Ok fans. Here goes. A baby is on the way to the Johnson household so I havent been paying attention like in year's past. Note
I haven't called coaches, figured out who was sick, etc and this is only about 1/3rd of the 3,700 words I wrote about the 2015 race.
Penn, Columbia and Princeton are your three potential winners barring something really weird happening. That shouldn't be a surprise. We can talk about coaching, development, recruiting etc but just take out the seniors from last year's meet and here is the score.
Princeton 46 (1, 2, 7, 14, 22)
Columbia 69 (4, 6, 13, 19 , 27)
Penn 72 (3, 5, 12, 23, 29 )
Brown 96 (11, 15, 16. 20, 34)
Yale 115 8, 17, 21, 33, 36)
Cornell 139 (10, 18, 24, 39, 48)
Dartmouth 174 (25, 28, 32,44, 45)
Harvard 216 (9, 42, 47, 52, 66)
I bet the results end up likely end up being pretty close to that this year. Last year, the top 3 teams - PCP - were better than everyone else and Brown was a solid fourth and the other teams need a lot of help with Harvard and Dartmouth having no chance before the year even started.
Of the 3 contenders, Penn has has the best year of anyone but that doesn't mean much (At Wisco, Penn's #1 guy was just 69th and they were 24th. ) as Princeton basically has just practiced all season long and put all of their eggs in the Heps basket. After seeing a few guys get lost to the injury bug in the past, coach Vigilante has basically treated the entire regular season as practice in team running. He seems to be operating under the mindset of , "I've got the most talented teams but they are a bit fragile and more mid-d oriented. I don't want to get them injured or burn them out by racing them hard. If they show up healthy, they should rise to the occasion and win."
We'll see if that works tomorrow.
I think it's best to compare the top 7 for Penn and Princeton from their last meet.
Here are their track credentials and Heps finish for last year.
Penn
Kevin Monogue - JR - 8:19/14:21/29:25 - 24th last year.
Chris Lucianao - SR- 8:19/14:11/30:06 - 9th last year
William Daly - SO- 9:00 steeple - 54th last year
Patrick Hally - SR - 8:15/14:45 - 12th last year
Colin Daly - SO - 8:58 steeple. - 7th last year
Aaron Groff - SO - 14:48/30:54 - 47th last year
Ryan Renken - FR - 9:02 in CAlif. - NA.
Princeton
Noah Kauppila - SR - 3:43/8:19/14:07 - 26th last year
Conor Lundy - SO - 8:15/14:09 - 3rd last year (94th at NCAAs)
Garrett O'Toole - Sr - 3:39 - 56th last year
William Paulson - SR - 3:42/8:07/14:40 - 2nd last year
Robert Stone - Sr 8:21/14:27/ - didn't run Heps (82nd in 2015)
Wolfgang Peck - Sr- 14:32/30:42 - 61st last year
Viraj Deokar - So - 14:29 - 14th last year
Comparing Penn and Princeton, Princeton gets a big edge in two key areas - low sticks and experience. Normally men's titles are won on the back of junior and seniors and 5 of Princeton's top 7 are upperclassmen (Penn's entire top 5 were junior and seniors last year) And their two underclassmen were exceptional last year - Lundy was 3rd as a frosh and Deokar came from way behind to finish 14th. It's also hard to win without some low sticks and Princeton returns two from the top 5 last year in Paulson and Lundy.
That being said, Penn returns two from the top 10. And Penn has the edge in that more of their guys are true distance runners. Princeton leans a little more mid-d. If this was a 4 x mile with a rabbit, I might be wondering if Princeton could break 16:00. Seriously. But Heps is 5 miles and none of Princetons' guys have 10k Prs of note.
Columbia gets mentioned last as I realized in looking up Penn's stats that Columbai's 5 man average was 22 seconds per mile worse than Penn's in the last meet. They also were crushed by Indiana at a meet and Penn just beat Indiana at Wisconsin. Columbia's top guy at Wisco wasnt even in the top 100. As a result, they aren't winning unless the ultimate of home field advantages plays out. I'm wondering if I should actually be looking at Cornell/Brown.
But here are the stats for Columbia.
Ryan Thomas - SR - 8:10/14:00 - 85th last year. 45th in 2015.
Lucky Schreiner - JR - 14:55 - didn't run Heps last year.
Brian Zabilski - JR - 8:09/14:00 - 13th last year. Made NCAAs.
Dan Schumacher - JR - 8:33/14:57 - didn't run Heps last year
Spencer Haik - SR- 2:21/4:04/8:21/14:41 - 25th last year
Dylan Tarpy - SR - 14:38 - 33rd last year
Kenny Vasbinder - SO - 14:23 - 11th last yr. Made NCAAs.
Ok, in compiling those stats, I realized that in their last meet Vasbinder was a DNF. So that would really hurt their team score. But it's not a good sign to have your projected #1 or #2 DNFing a race two weeks before conference. I guess I can make a scenario where they win Heps.
Their two NCAA runners last year - Vasbinder and Zabilski r- un well along with their 14 flat guy who was their #1 at Wisco. Fnin a #4 and #5 is easier than a top 3. But for all I know Vasbinder could be out with an injury.
Thus I think Penn or Princeton is your winner. Here is my prediction. If there is a dominant winner, I think it's definitely going to be Princeton. There two top 5 returners in Paulson and Lundy have both only raced once. Normally that would be a sign for concern but they are really really good. Paulson only raced once last year before Heps and ended up second. If they both get in the top 5 and take Kauppila and O'Toole (who hasn't done anything in college xc but was great at it in HS) with them and Deokar does anything close to what he did last year, they win easily.
But Penn could also win . Why have Paulson and Lundy barely raced? OToole and Kauppila are stars on the track - and tomorrow's race is an xc race.
But the rigors of VCP are overrated in my mind. First of all, the footing is solid - much more like a track than a muddy field. 3 of the miles are totally flat. And look at all of the 800 guys that have done well there in the past. Jaworksi (1:46 guy was 9th), Wyner (1:48 guy was 2nd), etc.
If my 6'5 inch miler roommate whose body wasn't designed for VCP, Scott Anderson (3:38-9 lifetime pb), could finish 8th on VCP as a junior, then certainly the O'Toole's and Kappula's of the should be able to get in the top 15.
Prediction: I was going to hold off on the predictions as I'm fearing a jinx and every single team in pro sports that I've rooted for in the last 2 months has lost, but I guess I need to make one now .I'll go for the double jinx.
Princeton FTW and Deluca (Cornell) FTW.
I haven't talked about the individual race but Deluca was 4th as a frosh and has been running well this year. It seems like he'll be contending with the Princeton guys and Monogue. Gowans beat Monogue by 8 seconds at Paul Short.