HEPS XC

Forward yon crimson soldiers!!

Bump.

so true, so true.

Who can't get enough?

It;s a summer sport played out in the fall....

It's almost that time of year again!

Will Columbia's blonde phalanx survive a post-groothius era? 3:43?!

Will Galebach keep wearing a hat?

Will Princeton run 3:08 despite having only 48-49 quarter milers? In XC?

Will Brown repopulate with old-looking but tan distance dominators?

Will Yale get any new mr.burns look-alikes who can run at the front? Will Moriarity be jealous?

Will Rojo survive the traumatic transition from Penn Relays glory to Heps XC?

Will Penn...Will Jaworski just win the heps in XC because...why not?

Will Dartmouth not win?

i was just going to say, wow who the hell bumped this from last august.

but now i am so happy you did.

bahaha.

..."Columbia- lack of depth again, maybe partially ofset by a strong recruiting class. Groothies is a little weaker in cross, maybe he will have finally found his strength this year. Dusen has excelled despite pretty rough luck healthwise, if he has a good string of training he will probably move to one of the elite in the ivies. Surprised if these guys have the depth to comepete."

good call dude!

say what you like about the men, but the columbia distance girls sure knocked the rest of the league out their spankies

on paper dartmouth, princeton, and columbia should have the best teams. princeton hasn't run well at heps in xc since '99. they need to prove themselves. cornell could potentially have a good team, but a group of talented milers doesn't usually cut it in xc. yale and brown should be pretty thin, but possibly good. penn and harvard should bring up the back

It looks like most teams are losing their top one or two runners:

Columbia- Groothius, Dusen

Yale- Meyer, Moriarty

Cornell- Tassinari, Mort (though they were were more track than XC)

Brown- Tarpy, Gaudette

Princeton- Smith, others?

Penn- Lieb, Tully

Dartmouth- Strong, others?

Harvard- McLean-Foreman (however it is spelled)

Dartmouth looks to have a real solid group of young returners, as well as another (somehow) great recruiting class. Everyone will call them the favorites, and on paper it will most likely look that way. Harwick usually has his guys ready to go when Heps roll around, so they certainly are looking good for a title run.

Princeton has been running pretty well in the longer distance races since indoor Heps, and they certainly have the talent to put a contending team together. Macreery had a great year this outdoors, and with their young guys also having good track seasons, they could be a surprise this October. They don't seem to be hurting with Brady gone.

Yale is going to really be hurt with Meyer and Moriarty gone, but they got solid guys that just need to step up in cross (ie Napper, Pitts, Gertzen), it wouldn't surprise me if they do better than most people expect. Ireland is a good coach, too, and he could build up the guys that will be needed for depth.

Brown will be hurting with Tarpy and Gaudette gone, but Wahburn has taken the torch with a good track season. Brown too will have a strong group of guys that need to remain injury-free and healthy. Last XC season half their team was injured, so they have tons of guys that could come out of the woodwork (ie Burke, Kinley, Quick). However, not many recruits it seems. Gregorek has proven to be a pretty good XC coach, and since their title win two year ago, they can't be counted out.

Cornell kicks some serious ass in the middle distances during track, so it will be really interesting to see how the team translates track speed into cross strength. They definitely got some big guns (Hyde, Wyner, ...Arlinghaus??), but unless they can get their most talented guys into long-distance mode as opposed to making them strictly mid-distance guys, then they could have some trouble. Hyde will be in a league of his own (though he is also the lone "redshirt").

Penn, I don't know what their situation is outside of Tully and Lieb. Hayes too will be gone, and Jaworski, as fast as he is, cannot carry this team unless they have lots of guys fill some pretty big shoes. They, like Cornell, got some pretty nasty mid-distance runners, and they always get decent recruits, so it will be interesting to see how they return from their 3rd place finish last year.

Harvard...I thought they had some OK guys, but now I'm not so sure. Hopefully they get some guys to run well in place of Alisdair, who seems to have had quite an unlucky year.

That my two cents

My Ten Cents;

Top Teams:

Dartmouth - Best returning team + great recruits in Wall and Randall. Will be the favorites. However, they fell off the face of the Earth last year and did not seem to be very consistent in track this Spring.

Columbia - Most consistent team as of late. 2nd - 2nd - 1st over the last three years at Heps. Lose #1-#2, but has workhorse-type team that seems to always run well. They will have someone emerge from god know's where to run very fast.

Princeton - High School All-Star team. They seem to be putting it together now. MaCreery gives them a great #1 and they have several young guys who could make them very good.

MIDDLE OF THE PACK;

Brown - Washburn and others will keep them up towards the front. Could beat Princeton if they run their typical HEPS race.

Yale - Dantzer and Napper could give them a very good 1-2. Most likely will lack the depth to run with the top three teams.

Cornell - Hyde will win. Wyner will be solid. Arlinghaus and Baird should provide depth. Luff could help. Probably will not be that good though.

THE REST:

Penn- Graduates everybody

Harvard - Has nobody

Wall makes 3 Foot Locker finalists on Darmouth's roster that I can think of (plus True and Gottesfeld) versus one for Princeton (Stern). They also brought in Carmody (1:49 HS) and Norton (3:52 1500 HS). Cornell picked up Wyner last year (1:53/4:11), and Columbia got Boylan-Pett (1:51/4:09) and Hiestand (1:50). Stern has the fastest HS mile PR of anyone on the Princeton squad at 4:13, so I'm not sure if the "High School All-Star team" nickname is entirely deserving. I'm not trying to knock any of those teams I just mentioned, or say that Princeton doesn't have a lot of talented guys on their distance squad; I'm just trying to say that the talent around the league is more spread out than some people might think.

In reference to the "Harvard has nobody" business... correction, Harvard HAD nobody. A wee birdy tells me that they have two actual real Kenyans and some kid from Zimbabwe in their recruiting class next year.

Don't believe me? Ask Haggerty. Better yet, some Harvard kids must put down their books long enough to read these threads. Can any Crimson runners confirm the coming of the Rify Valley to Harvard Square?

the day i believe that harvard recruited somebody... let alone THREE somebodies...

When in doubt, use the octahedral stress criterion, give it a safety factor of 2 and hope for partial credit.

JEEEZus CHriISST!

who's going to win the women's race? scherf? does bierbaum graduate or does she have another year? if not, that should be another great race between them.

I think a good question is, which team(s) in the heps have the potential to make an impact at NCAAs?

it's not like multiple heps teams go to ncaas every year... dartmouth had a fairly recent string from 98-01 when they went, princeton last went in 99, i'm not sure when the last time was that a team besides those two went to the dance. columbia and dartmouth both would have gone last year if not for dartmouth's poor run at the regional meet

that being said, i think dartmouth, princeton and columbia can think about qualifying... i think dartmouth has the horses to place in the top 15-20 if they go