Dust has settled. Need some thoughts. American 3rd and BU 4th has gotta be the biggest surprise. Lehigh 8th on home soil is disappointing. Need more input cuz my lean gut is making my brain fried so I can only think so much on my own.
I'm not surprised BU lost to American! They always under perform at Leagues...for a school with funds and a much larger student population, it's disapointing. I guess coach turnover has it's costs, just look at Lehigh men.
Molz only coached women at Richmond, and was the long sprints and mid distance coach. Clearly he was not prepared for coaching men's cross country (and the women were bad too).
Etters built a bad team at Lehigh, they were going to be bad even if he stayed. But his leaving made matters even worse. Now they are only going to get worse.
Coaching makes a big difference. Look at Holy Cross, still not great team results but Mahon 3rd and Lyons 13th, as well as Brunetti 7th in the women's race. Mahon is now the favorite to win next year and Lyons has already run 3:59 in the mile.
Same with Lafayette. They had a few great years but underwent a coaching change and now can only beat Loyola despite having a talented roster.
1. Navy - pretty self explanatory here, only losing Mumford from their top 5 who scored at leagues this year. They are far and away the best team in this conference and should dominate. Mahon may be the only thing stopping them from a perfect score next year.
2. Army - Lose two big performers in Diaz and Davis but have the depth and youth to withstand their departures. Lots of room for improvement from a very large sophomore class and some juniors who have their sights set on another year of second place.
3. BU - this is a big contingency on the fact that Freddy Collins does have another year of XC eligibility. If he returns, BU should return to the podium despite his race this year being one to forget. If they can put it together with the amount of talent they have, they should be 3rd no matter what.
4. Colgate - a strong returning class of juniors should benefit with the departure of a number of seniors from this year. Key will be their fifth man and if they can have a low stick, if they can keep the spread tight and move up they could compete for a surprise podium.
5. Bucknell - losing a lot of senior depth, but also have a number of guys who can manage the load. Pratt-Perez seems ready to lead the team now with back to back all league finishes. Does Donner have any potential recruits to help?
6. American - toss up here with Holy Cross. They will be decimated by the loss of their top three and will have to hope their underclassmen can step up. Can they overcome top returner of Mahon for HC to hang on for 6th?
7. Holy Cross - Mahon is the top returner for 2026 and had arguably the race of his life with a PR on the Lehigh course despite the conditions. If he can be top 3 again and the returners can move up, they can swap with American, but most likely not much more. Losing Lyons will make this even more difficult.
8. Lehigh - losing seniors and just do not have depth to replace them. Will be a tough year for a team that had a shockingly poor performance at home.
9. Lafayette - another one where this could get ugly. Losing 3 of their top 4 scorers and do not have much depth or anything really to show a potential better performance.
10. Loyola - at what point do they stop coming to the meet. 3 of the top 5 being freshmen may bode well for a potential move ahead of Lafayette if they can improve but that is definitely the ceiling.