Men's Race - Don't Expect A Nail Biter
Oklahoma State won their first Big 12 Cross-Country Championship in 2008 to end the long reign of Mark Wetmore's Colorado teams. Heading towards the 2009 championships, the Cowboys and Buffaloes sit at #2 and #4 in the NCAA coaching polls (update: #2 and #5 in the just released LRC polls). Rankings point to a tight battle for conference supremacy. In their final conference tuneups, Colorado finished second in their race at Pre-Nationals in Terre Haute, Indiana. Oklahoma State won the Chile Pepper Cross-Country Festival in Fayetteville, Arkansas. But do not be fooled by the apparent proximity of these teams, and do not expect a nail biter in this year's championships in Columbia, Missouri.
Colorado pulled off a shocker when they came down from altitude on October 17th and beat all comers in their Pre-Nats race other than NCAA #1 Stanford. Looking at results, Colorado finished their top 5 with a spread of only eighteen seconds, a remarkable achievement. To win the conference meet or earn a top 4 finish at NCAAs, Colorado will need not only a tight pack, but a tight pack that is near the front of the race. The question is if Colorado get their pack in, let's say, before Oklahoma State's 4th man cross the line.
It appears that this is a highly doubtful scenario. In Terre Haute, by the time the Buffs' first finisher, Christian Thompson, crossed the line, Stanford's 4th man, Jake Riley, was already in the chute. Stanford finished 1st to Colorado's 2nd, but the score was 47-130, a beating. Dual meet scoring would have had Stanford going 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 (17) to Colorado's 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (38). We see that Stanford, at least at this point in the season, is far superior to Colorado. The question at the Big 12 meet obviously will be, is Oklahoma State also superior?
Looking at the 2008 Big 12 results, the picture does not look good for the Buffs. They, along with the rest of the league, were manhandled by German Fernandez and Oklahoma State. The Cowboys put four runners in the first five with true freshman Fernandez getting the win. The other three top finishers are all back for the Cowboys, plus they've added depth and star power with NCAA CC All-American Girma Mecheso transferring from Auburn. That means a probable Cowboy top 5 of Fernandez, Mecheso, Colby Lowe, John Kosgei and Ryan Vail. In 2008, every Colorado runner was at a minimum 20 seconds behind Oklahoma State's 4th man, and aside from the over-achieving Thompson, the Colorado conference lineup will be essentially the same in 2009 as it was in 2008.
While the Colorado runners appear to be more fit than last season, there have been some doubts surrounding Oklahoma State. Sitting Fernandez and Vail and getting a well below average performance from Mecheso, they lost at home early in the season to highly ranked NAU, William & Mary and DII powerhouse Adams State. Adding Vail and Fernandez to the lineup yielded a blowout win in Fayetteville, but with Fernandez running far below his best (he was 11th) and Mecheso sitting out. As coach Dave Smith told us earlier in the year, Fernandez is all about team, so count on him to be ready to lead the Cowboys to a big win over Colorado. We think there are going to be two packs in Missouri this weekend: an Oklahoma State pack of orange in the front, and a Colorado pack of black and gold well behind securing second.
The individual win will almost certainly go to an Oklahoma State runner. Fernandez is the obvious pick but he may be a couple weeks away from being fully sharpened for racing. We'll go with John Kosgei.
Behind Oklahoma State and Colorado are two very good teams in Oklahoma and Iowa State. The Cyclones from Ames won the Griak Invitational in Minnesota very early in the year and followed it up with a let-down meet at Pre-Nats. Oklahoma was a terrible cross-country team in 2008 but return everyone from a redshirt season. They handled home team Arkansas and finished a well-beaten second at Chile Pepper.
The top 4 are followed by a slew of teams hoping to crack into the upper third of the conference. Teams like Texas (winners at Princeton), Kansas (17th, Pre-Nats), Texas A&M (7th at Wisconsin), Missouri (5 top-40 returners) and Texas Tech (led by star Gilbert Limo) hope to have big days.
Women's Race - Barringer, Buffs Storm Back
Ten-for-twelve in the Big 12. Heading into the 13th edition of the women's cross-country championships, Mark Wetmore and his women's cross-country teams are stuck on ten team wins. Last year, the toast of the conference and indeed the NCAA was Sally Kipyego and her fellow Texas Tech Raiders, who stormed to their first conference championship. Colorado not only lost the meet for the first time in 10 years but also finished way back in fifth.
This year should be different thanks to the return of Jenny Barringer, the graduation of Kipyego, and an apparent return to normalcy. Barringer, the prohibitive NCAA championship individual favorite, has inspired an early season resurgence of the girls from Boulder. The Lady Buffs are #3 in the national polls and Barringer is running like crazy over whatever challenge is placed in front of her. At the Rocky Mountain Shootout, she crushed Kara Goucher's course record (then Kara Wheeler) and at Pre-Nats she crushed 2008 national cross-country runner-up Susan Kuijken by a stunning 30 seconds.
Colorado's pack, however, certainly leaves a little hope for reigning champs Texas Tech, Lisa Koll-led Iowa State and an always strong Baylor Bears team. In the Pre-Nats men's race, Colorado had an 18-second spread from man 1-5 over 8km. On the women's side, despite winning their Pre-Nats race over powerhouses Florida State and Oregon, Coach Wetmore had to wait one minute and thirty seconds between Barringer's arrival in the finishing area until their 5th runner ran over the finishing mat. And their 5th runner, Emma Coburn, is no slouch, finishing in 32nd and good enough to be at least the 4th runner for every other team in the race. Contrast that to the men's race in Terre Haute, where finishing 1:30 after the winner in a race that's 20% longer by time gets you 83rd place. On the women's side the 1:30 gap only extended from 1st to 32nd.
Expect a win from Colorado and expect it to come fairly easily. We're not sure what the course record is in Missouri, but it's now less than a week before Barringer breaks it and wins her first Big 12 title. What's that? You can't believe Barringer, a sub-4:00 1,500m runner, NCAA record holder at 5,000m and US Olympian hasn't won a Big XII title in cross-country? Believe it; she was 2nd in 2005 (Christine Bolf), 2nd in 2006 (Kipyego) and 2nd in 2007 (Kipyego).