DIII Outdoor Predictions Thread

Cloke has continued his training already run a 1420 this outdoor season.

cortland will not win the team title in the fall plain and simple

I am a former runner and follower of DIII running, and mostly of the distance races. I made a trip up to Oshkosh to revisit some great running memories and see some great races. It seems to me that Wartburg had the most impressive weekend of any team - in the distance events. I am not a former Central Region Runner, and I dont have any connection to the college. I simply noted that their distance runners put on an impressive show. I doubt anyone, besides those on the Wartburg team, and perhaps even those runners themselves, thought that they would have four all-americans, run a 3:46 to win the 1500 in a strong field and nearly take down Sigl in the 10k. The Wartburg runners delivered and impressed. They scored more points then any other team in the Distance Events and had four different runners delivering. A final commendable aspect is how strong they all came on at the end of the year. All four of their runners provo'd in Indoor, some even running well at the National Meet, but they continued to improve throughout the Outdoor Season, delivering at the right time.

So Congratulations Wartburg runners.

Sigl and Erichson finished their carrers with a bang, and Kosgei has shown that he is the one to beat for the years to come. It is hard to see guys like Ramsey-North and O'Brien, who seemed to dominate the Performance Lists, have rough days at the National Meet. And I imagine the SUNY Cortland distance runners are dissapointed at not scoring a few more points to take the National title, but having four all american runners is an accomplishment in itself.

As far as I am concerned, "Baby Nationals" was worth the trip. Continue the great competition.

I hate to say it, but I don't think O'Brien's day was that rough. If you were to tell me before the race that he was going to run 3:48 in finals, I would tell you that he was going to walk away with it. The three guys who beat him ran absolutely out of their minds to beat him, and I give them props for it, but to say that O'Brien ran rough isn't true, in my opinion. Well, at least in the 1500. The 800 he didn't look as good, but he still made a pretty good move with 300 to go to surprise some people. I think people underestimate the difficulty of that double, particularly when the 1500 final goes that fast.

As an observer of the 1500 yesterday i have to give a great deal of credit to the RIT individual (Hardbarger) who took the pace out in 2:01 (ish) thru the half, hammering from the from for three laps until he gave way a bit over the last 300. I believe he got a PR and 5th place finish out of it so that is cool to see. Gutsy move, and took Jimmy O'Brien right out of his ideal strategy which you would have to think would have been a 'sit and kick' affair. This is considering his large workload over the weekend and superior 800 speed.

It was interesting to see how easy Hardbarger looked in the pre-lims closing faster then Hodge in about 56ish. His kick looked nasty- i wonder why he felt it would be a better strategy in the final to take it out and lead the entire way...almsot? Once again though, props to him for making it a great race to view

Tough luck for Stangel and Boumeester who fell early on. Both would have been up there competing over that last lap.

Boumeester fell, got up, and still came through 800 meters rediculously fast.

Does anyone know what happened to cause the fall.

Interesting to note--

Of the top 13 guys on the performance list from the indoor 5k, 10 ran their fastest 5k of the year during the indoor season. Only Erichsen and Ramsey-North improved on their best indoor time. I don't know what happened to Zdroik, didn't see anything on him outdoor. This is not to say that people were necessarily worse outdoors than they were indoor, but it was interesting.

Ramsey=big time let down in the 10k...Donohoe=big time let down in the 5k...Ramsey=flash in the pan...Donohoe=actual legit runner, must've loaned Ramsey some talent for one race at ECAC's, or maybe the SUNY C guys weren't trying - either way, don't expect much from Saint Lawwwwwrence in the fall.

Good to see LaCrosse sucks again.

5k stat wrote:

Interesting to note--

Of the top 13 guys on the performance list from the indoor 5k, 10 ran their fastest 5k of the year during the indoor season. Only Erichsen and Ramsey-North improved on their best indoor time. I don't know what happened to Zdroik, didn't see anything on him outdoor. This is not to say that people were necessarily worse outdoors than they were indoor, but it was interesting.

Erichsen ran a 14:31 at the MIAC indoor conference meet on March 8th.

And he ran 14:25 at the Gina Relays...faster than indoors

LaCrosse will never be a power again. All the national championships were impressive, but as soon as the admissions standards at LaCrosse were raised a few years ago all those stupid jocks they recruited for field events and jumps were no longer eligible for admission. Now the distance guys will have to carry the team and that won't happen as Oshkosh and Plateville are better coached.

Don't forget about Whitewater who may have the best coach in the WIAC that has the worst recruiting strategy in the entire nation.

does anybody know if o'brien is still training for the trials or not?

I believe it is his intention to do so. But he only has the B standard so he isn't sure if he is even going to get into the meet at this point. Obviously he will not be if he doesn't get into the meet.

There is no way Miller is a better coach than Zupanc at Oshkosh. No way.

Zupanc and Ebel would be quality coaches in any conference to include D1.

What strategy would you use to get people to Whitewater--dime taps at Mitchells, cheap sluts for coeds, etc?

....... wrote:

I'd have to agree that Zdroik is the largest challenge to Kosgei in the 1500, if Zdroik runs the steeple I think he could also challenge Kosgei as well, although I've never seen him do anything in the steeple just heard rumors of him toying with it. Either way Zdroik has the balls and mustache to go after it.

Kind of a porn star look for Zdroik.

This is off topic but for a midwest high schooler with prs of 49.8 (split), 1:54.7, 4:21 where is the best d3 school to go to if I want to improve a lot. No D1 schools ever have shown interest in me. My gpa is 3.8 and I got a 33 on the act.

Depending on what you're looking for major-wise and geographically, there are several nice choices in the midwest.

North Central is a tremendous running school that has developed a million runners over the years.

Several of the WIAC schools have strong running programs - Oshkosh, Lacrosse, Stevens point

Wheaton has been successful in recent years distance wise.

Wartburg had a tremendous national meet distance-wise.

Ohio Northern has been to XC nats the past two years as a team, has Jimmy O'Brien and a nice group to train with.

Heidelberg has done well the past few years.

Calvin is a powerhouse in DIII. A little too religous for my taste, but to each his own.

DePauw and Anderson have both had moderate success in recent years.

Point being, there are a lot of solid distance running programs in the region.

williams and haverford are probably the places with the best combination of academics and a history of good coaching and great performance. your gpa and act's would fit in at both, and both programs will improve you a lot. haverford probably has a stronger middle distance history than williams, and has been on the rise in xc lately, but williams is always really strong in both and chaffee made AA in the 1500 this past weekend.