Jumbos Roll to Victory at Plansky Invite

(10/17/2009) See more Photos     Full Results

After the exciting events of Friday that had the Tufts Medford campus without power until 5AM Saturday morning, it seemed likely that the Plansky Invitational would have an anticlimactic feel to the weekend. However, nothing could be further from the truth. A bus ride that should have been under 3 hours became almost 5 hours when the Jumbo Express blew a tire on the Mass Pike.

Quick to find a solution, the TUXC squad finished the ride to Williamstown, MA on a shiny, yellow school bus. Even after the 5 hour, multi-bus trek to western MA, the Jumbos still came away victorious in both the men's 8k and women's 5k. After a taxing effort at the Open New England Championships last weekend, the men were using this years Plansky Invitational as a tempo effort to tune up for the NESCAC Championships in 15 days.

On the men's side, senior Jesse Faller was the first collegiate finisher with his time of 26:19. Right behind Faller was a tight pack of ‘brown and blue’ finishing in 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th. Junior Chris Brunnquell led the chase pack with a time of 26:53, improving on his time from last year's regional championships by over 60 seconds. Brunnquell's race and time easily epitomized the entire day for the Jumbos – huge PRs.

In addition to Brunnquell's improvement from his last time on this course, Ryan Lena (Sr), Jeff Ragazzini (Jr), and Connor Rose (So) each added PRs of their own. Of the five returners from last year's New England Championships squad, each improved by an average of more than 55 seconds.

On the whole, the Tufts runners took eight of the top 15 spots overall and were eight of the top 12 collegiate finishers this weekend. Each of the twelve Jumbos that toed the line this weekend looked calm and relaxed through the entire race. It was exactly the effort that the squad went into the race looking to get. The next competition for TUXC will be a mix of 8k and 5k competitors at the Mayor's Cup at Franklin Park next Sunday.


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