2025 D3 XC Nationals Predictions

Paul short looks to be a very big meet for d3 this year. You've got

-Nyu

-Geneseo (probably going to be in the gold race)

-Rpi (also likely gold race)

-Cmu

-Lynchburg

-Mit

-Hopkins (likely gold race)

-George fox

-Amherst

-Washington and lee

-Moravian

-Wesleyan

-Emory

-Middlebury

-Loras

-Roger williams

-Colorado college

-Marywood

-Haverford

-Slu

-Wpi

-Bates

-Vassar

-Utica

-Rowan

-Hamilton

Probably some others that I've left out. Case in point it's arguably the answer to prenats since no teams want to make the trek down to spartanburg and there aren't enough other very large meets offering the same depth of d3 competition. Whereas two weeks later you got the "big 3" of augustana, conn and rowan.

Conn too looks to be especially competitive this year. Some recurring characters from Paul Short plus some new additions:

-Hopkins

-Every NESCAC except Hamilton

-Geneseo

-St. Olaf

-MIT

-NYU

-SLU

-CMS

-Lynchburg

-Dickinson

-TCNJ

-RIT

-Marywood

-Vassar

-WPI

-Misericordia

-Bridgewater St.

-Babson

-Coast Guard

-Brockport

-Ithaca

With relaxed graduate-eligibility rules, shouldn't NYU be in the conversation every year? Their medical/dental/business/law/etc. schools attract a lot of people...

at least according to their schedule, Williams will not be at Paul Short from what I can see.

Williams historically doesn't go to PS.

Don't really love that development, honestly. NYU already has like 26,000 undergraduates there. It's hard for me to imagine there's a D3 school that is larger.

Hope defeats #12 NYU on the nationals course.

https://www.tfrrs.org/results/xc/25348/Eye_Opener_XC_Meet_

It looks like NYU ran pretty controlled. Any word on whether they actually raced or just tempoed to see the course?

How was the course?

An example that shows that a good aerobic engine gets you further than 'skills': Former pro cyclist Maxime Monfort is on his way to a top 50 finish. It's his first 100 miler ever and he has only competed in 2 100k ultra's before. He's half an hour ahead of Karel Sabbe, who definitely has way more experience running on this terrain.

There are probably some sub 2:10 marathoners out there who would completely destroy the field if they trained for it.

What is it with D3 fans and only rooting for small schools in the Midwest? 90% of the kids running in D3 are not getting admitted into NYU, especially their best graduate programs

Yeah but those schools are 1) hard to get into with little to no support for athletes, and 2) hard work once you get there (for the most part), which makes it challenging to run at a high level too

Nobody going to NYU med school and running cross country

Interesting thing I came across:

25 of the 30 ranked teams are either going to Conn College or Augustana for inter-regional weekend.

Big decrease in the importance of Rowan and Mike Woods this year. Basically no importance at all.

National qualifiers are made at Augustana, Conn College, Paul Short, Blugold and conferences.

Can someone explain why nobody is going to Prenats this year?

Also, I heard that maybe they are going to count more weekends this year towards national qualifying? True or False?

Correct, they wanted Pre-Nationals to be within the nationally countable weekend so they moved it back.

Blugold really just seems like a national test for the Great Lakes. If Hope Finishes top 2 at the Great Lakes region and they go to Blugold and get stomped - say goodbye to ANY extra qualifiers out of that region. The pressure is on!

When does the official counting period start? Where is the official communication on this?

I'm relatively new to the website, but how is LACCTIC looking right now for D3? Is the site currently an accurate look into how the season has gone so far? If the national meet was run today, would the results look close to what is listed?