The news is in: NESCAC women remain the class of Div. III cross country after a competitive September.
2005 was a banner year for NESCAC cross country. The women's teams showcased the dominance that characterized their recent seasons, advancing five teams, including Tufts, to the NCAA Championships for the fourth straight year.
And for the third straight year, at least three of those teams, Williams, Colby, and Amherst in 2005, ran well enough at Nationals to place in the top ten.
The NESCAC's 2005 success did not go unnoticed by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), which ranked six NESCAC teams in its women's preseason top-35 poll on Sept. 5, including Amherst and Williams in the third and fourth spots, respectively.
"The NESCAC is the strongest conference in Div. III," Colby women's coach Debra Aitken said. "Nationally, we have gained respect. Every year I think this conference can't get any more competitive, but this year it is even stronger than last year."
Aitken's assessment of the NESCAC's competitiveness proved true at the Sept. 9 Conn. College Invitational, when the NESCAC outperformed strong out-of-conference opponents. Behind junior tri-captain Catherine Beck's course-record time of 18:06, Tufts won the meet, clocking in ahead of Stonehill, a ranked Div. II team, and TCNJ, ranked sixth in Div. III polls.
"It was a pretty big win for us," said Tufts women's coach Kristen Morwick, whose team's September success has catapulted it to fifth in the Sept. 26 USTFCCCA poll. "It's a big boost to beat some of the better teams in the country."
The following Saturday, at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational, the NESCAC once again exhibited its supremacy over non-conference Div. III foes. Racing in a sizeable field of 33 teams, all five participating NESCAC schools placed in the top ten, including a sweep of the top three positions by Amherst, Colby, and Tufts.
In addition, four of the top five individual times were recorded by NESCAC runners, even with two of Tufts' top runners, juniors Catherine Beck and Katy O'Brien, taking the meet off.
While many critics of collegiate athletics cite a conflict between good sports and good grades, NESCAC's success against other Div. III competition may be linked to scholastic reputation.
"The combination of athletics and academics in the NESCAC attracts kids who are very motivated and committed to what they do," Amherst coach Erik Nedeau said. "And so it's no surprise that NESCAC schools are always at the head of the pack at such large meets."
Others point backward in history to the league's early willingness to embrace women's athletics.
"The NESCAC was at the forefront of bringing in women's sports," Williams coach Peter Farewell said. "It's not like in men's schools where sports have been established everywhere for a long time. By establishing itself early, women's NESCAC teams have been able to achieve the success you see today."
Whatever the reason, the undeniable strength of NESCAC women's competition has created fierce intra-conference battles. At last Saturday's Purple Valley Classic, Williams held onto second place over Middlebury by only three points.
On the same afternoon, when Tufts hosted a race in Grafton, the home Jumbos avenged their Sept. 16 loss to Amherst at UMass-Dartmouth by topping the Lord Jeffs, but by only five points. The competitiveness of this weekend's races and the inconsistencies in week-to-week outcomes, with Amherst and Tufts trading victories for the past three weeks, have shown that no one team has separated itself as the NESCAC favorite at this early juncture.
These September meets have just served as a tune-up to even more crucial October matchups. On Oct. 28, Amherst, Tufts, Colby, Williams, and Middlebury, all currently in the top-15 of the USTFCCA coaches' poll, will travel to Connecticut College for the NESCAC Cross Country Championships, hoping to become candidates for Nationals.
The teams that do advance to Nationals will certainly be well-prepared to perform, considering the regular season tune-ups they have faced.
"It helps your confidence when, week-in and week-out, you are able to compete with the competition the NESCAC provides," Nedeau added. "When you get to Nationals, it's not a shock to be around such good teams."
