Saturday marked both an ending and a beginning for the men's cross country team. Taking on 40 teams from around New England in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championships, the Jumbos' "second seven" churned out a solid eighth-place finish, a step up from last year's ninth, and put all five of their scoring runners across the line within a minute of each other.
Held at Williams, the ECACs capped off the careers of the team's seniors and marked the culmination of an auspicious start for the younger members of the team.
Freshman Ryan Lena, in a performance that coach Ethan Barron described as "the best race of his collegiate 8K career," fought back from a fall in the first 250 meters to take the top spot on the team, placing 30th overall with a time of 27:19.
"After I tripped and fell, I had to jostle my way back up to the front," Lena said. "It took me about a mile to get back into it. Once you fall, you have to recover the mindset that you're going to do well despite that."
Junior Anyenda Inyagwa followed seven seconds behind Lena at 27:26, finishing in 35th place, second on the team. Senior Peter Goransson (27:48) and sophomore Dave Tilton (27:50) came in 52nd and 53rd in the race, respectively. Freshman Ben Silver (61st, 27:58) finished out the Tufts top five with senior Dan Sullivan (70th, 28:07) and sophomore Andrew Lee (108th, 28:53) bringing it home for the second seven.
"The guys fared well," Barron said. "Most of the New England, non-NESCAC teams that got ahead of us were racing their varsity teams, so it was their top seven against our second. However, they did a great job of closing the gap between the rest, and overcame a lot of other teams."
Competition within the NESCAC saw results similar to last week's conference championship, with Williams (31) scoring a breakaway victory over Amherst (126). Wesleyan (186) came in ahead of Tufts (231), though the points might have been closer had one of their top seven runners not opted to race at ECACs. The only reshuffle from last week was Tufts' placement ahead of Middlebury (269).
"Williams is a deep team, so there's little difference from their No. 6 runner to their 14th," Barron said. "They have a great program, but there is definitely competition for the best freshman class - between Williams, Amherst, and us."
Next season is already looking bright for the Jumbos, who have a large pool of maturing talent. The loss of eight seniors, including regular top five finishers Justin Chung and co-captain Josh Kennedy, will put a sizeable dent in the Tufts team, but 10 members of the class of 2010 are poised to reclaim Tufts' reputation for depth.
Making up the largest representation of any grade level on the Tufts roster, the freshmen, half of whom have already broken into the top 14 numerous times through the season, seem ready to take up the challenge of rebuilding.
"I'd say our potential for depth is high," Lena said. "I think this year's freshman class will lead the development of the team as we decided to rebuild over the next three years."
While the freshmen waiting in the wings have three years left, the day was bittersweet for the seniors. Although the Jumbos' top seven will continue at the New England Championship on Saturday, the second seven have ended their careers in Tufts uniform.
"It was a surprisingly sentimental day," Sullivan said. "I'm ready to move on to indoor track, but it was hard to run my last cross country race in the Tufts uniform. I was really pleased with my performance, though I didn't run my best time-wise. I just went in with the expectation to push hard and finish it out."
Although Tufts finds itself heading into Regionals near the bottom of the New England regional polls, the departing seniors are optimistic for the team's future.
"We're definitely looking to improve our depth to where we were my [freshman and sophomore] years," Goransson said. "We have a lot of incoming talent, so in two or three years, we could be back on top."
