The men's cross country team continued its gradual ascent into the ranks of the NESCAC elite on Sunday, taking third at the championships at Wickham Park in Manchester, Conn. thanks in large part to the efforts of senior Jesse Faller.
Faller, who placed fourth in the five-mile race with a time of 26:21, helped the Jumbos to their best finish at the NESCAC race since 2005, when they won the event. In the past three seasons, Tufts finished no better than fourth place.
"I thought the team ran really well," Faller said. "Everyone stepped up and ran a hard race, and it shows in the results.
Hamilton senior Peter Kosgei won the race for the third straight year in 25:40, 17 seconds ahead of the runner-up, Williams senior Edgar Kosgey, who also finished in that spot last year.
"[My usual strategy going into a race] is pretty much to stick up with the lead pack and hang on to the leaders as a long as I can," Faller said. "I think that strategy changes a little bit when there's someone like Peter Kosgei in the race. I expected him to take off at some point, but the leaders took off earlier than I expected, and I found myself running in seventh for most of the race instead of where I was hoping to finish, higher up."
Williams took first place in the meet for the fourth consecutive year, scoring 40 points. While the Ephs were far ahead of the competition, the race for second place was much closer, as Amherst's mark of 88 points was just two points ahead of the Jumbos' total.
"I think this really was a day where the whole program, top to bottom, ran aggressively and with heart," senior captain Nick Welch said. "Both of our freshmen, Kyle [Marks] and Matt [Rand], just ran great races."
Marks and Rand were the first freshmen in the NESCAC to finish, placing second and third for the Jumbos in their first conference championship. Marks, who won the NESCAC Rookie of the Year award with his high finish, took 16th in the race in 27:15, while Rand rang in at 18th in 27:20. The two were the only freshmen to finish the race in the top 20.
"We knew going in that it was going to be tough to move up place-wise in the middle miles so we took it out fast and made sure we were in good position at the mile mark," Rand said. "Kyle caught me at about the four-mile mark, and we worked together the rest of the race, and that was definitely helpful having someone to run with. I think that this was probably [Kyle's] best race of the year. He went out really hard, and he held on strong."
"Kyle and Matt had spectacular races," Faller added. "For their first NESCACs race, to finish as high as they did is outstanding, and I think they both ran very smart but also very fearlessly. Kyle was the top freshman, which is certainly something to be proud of."
Junior Jeff Ragazzini was the next-highest Tufts finisher, just six seconds behind Rand, crossing the line in 27:26 to take 21st place. Ragazzini's end result was a vast improvement from his 58th-place mark in last year's race, though he ran the five-mile course in the exact same amount of time.
Welch, who finished in 27:44 for 32nd place, rounded off the Jumbos' scorers. Welch was recovering from an injury and competing in his first race since the Conn. College Invitational five weeks ago.
"It was good to be back racing with the guys, and I think you have to be a little bit forgiving with yourself when you've had to deal with an injury and some time off," Welch said. "It was definitely a bit of a shock to the system to be back at the intensity of not just any race, but a championship race … but I do think it will get a lot better, especially at Regionals in two weeks."
Next up for the Jumbos is Saturday's ECAC Championship at Williams College. However, the top seven runners will rest for the NCAA New England Championships on Nov. 14, to be held at Southern Maine.
"We had a solid performance at NESCACs, but I think our team is going to be looking even better at Regionals," Faller said. "I think our team as a whole is going to be stronger, and we're definitely going to need to step it up again at regionals with all of the NESCAC teams coming back and throwing in a few other teams from around New England. It should be a very competitive race, but I think Tufts has enough strength and enough depth to meet the challenge."
The strength of competition in last Sunday's meet should give the Jumbos the edge they need to be competitive in the future postseason races.
"I think the [NESCAC] has definitely gotten stronger during the four years that I've been here, but it's good for us because we now have it confirmed that we can run with the top teams in our conference," Welch said. "Those top teams are also the top teams in New England, so I hope that finishing where we did and with the kind of race that we had, which was gutsy and aggressive but that we all still feel we can improve on, that ought to make us very confident going into Regionals."
