Any predictions for both the individual and team race? It's looking really deep on the team side this year, but Haverford is looking unstoppable.
Any predictions for both the individual and team race? It's looking really deep on the team side this year, but Haverford is looking unstoppable.
Team: 1. Haverford. 2. Dickinson. 3. Johns Hopkins 4. Carnegie Melon
Haverford looks damn good and basically unbeatable. Marquardt is probably the favorite to win the individual title. They have a strong top 3 that could theoretically all be in the top 5 in the region.
Dickinson is coming off of a tough 3rd place finish at the Centennial Conference meet where their best runner fell and finished outside their top 7. The meet is at their home course, a course that they dominated at their own meet during the regular season.
Johns Hopkins looks good but not as great as in the past. They have no strong frontrunner and their strength is in their solid group of pretty good runners as their top 5.
Individual: Favorite- Charlie Marquardt from Haverford. He's run well all year and dominated the Centennial conference.
Darkhorse: Nick Stender from Dickinson and Nate Noll from Desales. Both have had great seasons and could definitely win if the opportunity presents itself.
One of Dickinson's top runners quit last week. What about Widener?
I think Widener is overrated and not as good as CMU or the others. They haven't done much in the regular season but could surprise me come saturday. And I know about that. I still think Dickinson has the depth to get 2nd even without him.
I've gotta agree with you there. Haverford really put on a show at the Conference meet, but Dickinson could be dangerous on their home course. I really can't feature Marquardt getting anything but first.. There's just no one to challenge him in the region. If the Haverford guys do anything like what they did at conference, it's hard to fathom any other result. It's all a matter of Haverford's 4 and 5 guys, which have shuffled around at pretty much every race.
Trog wrote:
I've gotta agree with you there. Haverford really put on a show at the Conference meet, but Dickinson could be dangerous on their home course. I really can't feature Marquardt getting anything but first.. There's just no one to challenge him in the region. If the Haverford guys do anything like what they did at conference, it's hard to fathom any other result. It's all a matter of Haverford's 4 and 5 guys, which have shuffled around at pretty much every race.
Just saying, Dillon Farrell from Moravian ran faster than Charlie did at Princeton, and Dan Gresh from Elizabethtown beat Farrell at Landmark Conferences.
I don't think Charlie has it in the bag. Degen from CMU had a nice showing against a solid UAA field. Pitone also won his conference meet though it was less competitive. Look for a top pack of these guys and Rowdy Steiner.
Farrell came 4th in the Open Race at Princeton with a time one second slower than Charlie's 18th place showing in the Championship Race, (24:37 to 24:36).
Lawyered.
Either way, it's going to be a hell of a race. Haverford's Roza and Christian are going to have to fight pretty hard to be in that front pack. From the 2010 mideast thread, the two D's get it done: Depth and Donelley.
CMU is going to surprise people with their depth. Their season-long #2 finished 6th at their conference meet, so they could have been within 15 points of a solid WashU StL team.
Degen will challenge for the title, and their 2-6 will have a spread of ~20s. Last time this race was at Dickinson CMU finished second, and I expect another auto bid to the big dance.
CMU will qualify for nationals, and those boys chug like a Wisco state school. I heard Dickinson only drinks smirnoff ices bc they don't like the taste of beer.
CMU should save their big race for the big dance. They don't need it to go and could surprise many at DD's last race as a coach.
1. Haverford - It's hard not to pick the as the favorites after they went 1,2,3 at Centennials. There's no doubt in my mind they will win unless more than 2 of their guys fall apart (unlikely).
2. CMU - Their depth is unrivaled and will really come into play in a race this big.
3. Hopkins - They don't look quite as good as one would expect, but they are still solid enough to pull through with at least 3rd.
4. Elizabethtown - I know I am going to get a lot of shit for this, but they seem to be coming on really strong. Gresh will challenge for a top 5 spot and their 2-7 pack will be very tight not too far behind him. They are my dark horse team.
5. Dickinson - Again, I am going to get shit for this. Losing Joey Steadman is going to hurt them. Even if they are deep. He was fairly consistently their top guy before he quit. They have been all over the place this season, and despite the fact that the meet is on their home course, they party too hard and it is going to catch up to them.
6. Widener - They look really good going into this meet. They've got a great top 3 who should all be in the top 20, and their 4th and 5th guys are not bad. However, Widener has quite a history of shitting the bed at this meet. It happens every year. Chris Garrity for example, a 3:46 1500m runner who dominated the MAC Conference last year, has never done better than 50th at Regionals. I don't think this course suits them at all and I think they will crack.
Results:
http://www.motiontiming.com/node/146
Mens teams: 1. CMU 2. Widener 3. Johns Hopkins 4. Haverford 5. Dickinson
Big surprise that no Centennial Conference team got an auto bid. CMU looked really strong and Haverford's 4th and 5th guys did horribly. Dickinson looked bad as their top 3 weren't low enough and their 5th and 6th were not good. Widener is definitely NOT overrated.
that would be incredibly rare if both Haverford and Dickinson didn't make nationals. I wonder who will make the big dance now as it just got more interesting.
Also, CMU graduates none of their top 5 this year. Top 3 team next year?
We'll see how CMU does at nationals first. I don't think any of the teams in the mideast are that good this year, and 90 points is one of the highest winning scores in a while. Haverford stlll probably has the biggest upside, but outside of their 1-2 they ran quite poorly today.
Cool to see Widener up there as a new face in the region.
Compare these results to regionals 2012 on the same course. Times were incredibly fast, there teams are no joke.
To get all-region (top 35) in 2012 took a 26:20, but this year it took 25:56. The top 5 this year all broke the course record set by Bobby Over in 2012. It was just a much faster race this year all across the board. Sure, there might not be a top 10 team in this region, but I bet that most of the top 5 finish 10-20 at nationals.
CMU and Elizabethtown are going to be the top 2 teams in the region next year. CMU is going to be top 10 at nationals next year. They lose nobody in their top 5 and Elizabethtown essentially loses nobody. Dan Gresh is the only senior, but Matt Shenk, arguably their top runner was hurt this season and will be back. All of the other teams lose at least 2 of their top 5. Especially Haverford and Dickinson, they lose their 2-3-4 and 1-2-3, respectively. Those teams always find a way to be good though, so it's going to be exciting. Widener loses Garrity and McCullough, but they seem to have some depth. Next year is going to be even crazier than this year.
I was really surprised at just how badly Haverford's 4 and 5 guys fell apart, really a shitshow. Marquardt put a lot of faith in his kick (as a 3:47 1500m guy should) and pulled it out over the last 3-400m or so.
On a different but similar subject, Hopkins on the women's side was insane. Reminds me of Haverford's 2010 men's squad in terms of dominance.