Jumbos Qualify for NCAAs in Best Race of the Season Yet

(11/15/2015 8:29 PM) Full Results

This weekend the Jumbos competed at the DIII Regional Championship held at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, CT. The squad ran undoubtably their best race of the season from top to bottom. The team’s stellar performance earned them a third place finish and an at-large bid to DIII Nationals.

Junior Luke O’Connor continued his phenomenal season finishing third overall individually with a time of 24:43. He finished less than four seconds behind the winner, Mohamed Hussein from Amherst. Junior Tim Nichols was close behind finishing sixth overall in 24:55. Both Luke and Tim spent a good amount of time leading the race.They did a fantastic job of getting into a rhythm and keeping the pace honest over the course of the 8k. The junior duo ran the fastest and second-fastest times ever for a Jumbo at the Conn College Harkness Park course, besting 3-time XC All-American Jesse Faller's previous mark of 25:04. Those 8K performances are now fifth and seventh-best for a Jumbo all-time on any course.

Sophomore Ty Enos finished third for the Jumbos in 25:21. Passing many guys over the last mile, Ty’s final kick was spectacular. Ty ran a PR of 25:21 for eighteenth place overall. Senior co-captain Michael Curley ran one of the gutsiest races in his college career and it paid off, as he finished twentieth overall in a personal best time of 25:23. Freshman Christian Swenson was the team’s fifth finisher with a time of 25:35. Ty, Michael, and Christian all improved their personal bests by over half a minute, with Christian joining the sub-26 club in convincing fashion and placing himself among the fastest Jumbo freshmen of all time over the 8K distance. Christian was the top freshman in the entire race, besting 4 other NESCAC rookies who had beaten him at our conference meet. Christian moved up from 61st at NESCACs to 33rd at Regionals.

Senior co-captain James Traester and junior Michael Caughron were the team’s sixth and seventh men. James PR’d with a time of 25:48 for forty-fifth overall, and Michael ran a solid time of 26:26 for ninty-sixth, his second-fastest 8K performance to date.

The team was 3rd place for the first time since 2007, when the meet was also last held at Conn College. On a windy day with slow conditions also due to soft footing, the top five of the 2015 squad averaged 25:11 for the 8K, a full 15 seconds faster than the 25:26 average of that 2007 top quintet. This was the first Regionals since 2005 where we had four runners finish within the top 20, and first since at least 2000, and perhaps ever, where our top two runners finished within the top 6. Ultimately, we scored fewer points than we did at our NESCAC conference meet (with 11 teams compared to 55) and fewer than half as many as last year, so our pack is getting stronger and tighter each meet. Our 52.0 delta from runners 1-5 is the smallest we have had all year, even with our #1 runner running faster than he ever has.

Coming off of the team’s best performance of the season, the squad is hungry and motivated to keep the momentum rolling through to the NCAA Championships. The team will travel to Winneconne, WI on Thursday and the race is slated to go off at 12:30 PM on Saturday (1:30 PM ET). The team is certainly looking to improve upon last year's 22nd place finish and after this weekend’s race, we are confident that we are stronger as a team than we were last year! Go Jumbos.



Full Results