After edging MIT at last weekend's All-New England Championships, the women's cross country team took third at Saturday's Plansky Invitational, falling 12 points short of the first-place Engineers.
But when it comes time for the NCAA New England Championship, now less than a month away, that lead could make all the difference.
With only the top two finishers automatically qualifying for Nationals, New England will likely receive three at-large bids. And with five New England teams currently ranked above them in the national standings, the No. 23 Jumbos will have to top Williams, Middlebury, Amherst or Colby -- all ranked within the top 20 -- or the Engineers, who currently co-occupy the No. 23 spot.
"[MIT is] looking at their team and looking at ours, and they're seeing huge potential for them to go to Nationals," sophomore Stephanie McNamara said. "They're really going to be going for it."
The Jumbos did manage to secure first place at the meet, with McNamara running to her third individual victory of the season. Her time of 22:17.7 won the race by over 20 seconds and beat out her mark from last year's NESCACs on the same course by over a minute.
"Right at the third mile, there's a pretty long hill," McNamara said of Williams' taxing course. "It's where the hill is positioned in the race that makes it so difficult. That last mile is hard to push through, and it's even harder to push yourself through when you're alone. I was happy with the way I performed; I'm really trying to learn how to focus and push myself through things."
Sophomore Amy Wilfert followed up with another strong showing in the No. 2 spot, clocking in at 23:15.4. But the Jumbos will need more than their one-two punch to keep them up MIT, whose top seven runners each finished within a minute of one another.
"The biggest difference between us and them is just that they have depth and, more importantly, they have people that are running in groups," McNamara said. "If one group gets ahead of one of our runners that sets us back a lot of places. That's something we're really trying to work on right now.
"What they basically want to do as a strategy is kind of get groups of runners to position themselves in spots between our runners to break up our runners more and create bigger gaps," McNamara continued. "If you're basically letting a group of MIT girls get ahead of you, it's not only going to distance you from your own teammates, but it's going to discourage you and set you back, so it's a combination of a couple of things."
Tufts received a big lift from senior Amy Hopkins, who ran for a personal record on the course to grab 10th place with a time of 23:33.1. The race marked a huge improvement for Hopkins, who finished over a minute behind Wilfert in last weekend's race but came in less than 18 seconds behind her teammate Saturday.
"Going into it, I had that focus of really just trying to stay up with [Wilfert]," Hopkins said. "I've been very close to her in workouts, and I had the confidence that I could definitely do it on the race course. My main focus was just going out strong and from the start sticking with her and kind of not letting the course bother me.
"It was nice this weekend to really make some improvements, especially going into the championship season where there will be bigger fields and more runners," Hopkins continued. "It's good to know that we're on kind of an upswing and that I can help be a part of that and influence everyone else to believe that everyone can push up just a little bit more to close the gaps."
Behind junior Lisa Picascia in fourth and freshman Anya Price in fifth, the Jumbos also got strong races from their No. 6 and No. 7 runners in their first 6k of the season. With a number of Tufts runners competing for the spots, coach Kristen Morwick had the opportunity to race several of her potential No. 6s and No. 7s together this weekend. Sophomore Elana Davidowitz and senior Veronica Jackson pulled through to take the spots, posting clips of 24:48.6 and 24:57.1 respectively.
"Pretty much four through seven, myself included, are going to be a big influence," Hopkins said. "The rest of us are really going to determine what happens in the end. It's definitely comforting to know that along with Elana and Veronica ... Anyone can really step up."
"I think those six and seven spots are going to have to work to close some gaps, but I think the girls that are going to be filling in have a lot of potential to improve, and I think they will," McNamara added.
The Jumbos will now get a break before heading to Bates for NESCAC Championships on Nov. 1. With five of New England's top six teams competing, the race will likely have a significant impact on at-large bid selection.
"[Earning a bid] is not going to be easy, but if we work hard in the next couple weeks and place well at NESCACs, if we [are competing for] an at-large bid, they'll really look at us and consider sending us as a team," McNamara said. "It's going to be interesting to see how things play out."
