The men's cross country team ended the most successful season in school history with a school record sixth place finish at the NCAA Div. III Championship meet in Eau Claire, Wis., on Saturday.
Tufts had been hoping for a top four finish, but scored 223 points to finish behind Haverford (196) and Willamette (209).
Calvin College (107) won the race, followed by North Central (137), and Wisconsin La Crosse (148).
"I think right after the race we were a little bummed when we found out we got sixth," senior co-captain Brian McNamara said. "We didn't get our goal of fourth, but when there's only five teams in the country that can say they're better than you ... It's a good day for Tufts to have a team finish sixth at an NCAA championship."
It was an especially good day for sophomore Josh Kennedy, who earned All-American status by virtue of his 20th place finish. He ran the 8 kilometer course in 25:16.3, leading the way for the Jumbos.
"It was definitely one of my goals for this year," Kennedy said of earning All-American, which is given to the top 35 runners.
Behind him, juniors Matt Fortin (25:39.9) and Matt Lacey (25:40.4) finished 43rd and 44th overall, respectively.
"Experience helps so much," said Fortin, who finished 99 spots higher than last year. "There's a huge pack of people and you have to figure out how to use them to your advantage rather than against you."
Lacey's race displayed the flip side of that coin. Racing at Nationals for the first time, he didn't fare as well as he had hoped and ran out of steam down the stretch.
"It was a bit tougher than I expected," Lacey admitted. "It was just insanity, I didn't even know where I was on the course because all I could see was a stream of people screaming."
"Nationals is definitely a race [at which] you need to have experience to race well because it's really not like any of the other races we're in during the year," Kennedy added. "There were groups of five runners finishing within a second of each other. You have to be pretty careful at the start because you can find yourself going out way too fast."
McNamara, running in his third cross country nationals, finished 57th with a time of 25:51.6, while Brigham, also racing in a cross country national championship meet for the third time, finished 59th in 25:53.7. Freshman Chris Kantos (95th, 26:27.9) and fifth-year senior Peter Bromka (113th, 26:39.2) also ran, but did not score for Tufts.
Brigham, for one, was unhappy with his race.
"I ran as hard as I could," he said. "Sometimes you just don't have it. Overall, the team held it down for me. I'm really excited for how the team did. We came out here to do a little better, and we didn't have our best day, but it's still a milestone for the program."
Tufts' previous best finish at Nationals was 7th in 1996. Tufts finished 23rd out of 24 teams three years ago and 11th last year. In 2002 the team didn't qualify, although Brigham did individually and finished 11th in the nation.
"It's moving the program forward," McNamara said. "Hopefully next year [Tufts] can get third or fourth, and that will build on the strength of the program."
"It's hard because we set our goals so high," Bromka said. "But looking back on it, we're happy because it's the first time we've ever been the top New England team; we beat Williams at Nationals."
Indeed, this could be considered the year that Tufts finally conquered Williams, at least in men's cross country. Williams finished second to Tufts at NESCAC's, ECAC's, and New England qualifiers. The Ephs secured ninth overall yesterday, thanks in large part to junior Neal Holtschulte (24:41.8), who came in second overall to Wartburg College senior Josh Moen's 24:28.7.
"We beat some pretty good schools today," McNamara said. "We're definitely upbeat."
Still, the Jumbos know they had a good opportunity to place higher.
"We definitely, definitely feel we could have been fourth place, without a doubt," Bromka said. "Third place would have been tough; we would have all had to run brilliant races. Fourth place, a little bit here or there would have done it. We just got beat on the day."
"Overall we had about an average race," Fortin said. "We had a few guys run well, and a few guys ran a below average race. I don't think we're disappointed by any means."
