MIAC XC 2017

neverlivinguptoexpectations wrote:

Did anyone else, like me assume that the St. Olaf reign would last much longer than 5 years? From the outside they have the finest facilities (XC course, indoor/outdoor track), excellent coaching, strong academics and a beautiful campus.

How did they go from three straight podium finishes to not making nationals? They still seem to be getting high end recruits, they're just not living up to their lofty (unrealistic?) expectations.

Not meant to start a flame war, but I find it interesting and I'm generally curious. I just haven't paid a lot of attention to the conference outside of the conference and regional meets.

Not sure what your handle is supposed to mean. 5 straight nationals appearances, 1 national title, 3 podiums, an individual champion and more than a handful of all-Americans isn't really "never living up to expectations."

But yes, good recruits who for some reason are not panning out. A few years ago, many of us likely thought several of these guys were going to be challenging for all-american spots, not the middle of the pack at regionals. Injuries, team culture, different personalities. Who knows? Granted, under perfect conditions I don't think any of them could ever train themselves into a new Grant Wintheiser. The only thing I would posit is that it is probably not for lack of quality coaching.

neverlivinguptoexpectations wrote:

Did anyone else, like me assume that the St. Olaf reign would last much longer than 5 years? From the outside they have the finest facilities (XC course, indoor/outdoor track), excellent coaching, strong academics and a beautiful campus.

How did they go from three straight podium finishes to not making nationals? They still seem to be getting high end recruits, they're just not living up to their lofty (unrealistic?) expectations.

Not meant to start a flame war, but I find it interesting and I'm generally curious. I just haven't paid a lot of attention to the conference outside of the conference and regional meets.

As I recall, the expectation (that we had) was that St. Olaf would keep dominating the whole time we were in college. Timm, Ketola, Sokolowski and Ellenberger would likely carry other runners to a conference championship, and the safe assumption was that they'd fill out a very good top 5. If you look at their 8k PRs, the talent is there to do this. Putting it together is trickier though.

It's also important to remember that the low-scoring freshmen (Mueller, Wilkinson, Stumbo) this year are a new occurrence, or at least that St Olaf didn't have any freshmen to match these guys.

(Personally I'm guessing unfortunate things outside their control affected some of their college progressions. I don't doubt their work ethic or coaching or anything obvious like that.)

Sorry, the handle wasn't in reference to St Olaf, it's something I've used before.

Can we all just agree that the mat/split situation are Carleton is a joke? For the men we have to data of: 605m, 2k, 4.05k and 7.3k....awesome.

At least the ladies have 605, 2k, 4k, and 5379m...

Where are those results with the splits posted?

Fast Finish Results, fam

St. Olaf just had a bad day. They will likely be better than ever next year, as they return 8 of their top 10, and have a huge roster.

Henry Harper, who transferred from Macalester to DI school DePaul, had a great season, finishing as the team's #4 scorer in 31:36 at Midwest Regional last weekend (where Jonathan Davis of Illinois won in 29:06). That's 5:05 pace, or a 25:16 8K, pretty impressive for just a sophomore.

Anyone know of other MIAC runners who switched to DI programs?

Possibly back to winning the MIAC, but CERTAINLY not better than ever. I think you forget about how dominant they were in 2014.

Is there any chance Cook-Gallardo comes back for a 9th semester? He's still got one cross season remaining, and with him in the mix Carleton would have a shot at a podium finish at NCAAs next fall.

He is applying to medical school, so I doubt it.

You can add 60-75 sec to all those. times... the cart took the wrong route the second half of the race. Most of those guys couldn’t run even close to their MW time on the track. It’s pretty obvious that the course was short.

Also, why does everyone care another times so much? The place is ALL that matters. Since when is getting beat by 3 quarters of the field good??? Harper was like 150 out of 196. D1 regions are obvi way deeper than d3, but IMO top 100 is respectable and after that it’s not that impressive. For proof, I TFRRS’ed guys in the 90-100 finish range and lots of those guys are around 15 flat 5k guys with track 10k prs well over 31...

Nope wrote:

Possibly back to winning the MIAC, but CERTAINLY not better than ever. I think you forget about how dominant they were in 2014.

"Better than ever" is a FIGURATIVE idiom, not literal.

runmn wrote:

Also, why does everyone care another times so much? The place is ALL that matters. Since when is getting beat by 3 quarters of the field good??? Harper was like 150 out of 196. D1 regions are obvi way deeper than d3, but IMO top 100 is respectable and after that it’s not that impressive. For proof, I TFRRS’ed guys in the 90-100 finish range and lots of those guys are around 15 flat 5k guys with track 10k prs well over 31...

For a sophomore D3 transfer, it's impressive just to be able to be a scorer. Throughout the season he was consistently in the top 6 (#4 at regional), and he has clearly improved from his previous year. But sure, no matter how much he improves (even down to 14:30s), it's unlikely he'll be in the running for D1 all-conference or anything. He'd see much more success and recognition in D3, but I doubt his move to DePaul had much to do with running.

I'd say Carleton ceiling is 8th on a perfect day. I'm gonna take a range and say they finish between 10th and 13th. Still an AMAZING finish. Ketola will have a great race too I think. Could see him in top 50. As for the women (we should talk about them more) Carleton 6th, Olaf 12th, St. Thomas 28th.

How do you have Olaf at 12 and St. Thomas at 28 when only 9 points separated them at regionals?

I agree that if the team runs their season best they could possibly get top 10. However if they run about the same at Regionals I'd say 14th, because to get higher they'd need to beat either Loras (who I have doubts will be top 10), Washington U, Rhodes, or MIT. However, if just one guy has a really bad day and Nakajima does not have the race of his life, due to lack of depth they could fall pretty far down, as low as 28th.

Fastnbulbous wrote:

I agree that if the team runs their season best they could possibly get top 10. However if they run about the same at Regionals I'd say 14th, because to get higher they'd need to beat either Loras (who I have doubts will be top 10), Washington U, Rhodes, or MIT. However, if just one guy has a really bad day and Nakajima does not have the race of his life, due to lack of depth they could fall pretty far down, as low as 28th.

MIT often poops the bed at nats. Every team has the capability to perform poorly, and at this event particularly, many do. I think Loras is worth their salt. Both they and Carleton remind me of the Uw-La Crosse team that got third in 2013.

With the exception of Olaf, these were spot on. Hats off to Carleton, from 10th in the region to 10th in the nation. Impressive turnaround to say the least.

Congrats to Carleton, they pulled it off. DCG performed when it counted scoring 12 pts, and all seven guys arguably ran their best race of the season. Yes, Mueller ran a better time earlier in the year on a faster course, but scoring 84 is great for a first year. He has three more shots at improving on that.

Aside from lack of depth, Carleton had been grossly under ranked ever since their performance in Oregon, though it was improved from #28 to 14 last Wednesday. They even got within 7 points of Loras!

Keith Ketola ran well, a big season PR at 25:02, but just missed All-American status by a few places, at 43rd. A very tough field.