Jumbos looking to capture ECAC title

The men's cross country team has been saying all season that it is the deepest squad in New England. Though the team has been successful, it has not had the opportunity to show its depth off in a bona fide championship meet. The Jumbos will get that chance tomorrow.

Tufts will look to back up its talk by trying to earn first place in the ECAC championship this weekend at its home Grafton Course. Over 40 Div. III schools from all over the region will compete.

Coach Connie Putnam will rest his varsity for next week's national qualifiers in Southern Maine and instead run his second seven. Senior co-captain Jon Rosen and fellow classmates Pete Jurczynksi and James Lamoureux, sophomore Matt Lacey, and freshmen Peter Orth, Justin Chung, and Daniel Jones will suit up for the Jumbos.

The seven will probably find themselves racing against the top runners from many of the smaller, less competitive schools competing and against the second string runners from rivals such as Amherst, Williams, and Keene State.

Coach Connie Putnam said that although resting the Jumbos who will compete in the Nov. 15 qualifiers is important, it is not the only reason he runs his second seven.

"From my standpoint, it's a chance to let more kids compete," Putnam said. In the past he used to run his top seven in both the ECACs and qualifiers.

The Jumbos have finished fourth in the race the last two seasons after finishing first in both 1999 and 2000, which was the last time Jumbos ran in both the ECACs and the national qualifiers.

"It's easy enough to brag about how deep our team is," Rosen said. "This is a great chance to prove it and get not a JV title but an actual championship title. Doing that [with our second seven] would be a testament to the program."

Jones and Chung also expressed excitement at the chance to run this weekend in a championship style race.

"It's a good opportunity to go out there and back up the NESCAC championship from last weekend," Jones said.

"When it comes down to it, in cross country, it's great to have guys pushing the guy ahead of them over the course of the season, but in a race, only five guys score, and two displace," Rosen said. "So this is a chance to actually show our depth through numbers."