The official 2017 HEPS CROSS COUNTRY thread

rojo wrote:

ivy ponderer wrote:

Princeton shows up when they know they'll win.

They don't when it's close.

It's really quite embarrassing as an outsider.

Why are people picking on my alma mater? Why not pick on the team I coached at for 10 years? Ivy Leaguers are so freaking insecure.

Princeton didn't show, that's why.

At least in other scenarios, the other teams sent someone there to at least compete.

C/M Runner wrote:

Princeton didn't show, that's why.

At least in other scenarios, the other teams sent someone there to at least compete.

So it's wrong to not show up to a meet you are going to win virtually every year you run it (the streak of Princeton wins at the HYP meet indoors is like over 20) but it's perfectly fine to show up at meets and lose with your B team?

In the first scenario, the coach says, "I don't see the point of this matchup. We're not going to schedule you this year." That happens all the time in all sports.

In the 2nd scenario, the coach says, "Oh yeah, I want to compete against you," but then when it's the day of the game, he basically sits all of his starters and loses on purpose.

Can you imagine if the 2nd scenario happened in another sport like basketball?

Everyone is thrilled as Kentucky is playing Lousiville in basketball but then Kentucky shows up and plays their B team. Can you imagine the outrage?

The more I think about this the more I like what Princeton did. I hate the idea of jogging races or running B teams. It's a joke. That's practice. If you race, you race to win.

Where did you come up with that?

HYP Results

2016

Princeton - 23

Yale - 49

Harvard - 55

2015

Princeton - 31

Yale - 47

Harvard - 47

2014

Princeton - 31

Yale - 32

Harvard - 68

rojo wrote:

I hate the idea of jogging races or running B teams. It's a joke. That's practice. If you race, you race to win.

YES. If you want to "tempo" 8km, schedule a practice. If you go to a *meet* then go to (try to) WIN.

Anything less than that disrespects your opponent(s) and The Sport itself.

Anyone else surprised by the Brown men handily beating Dartmouth at Beantown? Never thought I'd see the day

Look out for the Brown women, too.

Hey, maybe there *is* something to this "coaching" business...

Dartmouth lost virtually all of their firepower to graduation. They had a great team last fall, but it's "rebuilding" time now.

Brown, by contrast, is bringing back several strong seniors. This season, they're going to be better than they've been in a very long time.

Agreed, interesting to see the Brown men within 15 points of Nationally ranked Indiana, will add some drama to this years heps

ivyguy2 wrote:

Agreed, interesting to see the Brown men within 15 points of Nationally ranked Indiana, will add some drama to this years heps

I was pleasantly surprised to see Brown have two guys among the leaders at 1/2-way and then have them finish well (with one being in the top 10).

I'm also surprised that despite the fact they did well at BiB, Brown only moved 1 position in the regional rankings. No points for national rankings either.

Columbia men ranked 28th.

Yale women ranked 28th. Columbia women receiving votes.

Results so far this weekend?

Penn men with a strong showing at Paul Short. Dom DeLuca of Cornell and Kevin Monogue of Penn both with impressive sub-24 showings.

Princeton/Cornell women had a close battle too. Abby Hong of Penn with a pretty high finish too.

Only other result I saw was Princeton pack running nowhere near the front again at Louisville. No Lundy still.

Columbia women won the Paul Short Brown race.

Columbia A teams were in Indiana at the Sam Bell Invite. Men 2nd, women 3rd. What was nice to see was the women were 5 points behind #14 Indiana, but otherwise, that meet only had 2 nationally ranked squads in each race, so I don't think it will really help much in the scheme of things.

The Princeton men had a 4 sec scoring spread at Louisville. I think it's interesting that the Louisville Classic is supposed to be a preview of the NCAA XC course, but the men only ran 8km while it will be a 10km distance for NCAAs...

The Princeton women were the top Ivy team in the Paul Short Gold race, led by rookie Sophie Cantine (32nd overall). Their scoring spread was only 17.1 sec, which is how they finished 5th in the race.

I think some of the heavy hitting names like Lundy, Curham, Terstch, Rego, and others may come out the weekend of 10/13, where there are more heavily-weighted national meets scheduled...

It seems like Princeton men are staying local the weekend of 10/13. Interesting strategy especially since they have yet to run their top guys and have been doing a lot of pack running so far.

I too am curious to see how the weekend of 10/13 plays out. Like someone pointed out earlier, there is no one meet where a majority of the teams will be competing and so far a lot of teams have kept their cards close.

It is also interesting to note that Columbia ran it's A squad without Ryan Thomas...

Wisconsin Invitational: Columbia (m/w), Harvard (w), Penn (m/w), and Yale (w)

Pre-Nats: Yale (m), Dartmouth (m), Brown (m/w)

Princeton Invitational: Penn (m/w), Princeton (m/w), Harvard, Columbia

Penn State National Open: Princeton (w), Dartmouth (w), Cornell (m/w)

Metropolitan Cross Country Invitational: Columbia

Rothenburg Run: Brown (m/w)

I'm trying to find start times for the Heps at VCP - but without luck.

Can anyone help?

Also, if there are any other meets that day that would be nice to know.

Thanks.

Thoughts on the individual races for both the men and women? Who do you think will fare well at VCP?

delval wrote:

Rumor has it that Tuntivate is taking the semester off at Harvard?

Anyone confirm?

I think I found the answer to this question...

In the PSU National Open results, I found out Tuntivate ran as unattached. He finished 18th overall in 25:50 (see results below). Harvard was at Wisconsin and Princeton XC Invitationals this past weekend.

Meanwhile, Megan Curham and Conor Lundy of Princeton both made their season debuts. Curham was at PreNats (20th) while Lundy was at Princeton XC (4th).

Two weeks to go until HepsXC. this past weekend was the last major weekend of competition (some little meets will happen next weekend, but it shouldn't have any A squad contenders).

Correction - Curham was 10th at PSU.

Someone asked before about the timing of HepsXC. I had to search around, but per Columbia's website, it starts at 11am. I find it funny how the Ivy League has all other information about the meet EXCEPT for the race times. Time to do some emailing to confirm if 11am is accurate.

Also, I took a peak at the Ivy League Network (former ILDN) to see if they are webstreaming it. It doesn't look like it at this time.

Did you attend an Ivy? It is "peek".

yessssssir! wrote:

Did you attend an Ivy? It is "peek".

Wow, chill out friend. Just a spelling error.