After finishing eighth in the NESCAC Championships last year, the men's cross country team bounced back to finish fifth in Div. III Regional Championships against a wider field of competition.
Although this year's fifth-place NESCACs finish was not quite as disappointing, the team will similarly hope to improve at Regionals in order to improve its chances for an NCAA Championship bid.
"We want to do better," senior tri-captain Dave Sorensen said. "We definitely want to improve our finish and be in the top three or four to get that national berth."
The Jumbos will have to conquer a course and environment much different from that of NESCACs, as Conn. College will host the NCAA New England Championships. The Jumbos have yet to visit the course at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, Conn. this season, but nevertheless, they have reason to believe they can still be successful at the course.
"It's a really flat course; there are no hills to speak of," Sorensen said. "In that sense, it will be different from any course that we've run so far this year. The majority of the team has run there in the past - we ran there last year. We all have an idea of what the course is like, and since it's flat, it's not too scary to anyone."
The Jumbos' knowledge of the course may play into their hands in the early going, as some of their main troubles at NESCACs were a product of an initial hesitancy that forced them to play catch-up the rest of the race.
"We were a little buried off the line and everyone made the most of a difficult situation," coach Ethan Barron wrote in an e-mail to the Daily. "From the 1-mile marker on, every athlete passed about 30 or more competitors. I am entirely confident in everyone's fitness and abilities to race. We just need to put our best effort out there."
Still, the team managed to turn in an impressive performance in the end and anticipates a similar outcome this time around.
"It's just a matter of having the confidence that we know we can get out and we can run that pace right from the start," senior tri-captain Chris Kantos said. "I know a lot of guys, including myself, have been eager to get off to an easier start, but with the championship meets we need to get a better, faster start. The first mile will be crucial for us."
Even if they improve in the first mile, the Jumbos will still have focus on running together and pacing themselves throughout the race.
"We really are trying to execute what we've been doing all year - running in a pack and closing well," Sorensen said. "At NESCACs, we closed well that last mile, but I don't think we ran as well as a pack as we could have. I think we need to push each other in order to finish where we want to."
As far as tomorrow's race goes, Williams, which won the NESCAC Championship last year, is the heavy favorite. On the other hand, while Amherst, Bowdoin and Trinity all finished ahead of Tufts at this year's NESCACs, all three teams seem to be within reach. All four schools were within 40 points of each other in the team standings at Williams Oct. 27. MIT, the University of Southern Maine, and Keene State could also all factor into the top few spots.
"I am very confident in these men and in their abilities to race," Barron said. "We plan to put our best race out there. We can't predict how everyone else in the region will run, but we can take care of ourselves."
