Look out NESCAC, because the men's track and field team is gearing up to host the conference championships on Saturday at the Ding Dussault Track.
The Jumbos closed their regular season at the MIT Spring Invitational last Saturday, using the meet to get in the last of their qualifying marks and tune up for the start of the championship season.
Despite the poor weather and the relatively small field of competition, many Tufts athletes were able to register some strong performances.
"Overall, [the meet] went really well," senior quad-captain Nick Welch said. "There were a lot of guys that stepped up and got NESCAC qualifiers or qualifiers for New Englands. The weather wasn't ideal, but it really didn't seem like it affected us at all. I think everyone put that out of their mind and competed really well."
"It acted as two things: a chance for those who hadn't qualified for championship season to qualify and for those who had qualified to tune up their races and get ready for championship season," senior and fellow captain Andrew Longley added.
Senior Jesse Faller closed his regular season at the Princeton Invitational on Friday, coming through with an outstanding performance in the 5,000-meter race. Faller's first 5K of the outdoor season proved to his best yet, as he finished 10th in a field of 99 competitors. He was the first Div. III athlete to finish in a race of predominately Div. I athletes, and his time of 14:17.10 was well under the automatic NCAA qualifier of 14:28.00. Even more impressively, the time broke the school record of 14:19.37 set by Matt Lacey (E '06) in 2005.
"Jesse is in amazing shape," Welch said. "He's had probably the best block of training in the past couple months that he's ever had in his life, and we are seeing the results of that in the pretty incredible times that he is putting up. I am really excited to see what he can do this weekend and really excited to see what he can do in a month when he gets to nationals."
The team will look to Faller and his fellow seniors to lead the way to a strong performance Saturday.
"Obviously outdoor is not over yet, but I think that we've been doing a better job than we have in years past in continuing to improve [after the indoor season] and in continuing to go after our goals and [personal records (PR)] and even putting up new goals that we can chase for the rest of the year," Welch said. "As we moved out of indoor, we have continued to improve."
According to Welch, this is exemplified by the senior leadership in athletes like Faller and senior quad-captain Jared Engelking, along with the return of key teammates who were injured during the indoor season, such as Longley. Welch also cited the strong freshman team members who have continued to improve as they have moved outdoors.
"[Freshman] Lomie Cunningham has continued to improve. He already had a solid indoor … and is continuing to drop his times outdoors," Welch said. "On the distance side, [freshmen] Kyle Marks and Matt Rand, after running great cross country seasons, are poised to drop big PRs in both the 10K and the 5K in the next couple weeks."
The Jumbos enter the championship meet with a well-rounded and deep team that has a chance to score in nearly every event, something most teams cannot boast.
"We're continuing to improve now, four or five months into the overall track season, and I would say guys look to continue to be hungry to get a PR to work on something new on practice," Welch said. "There's a lot of energy in the program, which is good to see because it's been a long year, but there's still this energy and hunger to make ourselves better, so I think that's really the most important sign that we're in a good spot going into this weekend."
Tufts' main competition will come from NESCAC powerhouse Williams, which has a long string of NESCAC victories. The Jumbos' highest finish in the meet was a tie for first in 2007 with the Ephs. Bates, Amherst and Bowdoin will also pose threats as programs continuing to grow in strength.
Yet the team goal is focused more on having strong performances across the field and less on where the team finishes in the standing.
"We're not going to try to do much differently than what we have done this year and what has sort of been the motto of this program the past few years, which is try to put the best team effort forward on Saturday," Welch said.
"The conference has some very strong programs, and we know that we are one of them," he continued. "We're going to go out and try to help each other individually to have the best performance that we can. If each of us takes care of that end of things, then as a program we will have put in the best effort we could. I'm pretty confident that if we do that, the team result for the meet will take care of itself."
"We're really looking forward to giving it our best shot to win the meet," Longley added. "I think its huge having the meet at home … We're looking to see a sizable home crowd that will help our athletes in the competition."
