DIII Cross Country: 2011

so pumped for this race. Lake Breeze is a wonderful course for a national meet.

thanks to everyone who input the info for the poll.

I'll go out on a limb and say that I think the winning time will be 23:54 assuming the top guys just don't sit and look at each other.

Also looking at big gaps after the 1-2 teams on both men and womens side, then a scramble of polls as people tank or show up. It's really a mix.

The only other hard prediction I'll make is that 24:42 gets you All American.

Equinox2100 wrote:

I'll go out on a limb and say that I think the winning time will be 23:54 assuming the top guys just don't sit and look at each other.

Also looking at big gaps after the 1-2 teams on both men and womens side, then a scramble of polls as people tank or show up. It's really a mix.

The only other hard prediction I'll make is that 24:42 gets you All American.

If the front end takes out it hard and it's as fast as you predict--which I'm willing to get behind, mostly because I hope they take it out hard, and I know there are guys in this field who can run that--it's going to take 24:30 to get AA. In the Oshkosh results from '07 when it took 24:05, 24:10 to win, high 24:30s was top fifteen. This field is better, and faster because later in the season.

Safe bet is NCC, they just need a good day, a steady work-a-day run, to just do what they've been doing all season. Haverford will need to have a great, if not really great day to win, because they've got multiple guys who have shown up only once or twice. If they can get the three different guys who have been their clear number 1 each of the last three races to all run well, they're right in there, but that's a much bigger if than the NCC pack running within themselves and just performing up to par. I think WashU. and Williams are the two dark horses in this race.

Goat Goat!

What!

1 NCC

2 Haverford

3 ???

4 Uni of pheonix

Christy Cazzola FTW on her "home" course...

Berube seems like a good bet on the men's side.

Wash U women will upset Middlebury!

AH my Shilockian friend you appear again!

I can't believe how little action this thread is getting compared to past years - last year's thread had 50+ pages.

The men's race is going to be freakin' awesome. I still think the top two teams are way ahead of the rest of the field - so that will be an awesome duel. And then there is an almost equally awesome battle for the like 3-8 spots.

Like someone else mentioned, it's awesome to see the Haverford-NCC rivalry play out for another year; both teams are pretty stacked. After tomorrow, I think we'll be able to see how these teams stack up historically, because it should be a pretty fair (/fast) course and we'll be able to see what they average, etc. As a previous poster noted, Haverford has been relatively inconsistent this season, but if they run smart and run well, they are definitely capable of beating NCC. I don't think it will take an out-of-this-world for them to beat NCC. I think if both teams have 5 runners that show up, it will be extremely close (what has been the closest nationals ever?)

I'm going to go ahead and say that the winning team will have around 60-70 points, and second place will have 75-100 points. Then I think third will MAYBE break 200 points. Like I said before, third through eighth will be really close - how awesome would it be if there were like 4 teams with 200-250 points?

It's also pretty awesome to see North Central, Haverford, Calvin, and Williams all up towards the top of DIII at the same time. In my mind, these are the historical powerhouse programs of DIII that have done the most, and most consistently. Also, those are by far the 4 most accomplished coaches in DIII.

As far as the individual title; I think there are a lot of people who could sneak up and take it, but to me, the clear favorite is Sathre. The kid's been running like a beast, and he did get 2nd last year. The only person I could see as a co-favorite is Berube.

That being said, those two are by no means way ahead of the field - I could easily see any one of the top 10 runners winning it. Big dark-horse for the win is Kevin McCarthy of Wabash - he has some dirty track times, has been running well, and the course will likely suit him.

I'm freaking pumped for this race...how can you not be?

THIS IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME.

In my own head the mythology is that North Central, the best team in the history of d3 xc, which went 2-1-2 the last three years, is going to show up and crush it, have their five run really well, and be solidly at the front of the team race--just like last year. And Haverford, the best middle-distance team in the history of d3 track, has all the parts to show up and defend the title, going 1-1 and keeping North Central from the crown which is historically theirs.

But Haverford is gambling, because having five guys all run well on the same day is a great performance for them, though it just takes each of those five having a good day---whereas NCC has only a good day by having their five have a good day. So it's like a 50-50 whether Haverford rises up again to take Al Carius's boys down, and even then it's a 50-50 whether Haverford's five having a good day (what I called the team having a great day) beats North Central's five having a good day (the team just having a good day), because who knows which has the actually better five? Donnelly and Carius are geniuses, and the talent is there on both teams, and the big meet experience, and who knows which is actually better? That's why we RACE.

And then there's the possible scenario of either team having their five guys run great, not just good, races--think of Hulleburg winning last year--and the team race getting really spicy.

I mean, each of them has five or more guys who, on a good day, make All-American, so a good day from NCC nets five AA, and a great day from Haverford nets five AA. But a great day from NCC could give you five in the top 20, or something ridiculous like that, and an out-of-their-minds day for Haverford, in the sense that if their five run great then it's an even greater team performance, also nets four or five in the top 20. How absurd would it be to have two teams with a combined ~10 of the top 20 spots? This could go down as one for the ages.

And because of that, if it doesn't play out in any of the ways above, it would be just as epic. If it isn't a battle for the ages, the actual winner will be storied for the reason that it wasn't a battle for the ages. If NCC or Haverford or both deflates, and you end up with a 100 point Haverford victory, or a 10 point Calvin victory, or NCC, Haverford, Williams, Calvin going 1-4 with a 20 point spread, it still is amazing, because the conditions of the drama were set up by the Haverford-NCC showdown. A runaway team performance, or a dark horse upset, or an across-the-board-close meet are all incredible situations given the battle between 1 and 2. This meet can't end poorly for anyone who's a cross country fan. I'm so excited.

DIII enthusiast wrote:

It's also pretty awesome to see North Central, Haverford, Calvin, and Williams all up towards the top of DIII at the same time. In my mind, these are the historical powerhouse programs of DIII that have done the most, and most consistently. Also, those are by far the 4 most accomplished coaches in DIII.

Clearly your mind doesn't go back very far then. UW-La Crosse and UW-Oshkosh are historically the best teams other than NCC, without question.

ho hum wrote:

Clearly your mind doesn't go back very far then. UW-La Crosse and UW-Oshkosh are historically the best teams other than NCC, without question.

Yeah I was looking at that, and I know they are - you can look at this page here to see:

They're definitely up there...but I guess I was more equating it with coaches. Oshkosh has a new coach - but I guess La Crosse's coach is still.

Anyhow they're still in the mix - ranked 6th and 9th. If not for the win, then it seems they could definitely take the podium. I mean the rankings this year have been really sketchy and I don't think they mean much for those teams that are 3-12. I think it's very possible that La Crosse is a better team than Williams and could end up on the podium....either way, it's going to be a sick race!

Does anyone have suggestions for watching the race at home, besides the video feed? Any Twitter accounts to follow? Is it true that some service is sending out text updates at the mile marks? I'll take whatever I can get here.

Here's the link for the text splits: http://www.pttiming.com%2Fpage%2Fshow%2F420622-ncaa-division-3-cross-country-championships&h=fAQFk1JzzAQFei25K2Bo_BzsbyqaMbV0oYFhsxe9FCGdzNA

worst video feed ever?

Yes, they've showed people running for like 3 minutes total!

Did they just cut away as the leaders showed up after showing the crowds forming for three minutes? Is that really the best you can do with ~5 cameras?

Not even certain it was 3 minutes of running, plus seizure inducing video.

Wow.

Tufts did a better job with their regionals feed last weekend. And that wasn't pretty either. Pathetic.