TERRE HAUTE, IN (November 23, 2024) – The Tufts University women's cross country team finished strong for 16th-place out of 32 teams at the 2024 NCAA Division III Championship race on Saturday morning at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course.
The Jumbos were 19th as a team through five kilometers, but moved up three places over the final kilometer for 16th overall. Tufts, who compiled a 474 team score today, was making its first team appearance at the NCAA's since 2021.
Junior Liz Donahue finished an outstanding season of leading the Jumbos by crossing the finish line in 22:16.0 for 88th individually out of 290 finishers.
Six of the seven Jumbos in the six-kilometer race moved up individually from their 5k standing to the finish line. Most impressive was sophomore Katya Henisz who went from 169th at the 5k mark to 139th at the finish line, an improvement of 30 places. She had been 184th at the 3k mark. Her final time was 22:35.0 for third on the team. Junior Lexi Dean moved up nine spots to finish second for the Jumbos and 121st overall (22:29.0).
First-year Zoe Margolies passed eight others in the final kilometer to finish at 22:35.6 for 142nd place and fourth for the Jumbos. The final Tufts runner to score was sophomore Sophie Carpenter in 157th place, five up from the previous checkpoint, in a 22:40.3 time.
Tufts' sixth and seventh runners today also finished well. Junior Grace Ogden improved seven places to 170th (22:46.3) and junior Jaclyn Turner moved up two spots to 185th (22:54.2).
This was the first NCAA Nationals race for all seven Jumbo runners, who helped the team conclude an excellent 2024 season in which they were also second in the Region and third in the conference.
"We are so proud of how this team really came together throughout the year and ran for each other," Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Jamie Norton said. "We've made consistent steady progress each week and capped it off with a strong performance at Nationals. We had zero women in the top nine with any NCAA experience so to come out and run a solid race in a difficult environment speaks to the way they have been able to pull each other through all year. The strength of our depth continued to shine through as it has all year, putting all seven women in the top 200, which only six other teams in the meet accomplished."
The Jumbos' East Region rival MIT won the national championship with a 128 team score. Among NESCAC teams Tufts was third behind third-place Williams College and 14th-place Amherst College. The race was run in cloudy conditions with the temperature near 40 degrees and a light wind.
Faith Duncan from Washington State College of Ohio won the women's national championship in a 20:16.5 time.
--JUMBOS--
