OAC (Ohio Athletic Conference) - Ohio People, any thoughts?

Mount is clearly the favorite... ONU has had a tight pack week after week recently, usually putting five or six guys within 10-15 seconds it seems. Still, Velliquette and crew have enough front runners that they should pull it out.

Heidelberg came within a few points of beating ONU a couple of times early this season, but the Polar Bears have seperated themselves a bit to claim the "best of the rest" spot.

ONU should romp the women's race.

Men's Team race:

1. Mount

2. ONU

3. Heidelberg

4. Otterbein

5. BW

6. JC

7. Wilmington

8. Muskingum

9. Marietta

10. Capital

individual:

1. Velliquette (Mount)

2. Kempf (JCU)

3. Simpson (Heid)

4. Lewis (ONU)

5. Lasch (Heid)

6. Ford (Mount)

7. Heckman (ONU)

8. Bernard (Mount)

9. Bierkan (ONU)

10. Adam (ONU)

11. Sigmund (Mount)

12. Stiger (ONU)

13. Porter (ONU)

14. Meeson (Mount)

15. Hill (BWC)

16. O'Brien (ONU)

17. Walters (Ott)

18. Butcher (Heid)

19. Martin (ONU)

20. Whisler (Mount)

By that top 20, Mount beats ONU 40-42.

Looking ahead to track, the OAC distance group should be fantastic. Velliquette should be one of the nation's best in the 1500m. garro and O'Brien have improved by leaps and bounds over 8k, so hopefully the new found strength will translate to some sick battles at 800m. There are probably 8 guys who have a shot to break 15:00 in the right race (heckman, ford, sigmund, bernard, stiger, kempf, simpson, lasch)

OAC,

I definitely can't see your ONU bias. Whisler 20th behind ONU's 8th. 6 ONU's in the top 13! Heckman breaking 15:00???

Come on man. Be reasonable.

I'll admit, I'm biased towards the Orange and Black... but, I don't think I was that unreasonable in my picks.

At All-Ohio, five Polar Bears (if you count O'brien in the open race) ran faster than whisler and the other three I picked to beat him were within 11 seconds of him in what were definate off days for all three (especially Adam and Porter, who have consistently run right with that top bunch all year)

Heckman ran 15:11 last year. How is sub 15:00 unreasonable?

And as for the 6 ONU in the top 13 pick, had all athletes been in one race at all-ohio (as they will be at OACS), O'Brien would have been ONU's fifth as the 13th OAC finisher. so to pick six in the top 13 isn't really stretching the imagination too much. Optimistic, definately. Unreasonable? No.

We ALL know that mount will get up and run well and put 4 in the top eight or so and their fifth will be 13th ish. Mount always gets up and runs well at the end of the year. The other top ten spots will be a JC, 3 HC, and 2 ONU. Northern will have a strong pack, but it will be to far back to hang with mount. I even think HC 4, 5 guys get up and run well and the team sneaks a second place finish by a point or two.

Standings

-Mount

-Heidelberg

-Northern

-Everyone else

The real race is the one for last.

Capital? Musky?

How bad does Harry Potter want it? If he blows up the Pioneers are right in thick of things too.

What time does the men's race start? 11:30?

I'm not showing up until at least noon. That's when the real race will heat up.

interesting point beneath the sarcasm there... it'll be a race between the top 3 and then the other race for Higher Than 10th

pure 10k wrote:

We ALL know that mount will get up and run well and put 4 in the top eight or so and their fifth will be 13th ish. Mount always gets up and runs well at the end of the year. The other top ten spots will be a JC, 3 HC, and 2 ONU. Northern will have a strong pack, but it will be to far back to hang with mount. I even think HC 4, 5 guys get up and run well and the team sneaks a second place finish by a point or two.

Standings

-Mount

-Heidelberg

-Northern

-Everyone else

Who's to say Heidelberg or Northern won't get up and run well too?? The Berg used to be a quality OAC team in the past, and Northern is a whole new team with a whole new program than in the past. Running isn't rocket science, you get a bunch of decently talented guys who want to train smart and compete and you have yourself a good team.

Mount has handily beat Northern and the Berg all year...Northern has beaten the Berg everytime with often not all their top guns, for either ONU or the berg to beat Mount would be a pretty big upset, and for Heidelberg to beat Northern alone would be an upset in its own right as well.

Mount does have this against them though...the biggest target on their back. Then you put in the possibility of coming in and racing with the wrong attitude and then things can turn out interesting if other teams come in to hunt them down.

If anyone beats Mount not only will it be an upset within the conference, it will affect rankings.. Mount is currently ranked nationally and beating them could catapult ONU or Berg or whoever to be ranked and then it'll get messy with at-larges

Mount and Northern are the two obvious favorites, and while conventional wisdom says MUC wins it, it would not be a stretch to see ONU win. Berg is probably 3rd and Otterbein 4th and after that, there's a big gap. Otterbein is probably a year away from being back in title contention...and Capital gets my pick for last.

What will be really fun is to make a team out of ONU's 6-10 and see how them cruise to 4th place.

Evgene Kornilov wrote:

What will be really fun is to make a team out of ONU's 6-10 and see how them cruise to 4th place.

That "how" should not be in there - totally sloppy on my part. Should read as:

"What will be really fun is to make a team out of ONU's 6-10 and see them cruise to 4th place."

Well, I better start whipping myself to atone for my error.

That's okay Evgene, we understand English is your second language.

Also have you been practicing your three point stance for indoor.

ONU has already seen the course, they ran the Tiffin University Invite there at the beginning of the year, but from what I understand it's pretty straightforward so that may not provide much of an advantage. I say, Mount is going in as the favorite but come race time that doesn't mean much. We'll see who brings it Saturday.

Top individuals would have to be in no particular order Lewis (ONU), Veliquette (Mount), that John Carroll guy, Lasch (Berg)

It won't even be a race for 1st place. Mount has it! No other team can match their top 4. The race is for second... between ONU and HC. HC has a solid front three since their third man has decided to start racing well and ONU has that strong pack, but it is too far back. ONU's lack of a front runner is going to kill them (great pack time... to far back). HC's 4,5 guys don't hurt HC's score as bad as ONU not having a front runner. It should be a good race. But if HC has three in front of ONU's 1 then it won't be much of a race.

If Berg has 3 in front of ONU's #1, Mount better start worrying too.

Or if ONU has 4 with mount's #2...It could get very interesting

Great predictions fellows, i think that ONU will roll tommorow..5 in the top 10

I'll be there, but I might not be happy about it. The weather is going to be very ugly tommorrow. The ground is totally saturated and at race time it's supposed to be raining, 34 degrees, 23 mph wind.

I'm not one to think extreme weather can contribute to a big upset in terms of team competition, but it might affect the individual race. Any thoughts?