DIII South-Southeast XC 2009

Bridgewater comes within 21 points of upsetting academic and athletic powerhouse Hagerstown Community College at Gettysburg Invite! Jordan White defeats everyone except shippensburg's top four and a dude from Denison and another from Susquehanna!

Ok, so the team's performance didn't make me look very good. But in all seriousness, that's a pretty good run from White. Shippensburg is D-2 (I'm pretty sure) and the other two guys are not in his region. He beat some pretty good people. Again, I have never tried to say he's on the same level as a Ricky Flynn, just that that he has a shot at one of the five individual qualifying spots in the South Region.

Flynn Picks up a 24:53 3rd place finish at the Blue Ridge Open in the GOLD/OPEN division...

Armstrong and Wright Compete at chili pepper, Run 31:37 and 31:47 respectively...

I am on Bridgewaters team and have talked to my team mates and recent alumni. Eagle Fan is not on our team and has no affiliation with us as far as I and the team am concerned. Listen to nothing he has and does say. He seems to be a nuisance and does not reflect the views and opinions of the team.

Eagle Fan wrote:

"I do think White has a great chance to be one of the individual national qualifiers though. No one in the ODAC has beaten him. Flynn hasn't raced him, but will beat him when they do. Second is up for grabs between him and Van Alstine. Why is it so hard to believe he has the ability to get one of the individual national qualifying spots?"

So Jordan White finishes 4th at ODAC's (a weaker than usual conference this year).

Brdigewater finsihes a distant 4th?

W & L finsihes a distant 3rd? Why have they been ranked 6th, 7th and 8th in the region all year? Haven't seen anything from them.

Emory wasn't as strong as I expected at the UAA meet. Their 4 and 5 need to step up at nationals.

ODAC -- van alstine hurt? or did other lynchburg guys step up? Virginia Wesleyan is better than expected or lynchburg just training through?

SCAC -- rhodes and centre are disappointment, shouldn't factor at all.

UAA -- emory doesn't run great but if they keep their 4-5 within a minute of their studs, they'll be fine at natty lite's

any other conferences matter or make news?

you know, the south region thread is usually 30 pages long by this time of year. something about this year, kind of uninspired. you don't care, i don't care.

The region seems to have undergone a major decline in talent in the last few years. These things always go in phases.

george and robert, even your team's performance has been lackluster this year. the region was actually pretty good two years ago when ut tyler dominated everything up to, but not including, the regional race. emory is a good team this year, lynchburg and umw are pretty good. i'm not sold on trinity or centre yet.

How is the Guilford Course? times seemed slow at the invite.

Which teams are going to be competing this year? Is a list out? Any new ones?

Going into the year, I also thought the ODAC might be a bit weaker this year. However, as the season has gone on, I disagree that the ODAC was/is down this year. I think it's been around 12 years since an ODAC team made it to nationals, yet Lynchburg is ranked 2nd in the region and has a great chance to qualify. Virginia Wesleyan was ranked 3rd in the region at one point this season and Washington & Lee has been ranked reasonably high. When was the last time the ODAC had that many teams ranked that high? It's been a while. I think even Bridgewater is ranked like 8th or something, which gives the ODAC four teams in the top 8 or 9 region spots. Individually, they have the best runner in the history of the conference in Ricky Flynn. I would hardly call it a down or disappointing year. I guess the Regional results will be the final judge. Flynn will certainly go to nationals (and quite possibly his whole team). If Bikko runs like he did in the ODAC meet, he could go as well. Van Alstine has the potential also, if he has a better day (and if his team comes up short).

You say that the region is weaker, however I think it is pretty solid this year.

Flynn is a amazing first and foremost. His team looks good too, their gap is a little wide for my liking, but with a front runner like flynn, it skews things. Van Alstyne needs to step up in a huge way for these guys to go. I think that is a possibility

Emory will place high as a team at nationals. Not to mention Fyffe 14:40 and All American Meade. Also winterhalter who seemed to have a great race at UAA this year. They look to be way better than last year. This team is amazing.

Yea, Centre isn't as strong as last year, but they are still a solid team. Parks is always consistent and Cahill seems to have stepped it up.

Trinity actually ran faster times than the 2007 UT Tyler team at Chili Pepper and would have beaten them had you put their times from this year into that race. Not to mention they have an xc national qualifier and silver at scac (write), an 800 all american (brush), and a 3:52 guy who ran has run 31:37xc 10k (armstrong).

Now presumably the rankings are correct, you have:

Emory at number 1 which is around a 10-15 team at nats

Lynchberg at 2 with a studly flynn

Trinity at 3 who is actually a better team than the 07 Tyler team and chock full of mid-distance talent.

Just tossing this out there, but the region looks fine to me. Maybe people are more focused on training and less on posting which is probably a good thing.

let's say it does go emory, lynchburg, trinity...

has trinity done enough to get an at-large?

3rd place, and 1pt out of 1st place wasn't enough for UT-Tyler to get in.

no way is the 3rd place team from the region getting in right? especially when there's not even a 2nd regional team ranked besides emory?

Yea, 99.99% chance it's going to be 2 teams 7 individuals. South won't get at large.

frank devar (umw) destroyed the field at his conference meet, but where was their other stud, jason driscoll? hurt?

The only way the south gets an at large is if Emory completely blows up and gets third. Assuming they were close to second, they've probably done enough to grab an at large.

What are we thinking for individual qualifiers? It obviously depends on what 2 teams make it but we've got Flynn, Parks, DeVar, the 3 Emory kids, Wright and Armstrong.

If Emory and Trinity/ Lynchburg grab the 2 team slots, I've eliminated half those guys. Who else goes? Centre's 2? Moore from Rhodes? Any other good VA guys out there?

yea- destroyed the field in the weakest conference in america.

a guy ran over an hour for 8k....

At large wrote:

The only way the south gets an at large is if Emory completely blows up and gets third. Assuming they were close to second, they've probably done enough to grab an at large.

I don't know about that. Look at W&L's girls last year. Maybe they were not as highly ranked as the Emory guys are now, but they were top 20 for a few weeks and had some good races against good competition early in the year. Then they had the worst day imaginable at regionals, got third, and didn't get an at large. If you're not in the top two of the south region, you're not going to nats.

That said, there's no way Emory blows it. They have a much better coach than the W&L girls do.

The region has solid teams this year for the top 3, I don't think it's down from any other year, in fact, it's better considering how good Emory is.

The depth of individual runners (outside of the 3 best teams) is kinda down though.

I think people aren't commenting as much because the region isn't as wide open, people kinda know who's going to win both the team and individual (unless something crazy happens).