It's wire time for the members of the men's cross country team, and they still show no signs of feeling pressure.
Maybe that's because coach Connie Putnam has a saying, "you may think you can do something, but until you've actually done it, you don't really know that you can do it."
And when it comes to tomorrow morning's NCAA Div. III New England Championships at Southern Maine, Tufts knows it can do it.
The Jumbos captured the New England title last year to qualify for the national championship race in Wisconsin, where they finished 11th, and they plan on going back to the Midwest again.
"Last year at regionals, the whole race I was waiting for the Keene St. guys to pass me because that's what they had done my whole college career," fifth-year senior Peter Bromka said. "It wasn't until afterwards that I realized that they hadn't and that we had won. Now, we just have too many guys who are capable of running at the top of the race [to not qualify].
"We just have to go out and run our race and we know by the nature of how good each runner is, if everyone does their thing, we'll win," Bromka said.
The top four teams in tomorrow's race advance to next weekend's national championship, and it's hard to figure that Tufts will not be one of those four teams.
"The worse possible race I can imagine, we'd still finish fourth," junior Matt Lacey said.
"I told them that if they run the same way they've run all year, they'll be fine," Putnam confirmed. "It's just taking care of business, not making any mistakes."
Senior co-captains Brian McNamara and Nate Brigham, fellow senior Bromka, juniors Matt Fortin and Lacey, sophomore Josh Kennedy, and freshman Chris Kantos will run for the Jumbos tomorrow. Kantos is running in the place of junior Kyle Doran, who finished second on the team at nationals last year but has been hampered by injuries recently.
"It's definitely disappointing," his housemate Lacey said. "Kyle has such a huge upside all the time that you never know when you could get a really amazing race. He doesn't really open up to us about it, but I'm sure he's frustrated. He trained more than he ever had this summer and has done everything he could."
"It sucks because we all know how talented Kyle has run and how much he helped us out last year," McNamara added. "But it doesn't affect the team that much because we haven't been relying on Kyle for scoring since his injury. [Kantos] is there to get experience and if he has a great race hopefully he can help us out. He's a talented kid, but we're not relying on him."
Indeed, the Jumbos remain more than confident with the runners they have.
"I think one of the things driving us is that each of our top runners thinks of themselves as an All-New England runner, a top-15 guy. It's a matter of pride," Bromka said. "And if you have six guys who think they're capable of finishing in the top 15, that only leaves nine spots for all the other teams."
McNamara said he believed that Williams would claim a qualifying spot, with Bates, MIT, and Keene St. dueling for the final two New England slots in Nationals.
Also on the line tomorrow is a second consecutive triple crown championship season for Tufts.
Last year the squad finished first at NESCAC's, ECAC's, and New England's, and a win tomorrow would complete that trifecta once again.
"The key to the triple crown was last weekend," said Bromka, referring to the second seven's ECAC win. "I think the varsity guys were nervous and tried not to show it, because we had all sorts of different guys there, whereas last year we had some seniors leading that race. We were all running around afterwards, it was exciting."
However the Jumbos aren't overly absorbed with winning the triple crown as they were last year, as displayed by Putnam's nonchalant response when asked his state of mind regarding Regionals.
"I know they're Saturday," he said. "But I think it's important to understand that we're trying to get it straight in our minds that this week is the trials and next week is the finals. From a track and field standpoint, you're not going to use all your energy and emotion in the trial."
"You never want to say that a regional championship isn't an accomplishment because it is," Bromka agreed. "But last year we were so focused on the whole triple crown thing, and this year we want to focus on going out to Nationals and doing better there."
