Cat Beck and Katy O'Brien, women's cross country
For women's cross country, it was all about the one-two punch.
Juniors Katy O'Brien and tri-captain Cat Beck were the top two finishers of a women's cross country team that cast off the demons of last year's 22nd-place Nationals finish with a No. 5 showing at West Chester, Ohio on Saturday. The fifth-place finish at the 2006 NCAA Div. III Championship was the program's best ever, and the pair's efforts netted them All-American honors at the event.
O'Brien had the best individual performance on the day for Tufts, racing to 16th place overall with 23:31 in the 6K, exactly one minute behind the event's individual champion. Beck finished thirteen seconds behind O'Brien for a time of 23:44, good for 30th place.
O'Brien and Beck's performances capped a tremendous season on the cross country team for both runners. Just one week earlier, both earned slots on the 2006 NESCAC First Team after O'Brien and Beck took the top two overall spots in the field at the NESCAC Championships, where the Jumbos finished second behind Amherst, which finished its storybook season with a second-place finish at Nationals on Saturday.
Jon Pierce, men's basketball
Paul isn't the only Pierce leading a Boston hoops team to victory (we can say this because the Celtics actually won a game this weekend).
Sophomore forward Jon Pierce, in his first collegiate basketball game since transferring to Tufts from Drew University this fall, offered a glimpse at his potential to help Jumbo basketball in a major way. Coming off the bench, Pierce recorded the best Tufts debut in recent memory, leading all scorers in the Jumbos' comeback win over Lasell with 26 points.
Pierce was the first man off the bench in the Lasell game, taking the floor just three minutes after the opening tip, when senior tri-captain Brian Fitzgerald ran into early foul trouble. He immediately recorded his first steal in a Tufts uniform and fed junior forward Jake Weitzen for a three-pointer to even the score at eight. Pierce went on to rack up 13 points in the first half, including a perfect 2-for-2 from beyond the arc.
He finished with a game-high 26 points and went on to follow that up with a 10-point performance in the Jumbos' 95-84 loss to Rhode Island College the following afternoon. Pierce, who also tallied a total of 13 rebounds on the weekend, was one of two Jumbos named to the Tufts Tip-Off All-Tournament team, alongside senior tri-captain Brian Kumf.
