover College stretched into the high sixties and affected several other runners, but none of Tufts' competitors. However, the Jumbos were unable to hang close to one another as well as they have done time and time again this year.

"There were so many runners, we couldn't quite stick together like we would have liked to," Brigham acknowledged.

Tufts (298) finished third out of New England schools, behind sixth place Williams (220) and eighth place Keene State (279), but ahead of Amherst (575), which finished last. But unlike many of their previous races, Tufts wasn't gunning for any of their regional rivals.

"We were pretty much just racing the field," Brigham said.

"At New England's, you can key off certain guys, and you know which teams you're competing against," McNamara added. "Nationals is a whole different world. There's people lining the course, it's loud, and there's five guys right in front of you and five guys right behind you the entire way."

Reflecting on the race while eating ice cream in a Chinese restaurant in Indiana Saturday night, the team sounded extremely upbeat and relaxed; while it was undoubtedly disappointed in its performance, it was determined not to let it undermine the success of the total season.

"This wasn't like two years ago, which was a complete meltdown," Brigham said. "We didn't have our best day. We still had a solid day, because we have a solid team. It doesn't take away from everything we accomplished this year."

"Nate and I didn't run our best races, but when two of your guys have off days, and you still finish 11th in the nation, that says something about your team," McNamara said.

Kennedy echoed these thoughts.

"We had a rough day, and we still finished 11th," Kennedy said. "The trip itself was amazing. It was just a great experience to build on. I'm just happy to be here."

"Coach said after the race we have nothing to hang our heads about," Brigham said.