I realize St John's were the favorites for 2nd, but Mac had an opportunity to make history to place 2nd for the first time since 1968. And they were indeed in 2nd through all the splits, but couldn't hold off St. John's in the end, who put their 7 runner ahead of Mac's 5. Mac's prospects were hurt quite a bit losing two top 5 in Tor Olsson and Ben Crotteau, who made a valient effort coming off a stress fracture injury. Nevertheless, it might be the first time they've placed higher than 4th since 1970, but hard to know for sure, as MIAC are missing records of full results from much of the 70s.
I correctly predicted St. Olaf's score of 23, and originally was going to put Bati down for 23:56, but figured he wouldn't go all-out at Conference as long as he had the record, so I had 24:02. Did he still hold back? It'll be fun to see what he does in the final two meets.
I predicted the exact placings for these runners:
2 Kevin Turlington
3 Andrew Skemp
10 Tyler Edwards
12 Roy Llewellyn
29 Nick Ihrke
39 Victor Lelinga
And was within two seconds for time:
25:04 -> 25:05 Jack Deaver
26:05 -> 26:07 Nick Ihrke
Of the outstanding performances, I didn't even have Gael Manzur Strandlund in St. Olaf's top five, as he only ran 26:42 at St. Olaf earlier in the season, but he was fifth in 25:05. Tyler Smith also ran over 40 seconds faster than I predicted, placing 8th in 25:17. While Grant Graber was 23rd last year, he was only 27:34 at Drews, but bounced back to place 15th in 25:39. For underperformers, Travis Brown was 21 places down from my prediction at 50th in 26:56. I had Mac's Quinn Hoisington as continuing his progress and being the clutch #5 runner, but placed 54th.
Gustavus exceeded team expectations, placing 6th instead of my predicted 8th.