Talkin' HEPS XC, 2009!

you would think it would be the same difficulty, but the results from the Iona meet of champions and the metropolitan invite seem to show otherwise, definitely slower than last year

HEPS men's prediction:

1.Columbia

2. Princeton

3. Cornell

4. Harvard

5. Dartmouth

6. Brown

7. Yale

8. Penn

yea so I know columbia is looking strong and all, but I could definitely see Princeton putting 3 in front of Columbia's 1st and the 4th and 5th men being reasonably close to the pack. That's assuming a bit but I'd still put my money on the tigers!

Who would be the third of Princeton? Columbia has a pretty strong 1-2-3 this year.

Is Speare princetons 3rd guy? That would be a great race if he beat columbia's top guy.

Directions to Van Cortland and the layout for the races this year are posted at ivyleaguesports.com. See article link below for details.

http://ivyleaguesports.com/article.asp?intID=7403

statsguy wrote:

You can't redshirt a year in the Ivys, right? What do people do if they're injured for a year and go to grad school? Do people use that year? What is the history behind it? Anybody doing it now/next year?

You can only "redshirt" if you are not in school- so Ben True "redshirted" by taking a year off from Dartmouth, and then coming back to finish his degree. You cannot compete as a master's student. You cannot take 5 years to graduate by taking a bunch of gym classes or something-they won't let you compete.

The Ivies are a gold mine of 5th year seniors, and other coaches know this, and recruit to snatch them up. Superstuds and randoms alike end up going other places. I'll list some from the past few years that I know of:

Studs:

Michael Maag (P) to Oregon, Mike Carmody (D) to Texas, Liam Boylan-Pett (Col.) to Georgetown (won the BigEast 1500), Owen Washburn (B) to Texas, Steve Mucchetti (D) to Auburn.

Others:

Grant Allen (D) to Louisville (his bro. coaches there), Jared Bell (Y) to Florida State (Harry Norton of D-mouth is the GA there now), Caitlin Cunningham (D) to Louisville.

I'm sure there is more as well- i'm not as familiar with Harvard and Penn, for example.

If the Ivy League could keep its 5th year seniors like other conferences, it would dramatically change the landscape, perception, and quality of the teams. You'd see more Ivy XC teams at NCAAs, and you'd have more track all-americans.

duferoo wrote:

The Ivies are a gold mine of 5th year seniors, and other coaches know this, and recruit to snatch them up. Superstuds and randoms alike end up going other places. I'll list some from the past few years that I know of:

Studs:

Michael Maag (P) to Oregon, Mike Carmody (D) to Texas, Liam Boylan-Pett (Col.) to Georgetown (won the BigEast 1500), Owen Washburn (B) to Texas, Steve Mucchetti (D) to Auburn.

Others:

Grant Allen (D) to Louisville (his bro. coaches there), Jared Bell (Y) to Florida State (Harry Norton of D-mouth is the GA there now), Caitlin Cunningham (D) to Louisville.

I'm sure there is more as well- i'm not as familiar with Harvard and Penn, for example.

Some Harvard noteworthy alums:

Samyr Laine and Lawrance Adjah (both triple jumpers) did their final year of eligibility at Texas while doing a one year grad program. Sam had one of the best jumps of the 2007 year within NCAA. Sam is now at Georgetown law and competed at World Championships in the triple jump representing Haiti.

Lindsey Scherf ran for Oregon last year as a grad student, since she didn't compete at Harvard for 2.5 years. One year for injury and surgey, and another year when she did a semester abroad in Australia and dealt with her year suspension from competition due to refusing to take a drug test after running a marathon while in Australia (apparently, there was some failure in communication during this whole deal, so she got only a year suspension versus 2 years). She's in her second year in the grad program at Oregon. She ran at NCAA XC championships last year and had the 2nd fastest indoor 5K time, but her injuries crept up on her again and she didn't compete much during outdoors.

Nicki Grant (hammer thrower) competed for Boston University as a graduate student. I believe she made it to NCAA championships in the outdoor season while at BU.

Those are the only ones I can think of from Harvard who had to compete at another school in order to finish their eligibility (aside from myself but I didn't do anything noteworthy).

Let's talk about the big race this Friday at VCP. Predictions?

duferoo wrote:

[quote]statsguy wrote:

The Ivies are a gold mine of 5th year seniors, and other coaches know this, and recruit to snatch them up. Superstuds and randoms alike end up going other places. I'll list some from the past few years that I know of:

Studs:

Michael Maag (P) to Oregon, Mike Carmody (D) to Texas, Liam Boylan-Pett (Col.) to Georgetown (won the BigEast 1500), Owen Washburn (B) to Texas, Steve Mucchetti (D) to Auburn.

Others:

Grant Allen (D) to Louisville (his bro. coaches there), Jared Bell (Y) to Florida State (Harry Norton of D-mouth is the GA there now), Caitlin Cunningham (D) to Louisville.

And don't forget about Weldon (Y) running his 5th year at Texas.

Are you sure about the finish direction on the flats? This is my understanding of the Women's course:

Starts in the corner past tennis courts; straight into cowpath-freshman hill to back hills; out of back hills over bridge, right turn after bridge, then HARD LEFT at bottom of the hill approaching flats; GO AROUND THE FLATS CLOCKWISE SO THAT YOU ARE APPROACHING FINISH LINE OPPOSITE THE NORMAL DIRECTION.

It seems like the other approach is not passable...can anyone confirm the final finish on the flights?

There is an image that shows both the men and women's courses (http://hepstrack.com/2009/10/26/van-cortlandt-here-they-come/). From my understanding of the image, it looks like the men and women will be approaching the finish line from OPPOSITE directions: men from north and women from south (assuming that the top of the image is north). I think New Course was describing the course for the men while whatareyoulookingat? was describing the course for the women. Because of the different race distances, each race has a different course.

duferoo wrote:

And don't forget about Weldon (Y) running his 5th year at Texas.

And Anna Willard went from Brown to Michigan....

C/M Runner wrote:

There is an image that shows both the men and women's courses (http://hepstrack.com/2009/10/26/van-cortlandt-here-they-come/). From my understanding of the image, it looks like the men and women will be approaching the finish line from OPPOSITE directions: men from north and women from south (assuming that the top of the image is north). I think New Course was describing the course for the men while whatareyoulookingat? was describing the course for the women. Because of the different race distances, each race has a different course.

It's not really germane to this discussion, but when are women going to start racing the same distances as men in cross country, as they to on the roads and track?

1. Princeton

2. Columbia

3. Cornell

4. Dartmouth

5. Harvard

6. Yale

7. Penn

8. Brown

Let's see what we can come up with here.

Top 15:

Chenoweth, Leung, Edelman, Zablocki, Escareno, Cabral, Martin, Perrella, Merber, Hardy, Robbins, Heck, Stillin, Frost-Tift, Baird

Teams:

1. Princeton- Front two are crucial at Heps this year. The pack has been close enough that I'll give the nod for the 4-peat.

2. Columbia- Their pack was not that close at Pre-Nats. Home field advantage is huge though.

3. Dartmouth- Robbins/Zablocki duo is very tough. There 3-5 have very little room for error though.

4. Cornell- Edelman should be a low stick, and Cornell's strength this year is depth, which a lot of other teams are lacking.

5. Harvard- I wouldn't be surprised to see them finish up higher, but they're number 2 will have to be less than 1:20 back of Chenoweth as the case was at Pre-Nats.

6. Yale- Matched up decently with Cornell at Lock Haven, with Perella running well.

7. Brown- Another very tough duo up front in Escareno and Hardy, but not sold on their pack yet.

8. Penn

General comments:

Obviously, as has been discussed, Columbia and Princeton should be a battle. I see it being a toss up, but Princeton's 3-5 have performed well enough recently. I would not be that surprised to see any of the next 5 teams in the 3 spot. Most teams have a solid 1 or 2, but the 3-5 guys match up pretty evenly across the board. An unfortunate case of swine flu could be a devastating to those teams. A lot of parity this year, with a few points here and there meaning all the world. That's the great thing about Heps. Should be the best conference meet in the country, once again.

Team previews are being posted at Hepstrack.com. So far, Columbia (M), Brown (W), Dartmouth (M), Cornell (W), and Yale (M) have been summarized and posted.

A real X factor: the heavy rain that NYC has absorbed this week, not to mention Friday's warmish (~60 degrees) temps and (presumably) fairly high humidity.

What spikes do you go with at VCP on Friday? As sloppy as that course is going to be, this is a major consideration.

The course is mostly a cinder path, so it drains pretty well. I raced there a couple of weeks ago in the rain, after it had been raining hard all night, and the course was wet, but traction was fine. I don't think you would need anything more than a short spike, say 1/4-3/8". I'm not sure of the technicalities on that because I'm an old, slow guy, so perhaps someone else could help with the specifics.