2010 SoCon Cross Country

UNCG wins!

UNCG sweeps*

Scores and Times?

Team Scores – Men

1. UNCG 26

2. Davidson 73

3. Furman 82

4. Appalachian State 91

5. Chattanooga 103

6. Western Carolina 166

T6. Elon 166

8. College of Charleston 205

9. The Citadel 260

10. Wofford 279

11. Samford 288

Team Scores – Women

1. UNCG 35

2. Furman 80

3. Elon 111

4. Appalachian State 117

5. College of Charleston 141

6. Western Carolina 143

7. Samford 145

8. Davidson 178

9. Wofford 242

10. Georgia Southern 244

11. Chattanooga 295

12. The Citadel 329

All-SoCon First Team – Men

1. Paul Chelimo—UNCG

2. Ryan Hopkins—Davidson

3. Joey Thompson—UNCG

4. Paul Katam—UNCG

5. Chris Berry—Chattanooga

6. Lucas Cotter—Chattanooga

7. Abraham Kemboi—UNCG

All-SoCon First Team – Women

1. Ashley Schnell—UNCG

2. Lauren D’Alessio—Samford

3. Dena O’Brien—College of Charleston

4. Erin Barker—Furman

5. Chelsea Sumney—UNCG

6. Kerry Harman—UNCG

7. Shaina Sumney—UNCG

All-SoCon Second Team – Men

8. Alex Taylor—Appalachian State

9. Will Raby—Appalachian State

10. Luis Vargas—Elon

11. Mike Koech—UNCG

12. Tripp Hurt—Furman

13. Chris Caldwell—Furman

14. Mark Cole--Chattanooga

All-SoCon Second Team – Women

8. Brooke Mosteller—Furman

9. Allyson Oram—Elon

10. Mara Smith—Western Carolina

11. Amanda Hamilton—Appalachian State

12. Sarah Paddon—Davidson

13. Hannah Orders—Appalachian State

14. Morgan Denecke—Elon

T14. Sinead Haughey—Furman

All-SoCon Freshman Team – Men

4. Paul Katam—UNCG

10. Luis Vargas—Elon

12. Tripp Hurt—Furman

25. Sean Magee—Elon

31. Travis Alfaro—Western Carolina

37. Whitner Chase—Davidson

40. Henry Falotico--Davidson

All-SoCon Freshman Team – Women

12. Sarah Paddon—Davidson

T14. Sinead Haughey—Furman

21. Haylee Dawe—Elon

22. Rebecca Greenwall-Georgia Southern

24. Hayley McMahon—College of Charleston

27. Erin Osment—Davidson

29. Alissa Williams—Wofford

Coach of the Year – Men

Linh Nguyen —UNCG

Coach of the Year – Women

Linh Nguyen —UNCG

Runner of the Year – Men

Paul Chelimo--UNCG

Runner of the Year – Women

Ashley Schnell – UNCG

Freshman of the Year – Men

Luis Vargas—Elon

Freshman of the Year – Women

Sarah Paddon—Davidson

UNCG didn't just win, they hammered everybody on both sides it looks like. Koech ran way better than everyone thought he would. More shocking: UNCG's emphatic sweep or Wofford men not finishing last?

Freshman of the year men:

Paul Kattam UNCG

In the biggest news of the day WOFFORD DID NOT GET LAST!!!!!!

UNCG wins even if you score the entire conference against them on the mens side. And someone get the Wofford coach some pickles! He broke the longest streak in SoCon history! That's right Wofford was not DFL!

Socon in summary:

Team Race:

Greensboro - Kenyaned it out for the win.

Davidson - Underperformed once again. Luckily Hopkins actually improved a ton at conference.

Furman - Wishes Hopkins didn't improve a ton at conference.

App - Got some big motivation for some improvements next year.

Chatt. - Never seems to have a 5th man

Western - Where's our boy Weaver?

Elon - Some reason always led by freshmen.

Charleston - Patty Mo's been drinking too much of the kool-aid down there.

Citadel - Got one guy sub 25:30. A possible first for the school.

Wofford - Spiritually the real winners of Socon since they finally broke out of that last place spot.

Samford - Good lord they ran 5 guys and there 5th man was last overall.

Individual Race:

Chelimo took the lead...and the race was decided about a half mile into it.

the way I see it wrote:

Koech will be lucky to be top 30. He hasn't broken 26 yet and probably won't.

Just looked at some old predictions... and this one made me laugh. Ok, let's be honest though, I don't think anyone had Koech in the top 20.

Next year will be rough on my Paladins losing many in top 7 of each gender!

Chelimo is just an animal and app really struggled. Western finally broke the 7 year curse of 7th without weaver these guys and coach deserve props.

Well that was a bit of an anticlimactic ending to the season. I thought both races would be much closer. Props to UNCG for a very good day.

Prediction of the day: The G sends at least one to nationals, it wouldn't surprise me if the team gets an at large bid... four guys top 7 WTF. that was the most dominating and impressive performance this one man has ever seen. I think it needs to be said and celebrated that the BroCon is becoming a much stronger conference. Let it be said Davidson did not underperform, to suggest that anyone in this conference could have beaten the G is absurd.

Congrats to Western and Danny!!! Sixth place aint bad without your star runner. Thanks to Josey's redshirt, no one from Western graduates and I'm smelling top 5 next year!! WOOHOO for school!

Props to Greensboro, they killed it yesterday. I'd say if Koech can have a race like he did on Saturday at regionals they have a pretty good shot at going to nats. Anyone here think so too?

UNCG, while very good, is still gonna have a very hard time going to nationals. They haven't really beaten any good teams throughout the year and will have to probably be at least top 3 to go.

NC State put 5 under 24 at ACC's and UNC's seventh man is at least 30 seconds faster than Koech. Add in Louisville and possibly Virginia Tech and it doesn't look like UNCG could do it.

Also Thompson was in the lead pack and died miserably last year. UNCG would need Thompson and Katam to have great days as well as Kemboi and Koech seeing some big PR's.

I do think Chelimo will win the region though.

UNCG's chances aren't good at making nationals; NC State and Eastern Kentucky are clearly the best two teams. I'll give them a decent shot at beating Carolina though for the #3 spot. You can't compare the Socon championship times with the ACC championship times. I think a better comparison might be to look at mutual opponents. UNCG #2 and #3 beat Duke's #1 at UVA and Duke's #1 was only 5 seconds behind Carolina's #2 at the ACC meet. Certainly Chelimo can beat Hurysz - and Thompson/Katam have a reasonable chance at beating Cunningham. So it's feasible that UNCG could beat UNC at the 1, 2, and 3 spot. I think Kemboi can stay close to UNC's #4 (24:27 ain't bad). So once again UNCG's chances will depend on Mike Koech. He has been closing the gap on Kemboi each race, so that looks a little promising. But there are obviously other teams besides UNC that beat UNCG - Va Tech, UVA, Duke, Louisville, W&M. If Koech runs well, I like their chances for a top 5 finish. But that probably won't be good enough for an at-large bid.

UNCG is great ......... in the SOCON.

But they havent beaten anybody even dreaming of going to Nationals.

Because of this, they will need to auto qualify (top 2) at regionals next year.

That will not happen.

As usual, the winner of the SoCon will be lucky to finish inside the top 7 at Regionals!