The Men's cross country team finished fifth out of 24 teams on Saturday at the Connecticut College Invite.
The College of New Jersey won the meet by accumulating 74 points. Trinity (77) placed a close second, followed by Southern Connecticut (80), Conn. College (145), and Tufts (173).
The Jumbos' top five runners crossed the finish line within 30 seconds of each other. Senior co-captain Matt Lacey led the way for the Jumbos, finishing 25th overall with a time of 25:47. Junior Justin Chung (26:01) and senior Kyle Doran (26:02) finished 35th and 36th, respectively. Senior Neil Orfield (26:08) finished 41st overall while senior co-captain Matt Fortin (26:16) placed 46th.
Tufts could have fared better, but interim head coach Ethan Barron had his Jumbos run at a 5:30 mile pace over the first three miles.
"We took it pretty easy," Orfield said. "It's encouraging to finish fifth when you're not racing your hardest."
The planned three miles at an easy pace became two miles. "Lacey got a little jumpy and started to take off," Orfield said.
The slow opening pace meant the school's runners were near the bottom of the pack, but then they started to gain ground. "I was with Justin and there were a few spots on the course where it was too narrow to pass people, which was frustrating but once it opened up we were blowing by people."
The Jumbos are starting the season running controlled races, and then plan to increase speed and finish strong in November. The captains said they don't expect this weekend's UMass-Dartmouth Invitational to play out much differently from the Conn. College. Invite.
"It's hard sometimes because I want to do as well as possible every time," Lacey said. "But I know it's more important to bring everyone along and work on running together. We look at the early races as a progression, as pieces of the puzzle. It will be worth it later when we go out there and beat those teams that are finishing ahead of us now."
Sophomore Brendan McNeish and Dave Sorenson rounded out the Jumbos' top seven runners. McNeish finished 74th overall in a time of 26:45, while Sorensen was 82nd with 26:53.
Junior Josh Kennedy and sophomore Chris Kantos both sat out the race. Kennedy was feeling fatigued while Kantos had a tight hip.
"We're not really worried about them," Lacey said. "We've been going very hard during the week and Kennedy didn't feel like he had recovered that well. He's fine; he'll be racing next week and hopefully Kantos will too."
