MANCHESTER, Conn. - Walter Wagude placed fifth individually and the Jumbos were fourth as a team at the 2021 NESCAC Men's Cross Country Championship held Sunday at Wickham Park.
Wagude finished the eight-kilometer course in a 25:17.6 time, comfortably securing an All-Conference first team spot (top seven). He started out with a 7:05 opening 2.1 kilometers (seventh), moved up a spot to sixth after five (16:23) and then took another move up to cross the finish line. His fifth-place effort is the best by a Jumbo at NESCAC's since Tim Nichols and Luke O'Connor went 1-2 in the 2016 race.
The team's fourth-place finish was a big step up from their eighth-place showing at the 2019 conference championship. It's the Jumbos top team finish at NESCAC's since the 2016 team tied for third. The Jumbos' team score of 121 today was ahead of Bates' 141 in fifth place. Williams College won the 2021 conference title with a 51 score, followed by Middlebury (59) and Colby (78).
For the second straight conference championship, Tufts' Sam Gatti narrowly missed All-Conference honors (top 14). He was 15th with a 25:51.4 time today, an improvement on the 26:18.6 he ran for 15th place in 2019 at Mount Greylock High School in Williamstown. He was 17th through five kilometers today and moved up two places over the final 3K.
Collin O'Sullivan was the third Tufts scorer and 25th overall with a 26:13.3 mark today. Also scoring for Tufts was Joseph Harmon in 30th (26:23.1) and Enock Musyoka, the Jumbos' top freshman finisher in a 26:41.8 time. Oliver Printy (26:51) and Connor Giersch (27:04) were top seven for Tufts and 51st and 61st overall, respectively.
Among Tufts' top seven, Wagude and Musyoka both estalished new 8K PR's today.
Colby's Tyler Morris ran away with the individual title running a 24:28.7 time.
The Jumbos run at the NCAA Regional Championship hosted by Connecticut College in two weeks.
