Teams: #3 Florida State, #25 Wake Forest, #30 Duke, Virginia Tech, North Carolina, Boston College, NC State, Miami, Clemson, UVA, Georgia Tech, Maryland

Storyline #1: ACC Women's Meet '08: The Susan Kuijken Seminole repeat s+how!
Storyline #2: Can Brie or Tasmin Challenge Kuijken?
Storyline #3: Will NC State run a single upper-class woman?

Kuijken Crushed Everyone At Pre NCAAs

It's going to be a repeat of last year as Susan Kuijken (3rd in 2007 NCAAs) and the Florida State Seminoles put their dominance on display at Pre-Nationals last weekend, finishing in a tie for first in their section with Kuijken getting the win in a new course record. North Carolina's Brie Felnagle, also a winner in Terre Haute (and 10th in 2007 NCAAs) will certainly have something to say about our prediction, saying she deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Kuijken. She does, that's true, but her Pre-NCAA time was slower and she has yet to rival Kuijken. Last year, Kuijken beat Felnagle by about 30 seconds at ACCs and 30 seconds at NCAAs. Another major individual factor will be Tasmin Fanning of Virginia Tech, who finished only 16 seconds behind 2-time reigning NCAA champion (and one of the NCAA's best ever) Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech at Arkansas' Chile Pepper Festival. Fanning (11th in 2007 NCAAs) will definitely be a player for the 2nd or 3rd spots, but can she really push Kuijken? It would be great to see these 3 All-Americans neck-and-neck with 1,000m to go. Who ya got, Wilbon?

Team-wise, #3 FSU should take it down. The big surprise this year has been the rise of Wake Forest, which currently sits at #25 in the country and #1 in the Southeast region after finishing 3rd at the Penn State National last weekend, losing to West Virginia and Penn State, but defeating conference rival #30 Duke (#2 in Southeast region, w/o Kate Van Buskirk). Wake returns the 6th-fewest points in the conference, but they have added 2 freshmen currently in their top 5, plus senior Allie Kieffer is back in their lineup. She was only 47th at ACCs as a sophomore, but she's running a ton better than that right now. So Wake should take down Duke (assuming the Dukies don't have any surprise additions), and we're predicting the tight pack of Boston College to offset Va Tech's firepower Fannings (Hokies narrowly burned the Eagles at Chile Pepper).  

Here's where it gets confusing. NC State has spent most of the year until Pre-Nats as the Southeast region #1, even earning national rankings. However, they ran a team of only freshmen at Pre-Nats and got 30th in their section. According to their web site, their top returner, Brittany Tinnsley (5th last year) is injured, but three other returning upper-classwomen from last year's top 5 are healthy, just not competing attached, or not competing at all. This kind of baloney is the reason why NC State is no longer ranked in the top 5 in the Southeast, nor receiving national votes, and it's also why it's impossible to predict how they will do at ACCs. We halfway jokingly predict there may be some red-shirting on the horizon and NC State will be the first team in ACC history to run only freshmen at the league meet. They will still beat about 1/3rd of the ACC teams and finish 8th, if that is the case. If they run everyone that's healthy, they might be #2, as they've been ranked as high as 20th in the country this year. Way to keep us guessing, Lady Wolfpackers!

2008 Pre-Nats

1. 89 Florida State ( 20:40 1:43:18)

1 1 432 Susan Kuijken 19:49
2 5 438 Lesley Van Miert 20:25
3 11 434 Pilar McShine 20:43
4 30 436 Linzi Snow 21:05
5 42 439 Lydia Willemse 21:16
6 ( 91) 440 Christina Woytalewicz 21:49
7 (120) 431 Kacey Gibson 22:05

2. Duke (90)

Maddie McKeever (8)
Kate Van Buskirk (9)
Emily Sherrard (19)
Emily Schwitzer (25)
Christy Adamyk (29)
Molly Lehman (30)
Shelley Forbes (33)