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App st. has mat cote
thats all I have to say
UTC and App St close race for 1st... Furman and UNCG close race for 3rd.
ETSU, unless saved by recruiting, will be out of the picture -- same goes for Western Carolina, whose only strong returner is Puett.
Furman will have the home course advantage, which will be huge as I've heard knowing the course well will help keep you from getting raped on it. Like Davidson's course, will probably find many victims the last mile that took it out too hard.
For those who are interested, here's the results from last year's conference meet with seniors and known non-returners taken out (note this does not factor in any new superstar recruits)...
UTC - 37
App St - 38
Furman - 110
UNCG - 113
Davidson - 171
Western - 188
ETSU - Full Team??
These also don't account for those runners who ran much worse than they are capable of.. one notable is UTC's Linas Salkauskas who placed 44th last year to be their 6th man.
i figure i'll put mu unbiased two cents in too. i looked and going to app out of high school and am really glad i didn't. instead i went to an ok d2 team and we raced app on several occasions in xc and track. as they should have, they beat us and those guys pranced around like they were each the next coming of prefontaine. it seems to have run through the whole team. i love the boone area and have heard great things about the school but those guys heads seem to be bigger than the surrounding mountains. it does suprise me that they aren't a better program nationally given the area they have to train. boone is a really nice runner's paradise from what i've seen
Sam Lev, what place did you get at the conference meet last fall? Cool man.
my nigga joe jacobs is gunna tear shit up
I do not cross country for app, but i will tell u that everyone on the app xc team will beat your ass and bang your sister. THank you that is all.
com'om biaa uhhhh that's noot kool uhhhh my siister is shlighty retarted and uhhhh she wouldn't know what shez doing
I vote
1.UTC
2. Appy
3. Furman
4. UNCG
5. ETSU
Rob Hatcher a UTC runner last year ran with a stress fracture in his Femur, he was their 5th man I believe.One of their top guys Gediminas Benevicius(Socon XC Champion and runner of the year) had a broken foot during the summer prior to the start of the season. Both of those guys should be healthy this year and Gediminas should compete with Steven Kocsis(SOCON Champion last year and NCAA qualifier) for the conference title. They have a Red Shirt freshman Jeff Taylor who Ran a 15:15 5k over the summer which was a PR for him beating his old PR by about 35 seconds and he should be able to build on that if he can stay healthy and possibly be UTC's 6th or maybe even 5th runner. Linas Salkauskas should run up to his potential this year and may surprise a lot of people by taking a top 10 spot at Conference. You can't forget Colin Sullivan who placed 5th at conference last year and Ian Mayne who placed 10th. If UTC has it together they might run away with the SOCON. This is all just speculation of course until the season starts and things fall into place.
This conference is pretty shitty. Why would watse your tiem talking about a shit conference. These conferences in the south are so shit. They may be competitive in thier little shit place, but really there are conferences in the west that have teams that would rock these shit schools and easily make ncaa's. SoCOn is really shitty.
I guess these southern schools spend to much time on grammer, spelling and academics in general to be able to compete with those western schools that obviously sacrifice academics and proper use of the english language for faster XC times. They just don't have their priorities in order ehh?
Maybe I'm not fully informed, but I think Furman just lost to WCU this weekend. Neither team is very good this year. I'm not sure why people keep picking them so high.
I saw the results from that WCU meet. It seems that Tyler Johnson didnt run. Anybody know more about that? There were rumors about him transfering, but he is on their roster. Overall, I was not impressed by the results.
Conditions weren't great for the WCU meet...mooshy ground and hot/humid the morning of...but still, the race was weak up front. It was a different 5k than previous years, so its tough to compare it to past results.
Nobody compared it to past results though. The times just weren't impressive at all. I'm thinking neither of these teams is going to be a threat for top 3.
Furman's Navy Invite results looked a little better than last week's 5k. Anyone know what the course conditions were like? Did Ivan make it up there? Are they still a long shot for third? So many questions...
I ran there and it was 20mph winds and down pour rains. The course is pretty tough also. It is hilly by my standards and was pretty slick and mushy.
Here are some links to results from some of the top SoCon teams this weekend. For starters, the top 2 teams App. and UTC did not run b/c of the hurricane. UNCG, Western Carolina, Furman, and ETSU all competed in various meets. UNCG topped Western Carlina at the Clemson Invite, ETSU ran against no other SoCon teams at the Lou Onesty Invite, and Furman ran against no SoCon teams at the Navy invite.
http://www.navysports.com/uploads/files/1285_Navy_Invitational_Results.pdf
http://clemsontigers.collegesports.com/sports/m-track/stats/091804aaa.html
http://virginiasports.collegesports.com/sports/c-xc/stats/2004-2005/results-f1.html
Furman's 1-7 were 25:49, 25:58, 26:21, 27:08, 27:09, 27:40, and 28:08.
UNCG's top 7 were 25:43, 26:09, 26:31, 26:43, 26:55, 27:26, and 28:01.
Western Carolina's top 7 were 25:22, 26:14, 27:00, 27:26, 27:31, 27:32, and 27:40.
ETSU's top 7 were 25:54, 27:04, and the rest of the top 7 over 30:00.
From all this my prediction is going to be Furman and UNCG have a tight battle for 3rd place, but SoCon is still 5 or 6 weeks away so alot can happen in that time. If anyone can give us an analysis of how the course ran on Sat., how tough the courses are, what the conditions were like, or how each of the teams runners ran vs. how they could have run, it would all be helpful to really make a pre SoCon guess about who is going to place where. Anyone have any of that info. for us?
Furman and UNCG are still looking solid, especially considering they were probably racing in less than ideal conditions. Puett is looking strong but unfortunately his team is not. And ETSU? What happened? Poor Dalton, he's running well but he has no team to back him up.
So from what I can tell right now, I'm predicting 3 close battles in the conference:
UTC and App for 1st
UNCG and Furman for 3rd
WCU and Davidson for 5th
ETSU could be down there with Elon and C of C. Not quite Wofford's level (Dalton saves them from that), but I bet they get beat by the Citadel.