2017 Pre-Nats Analysis: Who Surprised and Bombed Today in Louisville?

by LetsRun.com
October 14, 2017

The 2017 NCAA Division I Pre-National Cross Country Invitational took place this morning in Louisville.

In the men’s race, #2 BYU got both the team and individual wins as Rory Linkletter (13:49/28:58) won individually in a time of 23:08.4 and BYU absolutely crushed everyone else as they won with just 41 points. #7 Colorado was second with 120 points but as one astute messageboard poster pointed out, BYU was so good and had such a tight top seven that they would have still won if you scored their entire top seven versus Colorado’s top five. Linkletter ran with his BYU teammates for most of the race before gunning it late to win in a sprint over Virginia Tech’s Peter Seufer (13:53/29:21) and Campbell’s Amon Kemboi (13:47/28:57). Kemboi was up front throughout as he was chasing his teammate Lawrence Kipkoech for most of the race but Kipkoech faded big late to 23rd.

linkletter-wins

The women went second and there was an upset in both the individual race and team battle. Individually, New Hampshire’s Elle Purrier, the NCAA mile runner-up earlier this year, used her mile speed to outkick reigning NCAA champ Karissa Schweizer of Missouri, who pushed the pace throughout the second half of the race, for the win. In the team battle, #2 Oregon upset #1 Colorado, 63 to 91.

Article continues below player.

purrier-wins

Full results are here. Quick Take analysis appears below. Talk about the meet on our fan forum: Official 2017 Wisco / Pre-Nats Discussion Thread- Who you got? 

Quick Take: Which Men’s Teams Surprised and Bombed?

Men’s Teams That Didn’t Do Nearly As Well As Their Rankings – Arkansas and Georgetown

The following chart shows you how the eight ranked men’s teams did today at Pre-Nats. Arkansas and Georgetown did not place anywhere close to where their rankings indicated they would.

(+ is bad. – is good.)

Seed Team (Nat. Rank) Place Diff
1 BYU  (#2) 1 0
2 Arkansas (#5) 9 +7
3 Colorado (#7) 2 -1
4 Oregon (#8) 3 -1
5 Virginia Tech (#12) 4 -1
6 Georgetown (#19) 14 +8
7 Ole Miss (#24) 5 -2
8 Utah State (#27) 6 -2

Unranked Men’s Teams That Did Well – Texas and Campbell

There were eight ranked teams on the start line and ranked teams took the top six places but unranked Texas took seventh as Campbell, led by Amon Kemboi and Lawrence Kipkoech, took eighth.

Quick Take #2: What Women’s Teams Surprised and Bombed?

Women’s Team That Didn’t Do Nearly As Well As Their Ranking- #22 Missouri

There were nine ranked teams on the start line and ranked teams took the top seven places in the standings. The only ranked team that didn’t finish in the top 10 of the race was #24 Missouri, which came in as the eighth seed in this one but bombed and finished 23rd.

Seed Team (Nat. Rank) Place Diff
1 Colorado (#1) 2 +1
2 Oregon (#2) 1 -1
3 Michigan (#4) 5 +2
4 Arkansas (#9) 3 -1
5 Ole Miss (#12) 9 +4
6 BYU (#16) 7 +1
7 Utah State (#19) 4 -3
8 Missouri (#24) 23 +15
9 Georgia (#25) 6 -3

Unranked Women’s Team That Had The Best Day – Eastern Kentucky

Eastern Kentucky was the top unranked women’s team in 8th. The unranked NAU women also were in the top 10.

Quick Take #3: Let’s Compare #1 NAU and #BYU

Linkletter after his win Linkletter after his win

#1 ranked NAU dominated the men’s race at Wisco yesterday. Today, #2 BYU dominated Pre-Nats. Both teams are really good.

Let’s try to compare the two. Here are their results from this weekend.

NAU 50
3 Andy Trouard SR 23:40.9
4 Tyler Day JR 23:41.9
5 Matthew Baxter JR 23:42.0
17 Geordie Beamish SO 24:00.4 5
21 Luis Grijalva FR 24:04.8 6
(43) Peter Lomong JR 24:17.3 7
(203) Ryan Wolff JR 25:40.0
BYU 41
1 Rory Linkletter 23:08.33
6 Connor McMillan 23:13.13
7 Casey Clinger 23:16.96
12 Clayton Young 23:24.93
15 Daniel Carney 23:25.31
(27) Jonathan Harper 23:37.80
(37) Brayden McLelland 23:48.40

Both teams feature super tight spreads, but the best spread goes to BYU.

BYU’s spread one through five was just 17 seconds. NAU had a 24-second spread.

Both teams have a credible sixth man as BYU’s #6 was just 29 seconds behind their #1 and NAU’s was just 37 seconds behind their #1. BYU’s seems to have a real advantage at #7, however, as their seventh was just 40 seconds back whereas NAU’s #7 was two minutes behind their #1.

Quick Take #4: Let’s Compare the Women’s Winner at Pre-Nats (Oregon) To The Women’s Winner at Wisconsin (New Mexico)

Yesterday, New Mexico won the Wisconsin meet with big firepower up front. We now show you their top six and compare it to Oregon’s top xi.

UNM
1 Ednah Kurgat SO 19:23.2 2
4 Alice Wright SR 19:45.1
7 Charlotte Prouse JR 19:54.3
15 Weini Kelati FR 20:07.5
60 Alondra Negron FR 20:53.6
(69) Kieran Casey SR 20:56.5
Oregon
4 Katie Rainsberger 19:42.02
7 Lilli Burdon 20:00.56
15 Carmela Cardama Baez 20:09.06
16 Jessica Hull 20:09.92
30 Emma Abrahamson 20:26.55
(112) Judy Pendergast 21:33.59

Things That Jumped Out At Us

UNM had a 68-second gap between their 2nd and 5th runner yesterday. Oregon only had a 44-second gap between #1 and #5. Big advantage Oregon.

However, Oregon has worries of its own. The thing that Oregon has to be worried about is their gap between #5 and #6 – it was 67 seconds. That means there was no room for error.

Now Colorado came into the meet ranked #1. Don’t write them off just because they lost to Oregon today. Here is how they ran today and how it compared to Oregon.

3 Dani Jones 19:33.62 – 9 seconds ahead of Oregon’s #1.
17 Sage Hurta 20:13.10 – 13 second back of Oregon’s #2.
21 Makena Morley 20:17.13 – 8 seconds back of Oregon’s #3.
23 Kaitlyn Benner 20:19.62 – 10 seconds back of Oregon’s #4.
36 Madison Boreman 20:31.96 – 5 seconds back of Oregon’s #5.
(38) Tabor Scholl 20:32.58 – 61 seconds ahead of Oregon’s #6.
(74) Brianna Schwartz 20:58.39 – 35 seconds back of Oregon’s #7.

A team can certainly make up a less than 10 seconds per runner in the span of five weeks. Plus Colorado has by far the best sixth woman.

Talk about the meet on our fan forum: Official 2017 Wisco / Pre-Nats Discussion Thread- Who you got? 


Yesterday:  2017 Wisconsin XC Women’s Recap: Ednah Kurgat Leads New Mexico To Victory New Mexico claimed individual and team victories at the 2017 Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational in Madison on Friday.

2017 Wisco XC Men’s Recap: Justyn Knight Edges Grant Fisher As NAU Dominates, But Who Were The Biggest Winners and Losers? Today’s 2017 Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational in Madison played out very much the same as the 2016 Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational as for the second year in a row, the No. 1 Northern Arizona men and Syracuse’s Justyn Knight emerged as the champions.  We break it down for you and tell you which teams flopped and which teams surprised.

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