For the first time since 1999, the Jumbos will be headed as a team to the NCAA Championships next weekend. Saturday's fifth place finish at the Div. III New England Regionals on Saturday at Springfield guaranteed Tufts a national championship berth as four runners finished with All-Region honors.
"What was really cool about yesterday's race was that it was the team effort that made us go [to Nationals]," senior tri-captain Becca Ades said. "It wasn't an individual effort, which is really what the sport is about."
Coach Kristen Morwick was happy to earn a national championship berth, though she conceded that her team could have run better.
"They were tough and they hung in there," Morwick said. "It wasn't great, but it was good enough."
The Jumbos came up seven points short of a bid last season at Regionals. This year the team finished comfortably in fifth place with 145 points, beating out sixth-place Wellesley by 50 points.
"We hadn't quite put it all together yet so there were nerves going into the meet about qualifying," Morwick said. "Whatever we do next week is gravy."
"We're really excited about [qualifying]," sophomore Katy O'Brien said. "It feels really good to make it this year after such a disappointment last year."
Sophomore Catherine Beck, the team's most consistent runner this season, led the Jumbos again, covering the 6k course at Veterans Golf Course in 22:27 for 14th place. The Jumbos' next three runners took 27th, 28th and 29th.
Ades went out characteristically fast, but fell back as the race progressed. Freshman Evelyn Sharkey moved up with Ades and the two were later joined by O'Brien, who helped her two teammates through the last mile of the race. O'Brien took 27th (22:57), with Ades (22:58) and Sharkey (22:59) right behind as the three hit the final stretch running as a team. O'Brien's move picked up the other two runners and led the team to a strong showing.
"I more or less went into it thinking I would run my own race," O'Brien said. "If I happened to be running near my teammates, I would just work with them and it ended up working out that way."
Ades mentioned to Morwick that O'Brien running up alongside of her after she fell back was the key to her race.
"If we had lost [Ades] at that point, who knows what would have happened," Morwick said. "[O'Brien] really kind of pulled that whole group with her."
In her first 6k race, Sharkey managed to finish as the team's fourth runner. Throughout the season, the freshman has gradually moved up the ranks on the team to compete for one of the top three spots on the varsity squad.
"I thought she did great," O'Brien said. "It's awesome for her to come in as a freshman and have such an impact on the team."
Junior Raquel Morgan took 47th (23:25) to round out the team's scoring. Freshman Katie Rizzolo (73rd, 23:52) and junior Sarah Crispin (108th, 24:38) were sixth and seventh for the Jumbos. Crispin has battled bronchitis over the past few weeks and may have to sit out of next week's championship race.
The giant pack at the start of the race set a faster pace for the first mile, which made for some tired legs later in the race. Morgan, who usually finishes higher for the team, was one of the runners who had some trouble off the line.
"Every single person on the team said 'We had trouble getting out.'" Morwick said. "You get sucked into the pack and kind of can't move."
Predictably, the four teams in front of Tufts were all NESCAC schools as Williams took first, followed by Colby, Amherst and Middlebury. Williams outdistanced the rest of the field, putting its five scoring runners inside the top 25 overall and accumulating an astounding 48 points for a meet that included 41 teams.
"They're the No. 1 team in the country right now," Ades said. "That's kind of to be expected. Since we've been running with them all season, I think that shows we can race some of these teams on national level because we've been racing against them all the time in NESCAC."
Now the team will head out to Ohio-Wesleyan to face the best teams in the nation in the NCAA Championships. Strategy will be integral to success in such a large race.
"The good teams really work together well at Nationals," Ades said, who will make her third trip to Nationals after two individual appearances. "You have to know where everybody is on the team and bring people with you because it's really easy to get lost in a big race like that. I think we really showed that we can work together as team, even though it wasn't everybody's best race performance. I think the team came together well."
The NESCAC has routinely had success at the NCAA Championship. Last year, Williams and Middlebury took first and second places. The experience of racing against tough New England competition may give the Jumbos an edge at Nationals.
"We're all in good shape so hopefully if we just keep doing what we've been doing, we'll do well overall," O'Brien said.
