Months of dedication and practice will come down to tomorrow as the women's cross country team heads to Twin Brooks, Maine for the much-anticipated NCAA Div. III New England Championships.
The top five finishing teams will earn an invitation to the national meet in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and the Jumbos feel they have a viable shot at being one of the five.
"We train for this race all season," junior Becca Ades said. "It's the peak of the season. We're all tapered for it. There's no reason why everyone shouldn't have their best race on Saturday."
The Jumbos will send senior tri-captain Katie Sheedy, Ades, sophomores Sarah Crispin and Raquel Morgan, and freshmen Catherine Beck, Katy O'Brien, Anna Shih, and Laura Walls. The team has not made a decision on who will be the final seven for the race yet.
The top three teams at the meet most likely will be Middlebury, Williams, and Amherst. The three teams are ranked in the top five nationally and have been far and away the best teams in New England area races thus far.
With three spots virtually locked, only two places are still available. Wesleyan, Colby, and Tufts figure to be the teams with realistic shots at those two spots.
To earn a trip to the national meet, the Jumbos will have to beat one of the two teams, something they haven't been able to do all season. Yet coach Kristen Morwick has been optimistic about her team's chances all season long.
"I think if we run well, we can do it," Morwick said. "We should beat Wesleyan. We match up better with Colby but they've been in front of us all season. I think if we run well we can beat them."
"Obviously we have to beat Colby and Wesleyan to make it," sophomore Raquel Morgan said. "We have to beat one of the two in order to go. It's not so much running as a pack. I think the top five have to be really close."
The three teams last met two weeks ago at the NESCAC Championship at Colby College. Colby (127 points) had a decided advantage racing on its home course and used it to beat both Tufts and Wesleyan. Wesleyan (130) was close behind while Tufts (141) were certainly within striking distance.
Coach Morwick and the team have spent the last week breaking down their game plan for the race, analyzing past results and developing a strategy for the race.
"We need to match up more with Colby in terms of having our No. 1 in front of their No. 1 and our No. 2 in front of their No. 2," Ades said.
The final two spots will come down to only a few points, since these teams have been racing closely all season.
The Jumbos are hoping that a large race will work to their advantage, especially against Wesleyan, who has a slower No. 5 runner who could easily finish further back in a large race.
For Tufts, Ades has consistently been the top finisher, with Morgan and O'Brien close behind. The next four finishers have varied all season long.
"This team hasn't been easy to predict. They're pretty young, and it's been an up and down kind of journey and it could be anyone up there," Morwick said. "I've said to Sheedy and Crispin all along that 'you have to act like our fifth runner whether you're there or not.' And they very well could be."
The Jumbos understand that the race will largely depend on their racing, not other teams', and that they control their own destiny.
"I'm not saying we have to run as pack but we all need to have our best race," Morgan said. "Becca can't just place top 15 and we'll go. Our fifth runner can't just run well and we'll go. We all have to be at our best in order to go."
"Even though that does seem like it's asking a lot it's definitely within reach," Morgan added. "It's right there in front of us. We just have to do it. I think we're all there physically and we're all there mentally. We just have to put the two together and make it happen."
A trip to Nationals would be the first for the Jumbos since 1999, when Tufts placed 11th behind standouts Caitlin Murphy, Leslie Crofton, and Cindy Manning.
Crofton placed fifth at Nationals individually in cross country the following season while Murphy owns two national titles in the 800 meters.
"We don't have anyone like that on our team," Morwick said. "This is kind of doing it a different way. It's going to be more of a team effort, rather than doing it with a couple studs up front."
A lingering concern for the team all season has been the possibility of inexperience plaguing the young team. Tufts fields six underclassmen in their top eight runners and the fear is that such an important meet like Regionals would be overwhelming for an inexperienced group, especially the four freshmen.
"It's hard to predict because we have a very young team," Morwick said. "We have potentially four [freshmen]. We don't know how they are going to respond in a big meet situation."
"[The freshmen have] proven over the season that they are great runners," Sheedy said. "It's a lot of pressure on them. We've had a lot of talks with them in team meetings. They know what they have to do and what the team has to do to go to nationals."
The women realize what's at stake in this weekend's race and are looking for a better performance than last year, when they finished ninth.
"This year is definitely a more reachable goal," Sheedy said. "Just being able to be that close and know that we can make it is pretty exciting. Hopefully this won't be my last race this weekend."
