Under clear blue skies and through a cool fall breeze, the men's cross country team was victorious for the first time this season, taking first place in the annual Jumbo Invitational for the second consecutive year on Saturday.
Tufts dominated the other six competing schools, finishing the meet with a total score of 45 points, 19 ahead of its nearest competitor, fellow NESCAC rival Wesleyan. MIT (75) finished third, and Amherst (90) followed close behind in fourth. Bentley (110) closed out the top five while NESCAC foe Bates (135) placed sixth and Springfield (175) rounded off the competition with a seventh-place finish.
Traditionally, a whole herd of Jumbos run at the home course. Saturday was no exception as coach Ethan Barron sent out 20 runners. For the third consecutive week, senior co-captain Matt Lacey led the way for the Jumbos, finishing first for the team and second overall with a time of 25:41.
"Lacey is just a great leader both on and off the course," Barron said. "He and [senior co-captain] Matt Fortin have done a great job in providing leadership and inspiration for the rest of the team. Lacey is just the kind of guy who goes out and executes the race strategies that we come up with."
The rest of the team also performed well, with all five scorers finishing in the top 15 in total points. After finishing tenth overall two weeks ago at UMass-Dartmouth, junior Josh Kennedy (25:43) again showed he is on track, finishing right on Lacey's heels in third place.
"I feel great," he said. "I definitely feel in good shape and I feel like I am running as well as I did last year. My plan was to go steady the first two miles and then start to speed up and pass people the last three."
Fortin (26:27) and senior Kyle Doran (26:29) finished 13th and 14th, respectively, while junior Justin Chung (26:32) rounded out the Tufts top five, finishing 16th overall.
While the Jumbos had to deal with rough weather last week, they were treated to a beautiful day at Grafton as the bright sun and cool weather made for perfect running conditions.
"It was definitely a gorgeous day to run," Barron said. "I mean, you can't get better than 60 degrees and sunny."
But Barron believed that the weather served to compensate for Grafton's challenging course.
"The course at Grafton is definitely more difficult than the one at Dartmouth," he said. "We tend to see times slow down by about 60 to 90 seconds."
While the course might have been more difficult, it did not alter the squad's racing strategy as the Jumbos continue to ease into performing at their maximum potential.
"We are still easing them in slightly," Barron said. "I want to have them running at their best by the All-New England Championships since those involve Div. I schools. We just want them running steady the first few miles and then passing people and finishing the race strong. The good thing is the team is running together and working well with each other."
Kennedy agreed that his coach's strategy is the way to go.
"At first we were running steady the first three miles, and then we moved to running steady for two and a half, and now we are down to two miles. We are definitely starting to pick up the pace," he said.
Before looking towards All-New England's, however, the Jumbos must shift their focus on a visit this weekend to Keene State. The meet will provide a chance for redemption as the Owls edged the Jumbos at Umass-Dartmouth. Barron should have all his top runners available with the exception of sophomore Chris Kantos, who sat out the Jumbo Invitational and is unlikely to race this weekend due to injury.
"You never want to rush an injury because a setback is the worst thing that could happen," Barron said. "When Chris comes back, we want him to come back for good. We have no expectations for him and are simply going to let him come back when his is full and ready to. He put in a lot of good work this summer and I know that he won't lose his fitness just because he missed ten days of running."
As Tufts runners continue to increase the tempo as the season wears on, Barron expects only better and better results.
"If people think this is the best Tufts can do, they've got another thing coming to them," he said.
