NCAA Cross Country

[26mi235]

Well, it is that time. I officiate my first meet of the year on Friday, in preparation for the big Nuttycomb Invitational, Presented by Under Armor (used to be the adidas Wisconsin XC Invite) which will have 20-something of the top teams for both the men and women in mid-October).

Last year, Wisconsin (men) had injuries to their top runner, as well as their likely number 5 and some problems with 4, 6, and 7, and failed to qualify for the NCAA meet for the first time since they started the (current) qualifying system 40-some years ago, and stopping their streak of 19 (?) straight top-ten finishes. This year they should return to the meet and finish in the top 10 again, I hope.

It has gotten tougher for track and field teams because schools like Syracuse, Oklahoma State, No AZ U, Iona, and even Colorado use all or most of their 12.4 scholarships on distance runners (unlike historically distance-oriented but very rounded Arkansas).

Big meets are just starting to roll in to the schedule (meets in the first several weeks do not count for qualifying, and are sometimes 'raced' only so that the team can start practicing due to an NCAA rule that the first meet has to be run within some many days of the first practice). This week UVA's home invitational at Panorama Farms with top teams BYU, Stanford, (#1-ranked) Syracuse, Virginia, William & Mary.

[aaronk]

Don't follow XC much, but am a big Erin Finn fan.
Her first 2 races, she won by about 45 seconds each----mostly over her own teammates, but no other real "name".
In a recent podcast, she said she's VERY confident this season.
She ran as unattached in her first race, then for Michigan in the 2nd.

In the Dellinger races, noticed some BIG names missing----Cheserek, Rainsberger (Frosh at UO), and Sarah Baxter (Will she ever return to her HS greatness?).

UO coach says Ches in "best shape ever".

[aaronk]

Portland (!!) took both Men's & Women's Div 1 races at Griak.

Jerrell Mock of CO St won in 25:06.4 over 8K.
Brenna Peloquin beat Erin Finn by 10+ seconds in 20:49.5 over 6K.

Allie Ostrander didn't run---don't know why.

[26mi235]

And Syracuse and Stanford both go down (Stanford held out their top two (McGorty and Fisher) but would have finished third even if they had gone 1-2). However, both run at Wisconsin in three weeks and that race will be the one that likely defines the post season. For anyone coming to the meet, stop by and say HI (I get to herd the cats on the open course, being nominally in charge of course control).

[lonewolf]

I worked the 80th Cowboy Jamboree X-C today, arguably the longest continuous X-C meets in the US. This is the 68th anniversary of my first Jamboree, # 12, in 1949 when I was on the OAMC track team. The course is on the old campus golf course, which was no longer used for golf when I was there but still had greens and sand traps... and a super smooth, very slightly downhill quarter mile straight on the back side, the site of some tremendous quarter mile duals in never replicated times.
Being a sprinter/jumper, I did not run X-C in competition. My first assignment was to stand near the starting line, start a stop watch, run about a half mile to the 1 mile marker, call splits, run quarter mile to the two mile mark, return half mile to the start line. Repeat three more times for subsequent races.

After Jamboree #15, I went off and lived life for 20 years, returning sporadically for the Jamboree as circumstances permitted. I believe I have worked every Jamboree since returning to Oklahoma in 1972. My son, ran in the Jamboree circa 1975, has been the starter for more than 25 years.

The Jamboree has morphed to 12 to 14 races. Fortunately, my assignments have changed. I spent a few years keeping order in the finish chute, twenty years calling places at the finish line until computer chips obsolesced that position, one ignoble year as announcer and the last few years as referee/clerk of course.

I apologize to old timers on the forum if I have reminisced about this before.. just thought some newbies might find it interesting to hear about the old days.

[lonewolf]

Oh, yeah, a 6th grade boy won the Middle School 3k in 9:57..is that pretty good? He won by a 150 m.

[26mi235]

The BIG race of the season is tomorrow at Wisconsin (Nuttycombe Invite presented by Under Armour), then on Saturday the Pre-Nats races are being held at Terre Haute.

If anyone is going to the meet Friday, try to touch base with me. I will have the bullhorn while trying to herd cats out on the serpentine portion of the course (i.e., 'crowd control' on an open course with no fences).

[jesipong]

BYU makes charge in poll, Northern Arizona still No. 1

Despite a hard charge from the BYU Cougars, Northern Arizona and Syracuse maintain their edge in this week's DI Men's USTFCCCA poll.

[26mi235]

At Wisconsin on the mens side the top five teams finished that way, with the top one, Northern Arizona U (NAU) looking very good and winning by a lot even with a couple runners fading over the last bit. The Wisconsin men suffered when one of there top two (two-time Big Ten champ Schrobilgen) had something happen in the second half of the race (sick?) and he dropped from the lead group and out of the race. They would have finished fourth or fifth if he had stayed where he was. Something also happened to their number 3/4 guy; if they are back to form they couple win Regionals and the Big Ten, otherwise if might be a second difficult year. In a somewhat surprising result North Carolina ran so far back that the difference in the team average time between the first and next to last teams was smaller than between that next to last team and North Carolina (and the women were next to last).

One the Womens side, Washington looked as good as advertised with a youngish team and should finish first or second behind Colorado. As good as they looked, a high-ranked team early this year looked completely lost, finishing 19th, with Schulist (top-10 two years ago) finishing around 130th if I remember correctly. Wisconsin sat their top two until Big Tens (including NCAA #2 in 2014) and finished just behind Michigan State.

The race had great conditions except that it was rather windy (out of the south, and hence nice temperatures 58 women 60 men) so the groups stayed together as people wanted to avoid breaking the wind for others (winning times 23:52/ 8k; 20:00 6k, both slight short by 50-75 meters is my guess). Course footing was perfect even with a lot of fall rain. Next up Great Lakes Regional in four weeks on the same course, probably 20 degrees cooler.

[aaronk]

Who is Peyton Bilo?
I thought of starting a new thread all about her, but decided against.
So here's the answer--

She's 19 (Born September 1997).
She's a Soph at Cal Poly, and majors in biology.
As a HS'er, her best 1600 & 3200 were 4:57 and 10:31.
As a Frosh at Cal Poly, she won the Conference 10000 in 36:46--her only 10K race, apparently!!
Her best 5000 (speaking of track times) was 16:13 at the Stanford Invite.

So nothing really special.
Then came this XC season!!

Won 2 early meets.
Then took 2nd at the Stanford Invite.
Followed by 3rd at Pre-Nationals!

Both against strong fields---Pre-Nats especially---in fast times (20:08 and 20:11).
The race before Stanford, her time was 20:05.

I believe we've found THE dark horse candidate for NCAA's, Women's division!!

I'm predicting---if she's healthy, etc---she'll run 15:30's and in the 32's next spring.
Going to a CA school, she'll have both Stanford meets, Mt SAC, etc as opportunities to run fast track times!

[26mi235]

Similar to Sarah Disanza for Wisconsin. She was good as a frosh but not outstanding and won NJ state XC twice, I think. However, after her frosh year her summer training was not as hilly and thus at a quicker tempo. She ran well all year and then charged hard to cut the 18-second deficit at 5400m down to only 8 at the end to finish second. She then ran 15:20.x indoors to set an American Junior indoor record.

By the way, Cal Poly is in the California State system, not in the University of California system but is actually harder to get in to than a number of the UC schools. It is a strong engineering school with emphasis on undergraduates. I have a brother that went there and I taught part time while in grad school at the other Cal Poly campus (Pomona), which is over the hill from the MtSAC XC course.

[26mi235]

The NCAA Regional meets were mid-day Friday (nine sites; women at noon, men at 1pm mostly). Not a whole lot of surprises but Oregon got only fourth in its region despite going 1-2 (Ches/Maton) and if that is their starting seven they will get killed at NCAAs where their 4/5/6 will be 80-120 rather than 35-50. Here are the Mens qualifiers via Lets Run

Wisconsin (#14) – Won Great Lakes
Michigan State (No. 18 ) – 2nd Great Lakes
Georgetown (#22) – Won Mid-Atlantic
Navy (UR) – 2nd Mid-Atlantic
Oklahoma State (#9) – 1st in Midwest
Tulsa (#23) – 2nd in Midwest
Northern Arizona (#1) – 1st in Mountain
Colorado (#2) – 2nd in Moutnain
Syracuse (#5) – Won NE Regional
Iona (#7) – 2nd NE Regional
Mississippi (#11) – won South Regional
Mid. Tennesse St (#26) – 2nd South Regional
Arkansas (#6) – Won SC Regional
Texas (RV) – 2nd SC Regional
NC State (#27) – Won SE Regional
Virginia (#16) – 2nd SE Regional
Stanford (#4) – Won West Regional
Portland (#12) – 2nd West Regional
At Large Qualifiers
BYU (#3) – 3rd in Mountain
Illinois (UR) – 3rd in Midwest
Iowa State (#13) – 4th in Midwest
UCLA (#8) – 3rd in West
Colorado St. (#19) – 4th in Mountain
Dartmouth (UR) – 3rd in NE Regional
Providence (#30) – 4th NE Regional
UTEP (#15) – 5th in Mountain
Southern Utah (#24) – 6th in Mountain
Oregon (#10) – 4th in West
Washingon St. (#17) – 5th in West
California (UR) – 6th in West
Boise State (#20) – 7th in West
RV = receiving votes, UR = unranked.
Ranked Teams That Didn’t Make It
#21 Indiana – 3rd in Great Lakes
#25 Eastern Michigan– 4th in Great Lakes
#28 Penn– 4th in Mid-Atlantic
#29 Michigan – 5th in Great Lakes
Unranked Tams That Made It
Navy (UR)– 2nd in Mid-Atlantic
Texas (RV) – 2nd in SC
Illinois (UR) –3rd in Midwest
Dartmouth (UR) – 3rd in NE Regional
California (UR) – 6th in West

[26mi235]

The 18 Auto Qualifiers
Michigan (#5) – won Great Lakes
Notre Dame (#14) – 2nd Great Lakes
Penn State (#9) – won Midatlantic
Villanova (#21) – 2nd Midalantic
Missouri (RV) – Won Midwest Regional
Oklahoma State (#17) – 2nd Midwest Regional
Colorado (#1) – Won Mountain regional
New Mexico (#6) – 2nd Mountain regional
Providence (#3) – Won NE Region
Harvard (#16) – 2nd in NE Region
Miss State (RV) – Won South Regional
Mississippi (#14) – 2nd South Regional
Arkansas (#7) – won South Central
Baylor (#25) – 2nd South Central
NC State (#2) – Won Southeast Regional
Louisville (UR) – 2nd Southeast Regional
Stanford (#7) – 1st West regional
Washington (#4) – 2nd West regional
The 13 At – Large Qualifiers
19 Air Force (#29) – 3rd Mountain regional
20 Utah (#20) – 4th Mountain regional
21 San Francisco (#16) – 3rd West regional
22 Oregon (#11) – 4th West regional
23 Portland (#10) – 5th West regional
24 Iowa State (#12) – 3rd Midwest Regional
25 Yale (#26) – 3rd in NE Region
26 BYU (#18) – 5th Mountain Regional
27 Wisconsin (UR) – 3rd in Great Lakes
28 Michigan St. (#22) – 4th in Great Lakes
29 E. Michigan (#13) – 5th in Great Lakes
30 Penn (#24) – 3rd in Midatlantic
31 UCLA (RV) – 6th West regional
RV = receiving votes, UR = unranked.
Ranked Teams That Didn’t Make It
#26 Minnesota– 4th Midwest
#27 Cal– 9th West Region
#27 West Virginia –4th MidAtlantic
#29 SMU– 5th South Region
Unranked Teams That Made It
Missouri (RV) – Won Midwest Regional
Mississippi St (RV) – 2nd South Regional
Louisville (UR) – 2nd Southeast Regional
Wisconsin (unranked) – 3rd in Great Lakes
UCLA (RV) – 6th West regional

There was some drama on both the mens and womens sides at the Great Lakes regional as there was a tie for third between Wisconsin and Michigan State, with the tiebreaker won by Wisconsin (which might have needed it as they did not have any points because of injuries to their top two). Also, on the Mens side Indiana and Michigan State; Indiana lost (2-3) and did not make it as a result. They had runners behind by 0.1 and 0.2 seconds, which is an awfully narrow margin and because they are better than a number of teams that did go (Michigan State would have gone if they had lost the tie) and Indiana did not get to run the Wisconsin Invite this year (they dropped the field size down to 32) and would have had the points if they had run there.

[gh]

The at-large teams/individuals have also been named now.. link to complete entries on front page

[Bruce Kritzler]

Louisville women and Navy men biggest surprises in field. Both auto qualifiers.