Official 2014 DIII Cross Country Thread

what the heck happened in NE? Williams 4th?

As pointed out above, Olaf's Wintheiser / Campbell duo does look pretty lethal.

Williams lost their Teddy bear, so they couldn't sleep last night. Obviously led to a bad performance today. If they don't get it back before Nationals, they'll probably DFL.

Wintheiser looked awesome today. Did not get carried away early and ran a stellar time on a fairly difficult course.

St. Olaf on the whole certainly looked like a title contender... but North Central is deeper 5-7. Kelleher needs a better day, and I believe he will get it.

Trophy Predictions for Nationals -

1. North Central -70

2. St. Olaf - 80

3. LaCrosse - 120

4. Eau Claire - 140

great races wrote:

North Central is deeper 5-7. Kelleher needs a better day, and I believe he will get it.

It's two straight races where he's been further back for them. At the CCIW meet, I'd assumed that he may have been simply deferring to the senior. Harder to know after a second race where he's not up front. Sub-30 10K guys aren't often 11th in their Regional. Is he healthy?

The regional meet is pretty much a repeat of NESCACS (plus MIT) so Williams knew they could qualify easily. My guess is they trained through this week just a little bit. Also Colbys 5th had a much better day then at NESCACs

What teams do you think they will take from the Mideast region?

I think both St.Olaf and North Central team scores will be below 60 points.

I don't know if it would make sense to "train through" this week - its too close to the end of the season to get any benefits from it. They might not have been running all out - Cotton and Mazaheri looked very relaxed.

Colby and Amherst also ran incredibly well. Turissini and Hussain both had incredible races moving up for 4th and 5th. New England looks stronger than expected, though its hard to tell how they will stack up with the midwest. Running the Williams course a week before nationals can be taxing...

ChidiEmmet wrote:

What teams do you think they will take from the Mideast region?

I think St Olaf's Jake Brown is gonna have the race of his life and win like it's a USCSA ski race

Hey wrote:

The regional meet is pretty much a repeat of NESCACS (plus MIT) so Williams knew they could qualify easily. My guess is they trained through this week just a little bit. Also Colbys 5th had a much better day then at NESCACs

The region is really good, and Williams' 3-5 had an off day. Got beat straight up fair and square by 3 really good teams.

Also, I was at the meet and was not impressed with how Williams handled the loss. Showed a distinct lack of class.

an observer wrote:

Hey wrote:

The regional meet is pretty much a repeat of NESCACS (plus MIT) so Williams knew they could qualify easily. My guess is they trained through this week just a little bit. Also Colbys 5th had a much better day then at NESCACs

The region is really good, and Williams' 3-5 had an off day. Got beat straight up fair and square by 3 really good teams.

Also, I was at the meet and was not impressed with how Williams handled the loss. Showed a distinct lack of class.

What did they do or how did they react?

Someone explain why Carleton and St Thomas got chosen for Nats at large over Oshkosh and Plateville. Is the committee full of North Eastern folks?

an observer wrote:

Also, I was at the meet and was not impressed with how Williams handled the loss. Showed a distinct lack of class.

Why? How did Williams react to the loss?

ghetigoo wrote:

Someone explain why Carleton and St Thomas got chosen for Nats at large over Oshkosh and Plateville. Is the committee full of North Eastern folks?

The answers you seek are lie within the Blugold Invite and Drews race results. Life is all about context...

Carleton and St. Thomas are in Minnesota? Not NE? How is that favoritism. Real question: why did Rose-Hulman and Calvin qualify after getting spanked by Wabash in one of the weakest regions? Did they just qualify R-H so Calvin, who placed behin R-H, could go? I can find no justification for R-H and I agree UWO and UWP deserve to go, but so do Carleton and UST.

Of course they deserve to go, but Oshkosh is clearly better. That is why they changed it to 16 at large, no limits on teams from 1 regional. Are the committee members misinformed? They are stating with the bids that all of those teams are better than Oshkosh. I'm not a homer, I just find it ridiculous. Or Rose Hulman. Just saying.

NaOh wrote:

an observer wrote:

Also, I was at the meet and was not impressed with how Williams handled the loss. Showed a distinct lack of class.

Why? How did Williams react to the loss?

Was it something more than Williams trying to tell everyone they could they were holding back? Overhead several Williams people spouting that excuse off after the race. They got beat pretty handily by all three, they need to accept it and move on to the bigger stage.