"Almost, but not quite" was the theme for the women's track team at the New England Div. III Championships at Bowdoin on Saturday. Freshman Nakeisha Jones was the only Jumbo athlete to register a win in her event, and despite a bevy of high finishes from her teammates, it was close but not quite enough for Tufts (108 points) to match Williams (118) and MIT (134) and defend its New England title.
"I think that all of us tried our best performance-wise," junior Logan Crane said. "We gave it whatever we could. It's disappointing that we didn't come in first -- we were really hoping that we could defend our title -- but MIT put up a great fight. It happens and we just have to learn from the mistakes we made. But overall I think we put in a really good team effort."
"A lot of things didn't go well for us," sophomore Steph McNamara said. "Some things were out of our control, others weren't. I feel it wasn't our optimum performance, but considering we had an off day I don't think it's that bad. But it is disappointing because if we had a little better day we would've done much better. You win some and lose some; we learned a lesson from yesterday."
The lone event champion for Tufts was Jones, whose jump of 38'8 1/4'' was not only good for first place, but also marks the second time this season that she has surpassed the NCAA automatic qualifying mark in the event (38'6 3/4'').
"It feels good," Jones said. "I just wanted to get a win for the team because I knew we needed the points. I wanted to do my part and contribute."
However, Jones said that her accomplishment was bittersweet in the context of the Jumbos' third-place finish.
"I guess we all expected to win or really wanted to win," she said. "We all did well, but we all know there are places we could've improved or done a bit better, so I guess that's the worst part: coming in third when if we did our best we could have and should have come in first."
Still, Tufts had a number of positives to take out of the meet, as many Jumbos recorded quality performances and several scored in multiple events. The most notable to do so was senior tri-captain Paula Dormon, who scored in both the shot put and weight throw. While it was Dormon's third-place distance of 40'3 1/4" in the shot put that got the team more points, her sixth-place heave in the weight throw might have been more impressive, as her distance of 47'3 3/4" was almost a foot longer than Tufts' previous school record.
"Obviously it would've been sweeter if it was last year [when the team came in first]," Dormon said, "but at the same time it was a big accomplishment for me. My teammates were really proud of me and I was really excited a lot about it."
Crane also placed in the top eight in multiple events, taking second in the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.35 seconds, third in the 200 meter with a time of 25.88 seconds and sixth in the long jump with a distance of 16'10 3/4''. Nevertheless, she was not satisfied with her performance.
"I was disappointed not in the places, but in the times," said Crane, who was New England Champion in the 55-meter dash and long jump last year. "It's nice to win an event, but right now I'm also trying to get my best performances so I can make nationals. I didn't get much of a break [between events], so my long jump was shot. If the schedule had permitted, I think I would've done better, but I have to take what I did and hope to do better in the next two meets."
In the distance events, McNamara and fellow sophomore Amy Wilfert made impacts as usual. McNamara took second in the 5000 meter run with a time of 17:37.18 and fifth in the 1000 meters with a mark of 3:03.00, while Wilfert hit an NCAA provisional qualifying mark and finished third in the mile run with a time of 5:04.15 and also finished right behind McNamara with a time of 3:03.92 to take sixth in the 1000 meters.
"It was a tough meet because we had so many people trying to double and triple in events," said McNamara, who won the 1000 meter run last year. "I was in the 5k first and came back a couple hours later and ran the 1000 [meter]. It was a hard double and I know others were doing doubles and triples. I got points for our team so I was happy overall with that; it was a team day."
As expected, Jones was not the only freshman to contribute to the Jumbos' efforts, as Dayorsha Collins' high jump mark of 5'2 1/4" was good for second and was a mere two inches short of the first place finisher. Classmate Heather Theiss also had a solid day, recording a best mark of 10'8" in the pole vault to finish fourth.
Finally, the Jumbos saw a number of good performances in the relays, including a 4:04.25 time good for second place by the 4x4 crew consisting of freshman Kayley Pettoruto, sophomore Andrea Caruth, classmate Kaylee Maykranz and senior Halsey Stebbins. Tufts finished third in two other relay events, as junior Andrea Ferri, Crane, senior Jenn Johnson and Stebbins finished the 4x200 in 1:47.41, and first-year Amanda Parker, senior tri-captain Jackie Ferry, sophomore Jen Yih and Wilfert combined to record a time of 9:38.13 in the 4x8 relay.
Tufts will now look to the Open New England Championships next week, with ECACs and NCAAs just around the corner.
"Whoever has qualified for Open New Englands is looking to that next weekend, but a bunch of people will be off and waiting for ECACs," McNamara said. "If you qualified for ECACs, which will be at Tufts, you probably run there, but if you qualified for nationals you probably take the week off. It depends on what you qualified for individually."
"Everyone's pumped for next weekend though," McNamara continued. "We're going for a great time in the DMR in order to get us into nationals, and others will be doing open events so that's really exciting. It's always great meet."
