Jumbos nail down ECAC's

At the beginning of the season, senior co-captain Jon Rosen said that the men's cross country team's goals were to win NESCAC's, ECAC's, and the NCAA New England Championship.

Thus far, the Jumbos are two for two.

Tufts secured its second straight championship victory thanks to a dominant effort by the squad's 9 through fifteen runners at the ECAC Championship at Grafton on Saturday afternoon. Tufts' score of 38 blew away the rest of the field of 33 teams, which included Keene State (82), Williams (152), Bates (165), and Coast Guard (178).

"It was definitely exciting," Rosen said. "We won ECAC's a couple of years ago, but that was with a different group of guys and that time some of the top seven ran, unlike [Saturday]."

All seven Jumbos finished in the top 14 out of over 230 runners. Sophomore Matt Lacey led the way for the Jumbos, finishing fourth overall in 26:50. Seniors James Lamoureux (26:58) and Peter Jurczynski (27:05), and freshmen Justin Chung (27:14) and Peter Orth (27:20) also scored for Tufts, finishing consecutively in the eighth through eleventh spots. Rosen finished right behind Orth in 12th place with a time of 27:22, and freshman Dan Jones was one back in fourteenth place at 27:28.

"We made a good initial move to get to the front of the pack," coach Connie Putnam said. "We got good position, and we did a pretty good job not relinquishing it. We were a little split up at the three mile mark, but over the last 600 meters we did a good job closing the gap."

"The whole team ran great," Lacey said. "I really only saw Peter and James during the race so to turn around in the chute afterwards and see everyone coming in together right behind me was awesome."

Lacey's time was his personal record at Grafton. The accomplishment was even more impressive considering that he hadn't run well in recent weeks. Putnam attributed this to the fact that Lacey trained too much as Nate Brigham's training partner, often running 105 mile weeks. This has since been skimmed back to 40 to 50 mile training weeks.

"Matt went through a couple of races in midseason where he couldn't do too much," Putnam said. "We cut back on his mileage and I think the extra week of rest really helped him. He looked fresher and faster."

Lacey agreed that he felt stronger than in recent weeks.

"My goal was to use this as a confidence builder and get back on track," Lacey said. "I think I did that."

The ECAC win, coupled with the squad's first ever NESCAC championship last weekend, gives the Jumbos a boatload of momentum heading into Saturday's New England Championship, which serves as a qualifier for the Division III National Championship.

The Jumbos can race seven, and the roster is fairly set with junior Nate Brigham, sophomore Neil Orfield, freshman Josh Kennedy, senior co-captain Peter Bromka, sophomore Kyle Doran, and junior Brian MacNamara. The seventh spot will likely come down to sophomore Matt Fortin or Lacey.

"They've both done good things this season," Putnam said. "I'll take a long, hard look at things this week and make my decision."

In the meantime, Putnam preferred to focus on his team's performance in ECAC's.

"The guys that ran knew it was on them to get it done," Putnam said. "There was no one else in front of them. That gave them the impetus to step it up."

Putnam also thought that the three seniors racing their final race gave the team inspiration, and Lacey agreed.

"It definitely gave them some incentive," Lacey said. "Their last time on Grafton, they obviously wanted to do well there."

"They'd be a pretty good top seven at most other schools," Putnam said of his second set of varsity runners.