HEPS XC predictions!

Kiernan is out with a stress fx that required surgery, and glencer got her appendix out recently

Thank you. I was wondering what was up. The whole Ivy League could do better with their press releases to allow us fans to follow the teams. I hope they both are feeling better and are back to normal soon.

The Heps really is the most competitive conference, from top to bottom, in the NCAA. This year should be an up year, as far as All-American certificates. The conference as a whole should collect more than they normally do.

JoeCollege wrote:

Thank you. I was wondering what was up. The whole Ivy League could do better with their press releases to allow us fans to follow the teams. I hope they both are feeling better and are back to normal soon.

Not sure what the medical ethics would say about publicly releasing private medical information?

Actually, that's the tip of the iceberg that I was hinting at (although most of it is in my head because I didn't want to hijack the thread).

The way I see it, schools/coaches could say things like Runners A, B, and C are injured and need to rest. Runners X and Y are just coming off injuries so they're in a base phase now--or whatever. That's all that's needed.

No need to put runners' private stuff on front street, but a little explanation helps to keep the rumors down. Just general facts or updates would be helpful. There have been numerous examples, especially toward women, where posters begin to speculate about what's wrong, they then say they're anorexic, or they got kicked off the team, or they're fat, or they're partying too much. These examples are all true ones that have happened on this message board just this year (I won't rename any names, but you probably know who I'm talking about anyway). I'll use a guy for one example: Look at all the awful, untrue stuff that was written about Wisconsin's first man last season after he was favored to win the men's NCAA championship. They questioned his manhood, they said he had lyme disease, they said he had the flu, they said he collapsed unconscious during the Big Ten meet . . . .

On the team rosters, there sometimes is a photo that's 2 or more years old, and often no listing of each runner's accomplishments on that page. It's just blank beneath the photo. To tell you the truth, I admire a lot of these athletes, and knowing that Linday Donaldson made Academic All-American last year and stuff like that is fun to know. Running just isn't like football where there's information overload in the press and on TV. We have to really dig to keep up with the team past what place a team or an individual took at a race. The roster web pages of most universities look the same. Some schools just put out more info. I guess that's what I was grousing about.

stitch wrote:

max kasak from cornell ftw barely edges out penn's phil cawkwell

Byram Hills takes 1-2! don't know the order

Helluva race from the Princeton women last weekend. Yikes.

Also, I think Lou Duesing is doing a good job with his young Cornell squad.

With 6 Ivy men's teams at Pre-nationals, the pecking order shaped up a little, but a couple of teams didn't show all their cards.

Princeton would need a complete disaster to lose, just like at outdoor track this spring, so don't count it out completely. Tinney's 23:47.9 led all the Ivy runners in Terre Haute and Maag posted a solid 24:01.5 on the wicked fast course. Nightingale wasn't race-tested yet this year and "died" to a 24:38.0, but if the 3-season All-American is over his IT band trouble enough to get back with his top teammates, this meet should be a one team show.

Cornell looks cautiously good for 2nd as of now, with 3 potential top 10s up front, but they aren't that deep and a blowup from one of those 3 or an abnormally big gap back to their 4th and 5th sticks could knock them all the way down to the middle of the pack, as happened for them the last two years, when their top returner DNFed. They have to watch out for Dartmouth, which has 4th and 5th men perhaps better than their own (but probably not the same firepower as Cornell's top 3), and Penn and Columbia, which usually have their best day of the season at the conference meet.

Dartmouth - could they really slip to the bottom half of the league if they have to hold out a top guy? That's hard to believe, but they haven't run everybody in one race yet, not running Dooley and Robbins, a good freshman, at Pre-nats, so they might be a little dinged up. Still, Dooley, the new freshman Robbins, Norton, Randall and perhaps Treadway can run in the top 25 in the conference, with a couple of guys potentially near the top 10. They just seem to be too thin after their top 5 right now, so they can't afford an injury or a poor race from anybody. With the top 5 all running healthy, Dartmouth is probably actually 3rd on paper and they could conceivably finish 2nd with an outstanding race from everyone and a minor slip-up from Cornell, but unless they trot out a fit Ben True on the 26th, they won't have any chance for another title.

Columbia was a ways back of Princeton and Cornell on times and on place in their race at Pre-nats, but they usually run their best at Vanny late in the year, so they might close the gap a little. The smaller field should help them stay in it and make the scores tighter, but they'd need help in the form of a poor race from Cornell, another meet with Dartmouth missing a top guy or something as freaky as Princeton being eaten by killer ants to be better than 3rd.

Penn bombed at Pre-nats with McEwen's DNF, but he wasn't too far back of Sitler at Paul Short and could be a top 5 threat himself in a race where 20 guys aren't running 23:30 pace up front. Penn also has guys in Goldberg and Trembley who have run better in the past and if they all get it together while a couple of other teams don't, Penn could be a top 3 team.

Brown is a question mark, having not faced a tough test so far. They have runners who have done some solid stuff in the past (Myers 8:14, Schmidt 14:20), so some talent is there, but those guys haven't run that well this season. Escareno is their best right now and stands to be somewhere around the top 10 if not a chance at top 5 on an exceptional day.

Harvard - will they be the kind of team that brought up the rear at conference last year or the team that got 4th in the region and sent a guy to the nationals two weeks later? They do have a couple of guys with former credentials, including a (barely) sub-30:00 10k guy in Holmquest, but they haven't faced anybody this season that could provide a real indicator of their standing. Racing at Albany instead of Pre-nats, they posted some decent times, but so did some dinky teams, so who knows if they'll be any good come championship time?

Yale seems to be in the cellar on paper, finishing the worst of the Ivy schools at Terre Haute and having the slowest 5-man average. The same seemed true of them last year, though, and they somehow had a miracle race to get 4th in the league. Gallagher only had the 13th fastest time of the Ivy runners at Pre-nats, but look for him to get up near the front and try for a top individual spot in the championships. They'd need lightning to strike twice in the same spot one year later in order to finish in the top half of the league again, but this race has usually provided a surprise or two just like that, so it can't be dismissed.

From Pre-nationals, the Ivy scores, ignoring all the non-Ivy teams and based on times, look like this:

Princeton 1-2-5-8-10 = 26

Cornell 3-4-6-16-21 = 50 *

Columbia 11-14-15-20-25 = 85 *

Dartmouth 9-12-17-27-33 = 98 %

Penn 7-19-24-26-28 = 104 #

Yale 13-18-34-35-36 = 136

* Cornell's 5th man and Columbia's 4th man both ran 24:54.3, but Columbia's man placed better in his race, so he gets the nod for the lower score in the combined standings

% Dartmouth did not run 2 of their top men so far this season at Pre-nats; assuming they were first and second man for the team in 9th and 10th among the Ivy runners (moving Norton to 11th), Dartmouth scores 63 points for 3rd in the Ivy scoring; if they ran as well as 5th and 6th among Ivy runners, Dartmouth scores 55 to move into 2nd ahead of Cornell's 56

# Penn's top runner this season DNFed; if he scored as the league's 21st man or better, Penn would have surpassed the team Dartmouth sent (which wasn't their full A team), and a 10th place finish or better among the Ivy runners would have pushed Penn past Columbia

Thanks for the in-depth analysis. Haven't been to Heps in years, but not going to Marine Corps Marathon weekend this year, so I think I'll make the drive down to Vanny. Too bad there's no alumni race any more; maybe b/c old guys like me were taking so long to finish it was delaying the start of the college events ;-)

That Northeast Region Guy wrote:

Dartmouth is probably actually 3rd on paper and they could conceivably finish 2nd with an outstanding race from everyone and a minor slip-up from Cornell, but unless they trot out a fit Ben True on the 26th, they won't have any chance for another title.

there is no such thing as an unfit Ben True

There is no Ben True this year... look for him next year in XC and track

i predct that the Womens winner will be extremely butch looking,

If Ben True is running next year, it cannot be at Dartmouth because his eligibility (per Ivy League rules) will be gone. He could have one year of eligibility left at a non-Ivy college.

And here's how the women's race could look:

1. Yale runner

2. Princeton runner

3. Princeton runner

4. Princeton runner

5. Princeton runner

6. Princeton runner

7. Princeton runner

8. Princeton runner

wrote:

If Ben True is running next year, it cannot be at Dartmouth because his eligibility (per Ivy League rules) will be gone. He could have one year of eligibility left at a non-Ivy college.

[/quote]

no...

http://dartmouthsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=48825&SPID=4710&DB_OEM_ID=11600&ATCLID=926503

true runs at dartmouth next fall

The irony? He did it because he was actually scared Nightingale was going to take him this year at Heps... He thought xc2008 would be cake, but senores Maag and Sitler might have something to say about that.

i'm not serious, but its a thought

oh benny wrote:

The irony? He did it because he was actually scared Nightingale was going to take him this year at Heps... He thought xc2008 would be cake, but senores Maag and Sitler might have something to say about that.

i'm not serious, but its a thought

guys as good as True or Nightingale don't duck each other...that's only reserved for high schoolers and the letsrun crowd.

I read the article and am confused, I thought you could not skip or red shirt type thing in the Ivy League?

Ben True is one of those monster talents that comes along once in a while, a guy who can run 1:50 scratch under 4 and run great Xc while training for skiing?

Unless I am way off, wouldn't he look like a 13;15 guy at 5K if training that way? At least?

you can redshirt in the ivy league...you just can't run as a graduate student. you still have five years to use four years of eligibility.

Who gives a crap about True? The guy is a legend in his own lunch time. He pussied out on facing the orange crush this year.