Men's Cross Country | Faller grabs fourth individually to lead team in first race of the fall

    The men's cross country team started the year off on a positive note over the weekend, as the team notched a fourth-place finish out of 11 teams at the Trinity Invitational Saturday.
    Although it marked just the first race of the cross country season, the meet did carry some significance as runners look to get back into competition and evaluate what they need to work on for the rest of the season.
    "There's always things to work on after the first meet of the year," junior co-captain Nick Welch said. "But after that first race, everyone feels a little better, so it was a good start to the season overall."
    The host Bantams performed well on their course, as they took first, second and fifth places individually to earn 51 points. However, UMass Lowell showed its depth by taking the eighth through 12th places, earning 50 points to barely edge out Trinity for first place. Keene State took third with 67 points, while Tufts (80) and Stonehill (85) rounded out the top five.
    Junior Jesse Faller led the Jumbos with a fourth-place finish, coming in 20 seconds behind the leader, Bantam senior Michael Burnstein, at 16:41.
    "It's the first competitive meet of the season, so it's kind of a gauge meet," Faller said. "I was happy with my race; this was a good meet to come back to competition."
    The Jumbos also benefited from a solid performance on the part of Welch, who clocked in at 16:55 to finish 15th.
    "I was pleased overall, but it certainly leaves me feeling like there are things to be done, worked on, improved on," Welch said. "It shows that everything's not perfect on day one, but you keep working at it. It was a fine start but it shows that I and the team have a ways to go before we get to were we want to be."
    With the graduation of senior captains Dave Sorensen (E '08) and Chris Kantos (E '08) last year, the Jumbos will be counting on strong performances from both Faller and Welch throughout the year. Additionally, they will continue to look for younger racers to step up and fill out the remainder of the scoring positions. After Saturday's race, it looked like the squad's depth wouldn't be much of a concern, as sophomores Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot and Jeff Ragazzini finished 17th and 18th, respectively.
    "They both ran awesome races," Welch said. "Honestly, for me to turn around at the finish and see both of them so close rounding out our top four was very encouraging. I think we're already starting to see the sort of jump that we hoped they would make after freshman year. It was very encouraging to see both of them run like they did."
    "Obviously I was very proud of them today for the way that they ran," Faller added. "They both ran very tough races ... and I think it shows that they're ready to be on the varsity team. It bodes well for the future that we have a couple sophomores placing well and stepping up to the varsity seven."
    Junior Ryan Lena rounded out the scorers for Tufts, coming in at 26th with a time of 17:15.
    Now the Jumbos look ahead to the Tufts Invitational, their only home meet of the year, Saturday at the university's Veterinary School campus in Grafton, Mass. While racing well on the team's home course remains an important goal, it still serves as an early meet that is part of a longer-term goal for the season.
    "On some level, it has importance for us as our home meet, and we never want to not represent our program, and our home course, well," Welch said. "On the other hand, like Trinity, [and] like many of these first meets in September, it's another developmental meet. It's still a chance for freshmen to get a race under their belt and get more used to the style of collegiate cross country. Grafton is a tough course, so it should be a challenging race, but I think it'll be a good day."