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Teams: Women's Cross Country: Team
Overview
With
outstanding talent, an excellent facility and a rich tradition, the
Tufts University women's cross country program is one of New
England's best regardless of division. Now in her ninth season,
Coach Kristen Morwick guides a program that annually adds to
the long list of athletic and academic achievements compiled by the
program since its inception in 1976.
Last year, cross country's Katy O'Brien, Cat Beck and Stephanie
McNamara earned All-American honors with top 35 finishes at the NCAA
Championship Race. That trio also finished among the top 10 at the
NCAA Northeast Regional race. In 2006, the team posted its best-ever finish at
the NCAA Championship by taking fifth place. Runners Katy O'Brien
and Catherine Beck earned All-American honors. O'Brien won the New
England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) race that season. Tufts
has been represented as a team or individually at five straight NCAA
championship races. In 2000, individual national qualifier Leslie
Crofton placed fifth at the NCAA national championship race.
As members of the NESCAC,
Tufts is part of the nation's most competitive small college
conference academically and athletically. At the 2007 NCAA
Championship, four conference teams placed among the top 20. Tufts also competes
against other top New England Division III programs such as MIT,
Keene State and Wheaton on a regular basis. The ECAC Championships
provide competition from outside New England, while the New England Open
Championships include Division I, II, and III opponents.
The
NESCAC is a group of highly selective liberal arts colleges and
universities that share an academics-first philosophy for
intercollegiate athletics. The Tufts program has matched its competitive
success with academic achievement. Six team members, including Beck and
O'Brien, were named to the 2007 NESCAC All-Academic team.
Located right outside of Boston, Tufts offers a well-rounded
collegiate experience to student-athletes. Within its picturesque
small-college campus, Tufts is a major university with "an
unprecedented diversity of programs, exceptional faculty and staff,
and bright and talented students," according to President Lawrence
S. Bacow. The Athletics Department sponsors a varsity program of 28
sports that is among the most competitive in the NCAA's Division
III. Tufts finished 15th in the 2008 U.S. Sports Academy Directors'
Cup, the award presented annually to the best overall
collegiate athletics programs in the country. The University's
proximity to a world-class city renowned for its academic
institutions is also a major draw.
A 1988 graduate of Dartmouth College, Morwick was previously the head
coach of cross country/track & field at Williams College.
At Dartmouth, Morwick competed in the multi-events and held the high jump record for several years.
She was also a member of basketball team. She began her coaching
career at Tufts as an assistant under Branwen Smith-King. Hired at Williams
in 1996, Morwick's cross country teams there qualified for the NCAA
national championship race from 1996-99 and twice she was named New
England Coach of the Year. At Tufts, she was selected NCAA New
England Indoor Coach of the Year in 2004, 2005 and 2008.
McNamara heads a new group of leaders for Tufts Cross Country in 2008
that will include captains Susan Allegretti, Betsy Aronson and Erica
Hylton. Senior Amy Hopkins, junior Lisa Picascia and sophomore Amy
Wilfert were part of the team's top seven at the NCAA Regional race last
season. Sophomore Christy Loftus also scored for the Jumbos last season.
The team's cross country course in Grafton, Mass., home of the
Tufts Veterinary School, has hosted several regional championship races.
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