Knowing it will have to upset at least one regional foe at the Nov. 15 New England Championships to earn a team bid to Nationals, the women's cross country squad entered Saturday's NESCAC Championships, hosted by Bates, looking to do just that.
The results appeared promising. Backed by sophomore Stephanie McNamara, who tucked a second-place finish under her belt to add to her impressive season résumé, the Jumbos knocked off national No. 10 Amherst, tallying 139 points to edge the Lord Jeffs by four.
"We were very happy that we were able to beat Amherst," freshman Anya Price said. "They might have had an off day yesterday, but that still gives us the confidence that we can beat them in two weeks, and I think that's really an important confidence boost -- not only that we can beat them, but they're looking at the results, too, and they're thinking 'Oh, Tufts is putting together a pretty strong team.'"
Colby, whom the Jumbos are also eyeing as a potential team to beat, finished third with 125, while the league's big guns -- Williams and Middlebury, ranked third and fifth in the country respectively -- each took 48 points to tie for the NESCAC title.
"We're going to have to really go for Colby," McNamara said. "They have something that we don't right now -- that depth that we don't have -- but I don't think it's impossible. I think Middlebury and Williams are really untouchable right now, but [with] Colby it's definitely a possibility that we'll be able to get them two weeks from now."
McNamara was the highlight for the team once again, falling only to Amherst senior quad-captain Elise Tropiano, who was the only NESCAC rival to beat her two weeks ago at All-New England Championships, with a 22:17 clip. Although Tropiano trumped McNamara's time by 28 seconds, pulling in a 21:49 to set the course record in its women's 6k debut, the two were neck-and-neck through much of the race.
"My strategy was to go out easy and let her take the lead, and I think she had the exact same strategy as I did," McNamara said. "In the first almost two miles, we really were just kind of sitting there. No one really knew what to do. She kept surging on me a little bit and just playing games seeing if I would take the lead, and I didn't ... At like two miles she started to make a move and I just went with her. We broke away from the pack at that point ... [We] really started to pick it up a lot in the last two miles."
But after gunning for two miles, McNamara was unable to keep up with Tropiano as she made her final push.
"I just couldn't respond after running two miles extremely hard," McNamara said. "I was happy I was able to stay with her for most of it. I think I learned a lot from this race. Two weeks from now I'm going to go out not ridiculously fast, but also I learned that going out in a six-minute mile isn't great. It really just wears you down the rest of the race."
Sophomore Amy Wilfert, who has been key for the Jumbos this season in the No. 2 spot, also ran an outstanding race, with her time of 22:36 narrowly missing the top 10 and securing her an 11th-place showing.
"They've been good for the whole team," Price said of McNamara and Wilfert. "Not only do they work themselves so hard -- they're out there pushing themselves to the best of their abilities -- but they focus so much on trying to use their ability to try to create a more cohesive team, which is really important."
But while the Jumbos had managed to shave some time off the gap that falls between Wilfert and their No. 3 runner, senior Amy Hopkins, in recent races, this week Hopkins finished over a minute behind Wilfert, running a 23:55 that earned her 43rd place. Behind her were Price in 50th and junior Lisa Picascia in 55th rounding out the Jumbo scoring.
"Amy Hopkins has been sick recently, and I think that's what really ended up hurting her in this race," McNamara said. "She's a much better runner than she performed this weekend. I still think she's got a big race waiting in her that's going to come out, and hopefully it's going to come out at Regionals. I'm not disappointed in her at all that maybe she had an off day."
With two weeks to go until Regionals, Tufts will need to make up that ground if it hopes to return to Nationals as a team after sitting last year out.
"I feel like we're improving on trying to get our packs together," Price said. "In a couple of weeks, we just need to take that and be more aggressive with it. If we have that real aggression, I think it will really come out in two weeks when it's the Div. IIIs and we all know that Nationals is on the line. I think we need to take that adrenaline and use what we've done so far. When we put all those factors together, hopefully we'll have a great performance."
