Following a schedule change that sent the men's cross country team to a race in Franklin Park in Boston instead of the Conn. College Invitational, junior Jesse Faller continued to show his mettle as one of the top Jumbo runners, winning the Codfish Bowl Saturday.
In a field of 155 runners, Faller crossed the line of the 8,000-meter race in 25:42. The junior's effort led Tufts to a second-place finish among seventeen teams, as the Jumbos tallied 76 points behind winner Greater Boston Track Club's 49 points.
"It was a solid day; Jesse ran amazing," junior co-captain Nick Welch said. "He moved up throughout the race and ended up winning the whole thing looking effortless. I think it's a great indication of where he's at."
"Tactically it went well because I got out conservatively and then moved up throughout the rest of the race," Faller said.
Welch crossed the line in fourth place with a time of 25:54. Junior Ryan Lena was the third runner for the Jumbos, finishing 23rd overall with a time of 26:46. Sophomores Jeff Ragazzini and Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot rounded off the scorers for Tufts, crossing the line 29th and 30th and finishing in 26:59 and 27:08, respectively.
"I thought the team ran very well," coach Ethan Barron said. "They stuck to strategy, and it seemed to be a good early-season effort. I was really happy to see almost all of our top runners in control and relaxed for the first half of the race.
"It was good to see our second pack stuck together for a good chunk of the race," he continued. "I thought that some of the rest of the pack outside of our top seven raced very intelligently."
The Codfish Bowl was the first 8k race of the season for the Jumbo varsity squad, which had focused primarily on 5,000 meter events, so coming into the competition questions remained about their ability to run well at the longer distance.
"It was a solid race, and I think it was a sign that our training is going in the right direction," Welch said. "Since it was our first 8k, the idea was mostly to get out hard, see where we were in the field, and more or less run steady and try to move up throughout the race. Mostly we just wanted a chance to go out hard and put in a solid effort to gauge our fitness at this point in the year.
"Right now we are where we need to be," he continued. "We know that the times are going to keep dropping as the season goes on, and we'll be continuing to improve as the weeks go on. This meet wraps a big month or so of training, and we are right where we need to be."
The team was scheduled to run at the Conn. College Invitational Saturday, but because of heavy rain, the Jumbos made a last-minute entry into the Codfish Bowl.
"The change of venue was inconsequential," Welch said. "Our goals for the weekend had less to do with who we were racing and much more to do with how we were racing."
The Codfish Bowl was host to a wider range of teams than those Tufts normally competes against.
"This race actually had more non-Div. III teams," Barron said. "On some level, the competition was a little higher. We would have seen a few more of the Div. III teams that we compete against at the end of the year at Conn., but there were still some good teams there this weekend."
The team now has two full weeks to prepare for the All New England Championships, which will be held back at Franklin Park on Oct. 11. The Jumbos will face a much broader array of talent, as they will compete against top New England runners from Div. I, II and III schools.
"[All New Englands] is going to be a completely different race just because there are going to be so many more people in the front of the race," Barron said. "I think that [a much larger field of runners] will increase the intensity, which will give the guys another gear that they might not have had at a sloppy wet Franklin Park this weekend."
"The field on Saturday was much smaller than the race will be in two weeks, where we will be going up against something like over 300 runners from the best schools in all of New England from all divisions, so the dynamics of the race will be different," Welch added
The Jumbos also view the upcoming race as a great opportunity, especially for the younger runners, to become accustomed to running at a higher, more intense level of competition.
"In a bigger race like that you have to kind of get out harder and put yourself in a good position earlier because it's difficult to move up with so many guys around you," Welch said. "A race like New Englands is a really good chance for us, especially for the younger guys on the team, to get some big race experience because that is what it is going to be like later in the season at Regionals and Nationals."
