The rough weather didn't faze the men's cross country team as it eased into a second place finish out of the pack of 33 at the annual UMass-Dartmouth Invitational on Saturday afternoon on the mud-filled course in North, Dartmouth, Ma.
Tufts came very close to winning the entire meet, finishing with 75 compiled points, only two more than first-place Keene State's 73. UMass-Lowell (115) finished a distant third while NESCAC foes Trinity (142) and Amherst (163) rounded off the top five finishers.
All eight Jumbo runners placed fairly well, with senior co-captain Matt Lacey leading the way. Lacey finished first out of Tufts' runners for the second consecutive meet, crossing the line eighth overall in the race (25:26), and third in the point total thanks to independent runners grabbing four of the top five spots.
Meanwhile, a welcome surprise for the team was seeing junior Josh Kennedy (25:31) running in fine form once again. He finished second for Tufts and 10th overall only a week after sitting out the Connecticut College Invitational due to some early-season fatigue.
"It was great to see Josh out there," Lacey said. "It was nice that he was running with me like we've been pretty much running together for the past two years. So it felt normal to have him out there."
"We weren't worried at all," coach Ethan Barron added. "He just took a week off to rest and we knew he'd come back fine."
Senior Kyle Doran (25:52) finished strong at 18th overall while junior Justin Chung (26:07) and senior Neil Orfield (26:16) rounded out Tufts' top five at 31st and 37th, respectively.
After Barron implemented a 5:30 average mile time over the first half of last week's race, many of the runners raced to quicker times on Saturday. Still, while the Jumbos strategically weren't running their hardest, the second place finish was gratifying for the team.
Lacey was quick to point out, however, that the second place finish still wasn't indicative of the team's potential.
"It was a good race, but we can't judge ourselves based on the other teams we were racing because our goal was not to win," Lacey said. "However, it's nice to know that we still got second place even though we weren't trying. It lets us know that we could have won the whole thing if we wanted to."
Additionally, while the rain held off on Saturday, much of the field was covered in mud, which slowed runners down at times. Chung fell three times while senior co-captain Matt Fortin, who finished 45th overall with a time of 26:28, also went down twice.
"It was a mess out there," Barron said. "But guys got up and kept going and handled it well."
Sophomores Dave Sorenson (26:37) and Brendan McNeish (27:10) finished 58th and 84th overall to round out the team effort. Classmate Chris Kantos sat out his second consecutive race as he still is experiencing some discomfort with a tight hip.
"The sophomores have been doing fine, but the body takes awhile to develop as far as peak long-distance running is concerned," Barron said. "We want them to work hard, stay healthy, and study, and any contribution they make on top of that is great. We have the talent in the senior and junior classes where we don't have to put pressure on the younger guys."
Tufts looks to build on its solid start to the season on Saturday when it hosts the annual Jumbo Invitational at home on the Grafton course. The field will be packed with quality competition in the form of Div. II Bentley, UMass-Lowell's B Team, Springfield, Trinity, Amherst, Wesleyan, Bates, and MIT.
Barron is keeping mum on the Jumbos' race strategy. So far this season Tufts has run fairly conservatively, but it has also competed hard in the past in Grafton, defending its own course and finishing first or second at the race there every year since 1999.
