2014 HEPS cross country thread

Coming into the year, I felt this was first year in a long, long time Heps was totally wide open. I don't pay that close attention to it like I used to but knew all of the good teams lost a lot from last year.

Here is what the top 4 teams from last year's Heps xc meet lost:

Columbia lost 2 from top 5, 3 from top 20. + Their coach.

Princeton lost 3 from top 15.

Dartmouth lost 3 from top 15 at Heps, 4 from top 20.

Harvard lost defending champ and Leakos.

So all of those teams lost a lot. When is the last time the top teams all lost so much?

Are the reinforcements there behind them? Or could Penn or Yale surprise?

How close will it be?

Maybe very. The first HYP meet since 1998 was held today. Princeton won but it was close, they edged Yale 31-32.

https://twitter.com/PrincetonTrack

I'll do some analysis this weekend maybe of the stats to see who has what. Looks more interesting than most years.

Cornell came down to West Point this afternoon, and handed the Cadets another clobbering. The USMA women's team has some top runners hurt, which made things even more lopsided: Cornell took 17 of the top 18 places.

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/army/sports/w-xc/auto_pdf/2014-15/box_score/stats_20140912aaa.pdf

The Black Knights actually have some talented women and if they get healthy (big if) they'll beat some good teams this fall.

The Big Red handled the West Point men only slightly less roughly:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/army/sports/m-xc/auto_pdf/2014-15/box_score/stats_20140912aaa.pdf

Two of Cornell's first three were freshmen.

Here are the HYP results. 1 Sam Pons SR Princeton 3:01.6 24:20.7 1 2 Kevin Dooney JR Yale University 3:02.3 24:26.2 2 3 Matt McDonald SR Princeton 3:02.3 24:26.5 3 4 Duncan Tomlin JR Yale University 3:02.6 24:28.7 4 5 Cameron Stanish FR Yale University 3:03.4 24:35.5 5 6 Michael Sublette JR Princeton 3:03.8 24:38.4 6 7 James Randon SO Yale University 3:04.1 24:41.0 7 8 Will Geiken SR Harvard 3:04.2 24:42.0 8 9 Chris Allen JR Harvard 3:04.7 24:46.3 9 10 Sam Berger JR Princeton 3:04.9 24:47.3 10 11 Mike Mazzaccaro SR Princeton 3:05.0 24:48.7 11 12 William Paulson SO Princeton 3:05.7 24:54.2 12 13 Eddie Owens SR Princeton 3:05.9 24:55.5 13 14 Luke Brahm JR Princeton 3:06.7 25:02.2 15 John McGowan SR Yale University 3:07.0 25:04.5 14 16 Daniel Milechman SR Harvard 3:08.3 25:14.8 15 17 Andre Ivankovic SO Yale University 3:08.3 25:15.1 16 18 Louis Colson FR Harvard 3:08.4 25:15.6 17 19 Bradley Paternostro SR Princeton 3:08.8 25:19.3 20 Hale Ross FR Yale University 3:08.9 25:19.9 18 21 Thomas Purnell JR Harvard 3:09.7 25:26.1 19 22 Ben Huffman FR Harvard 3:10.6 25:33.1 20 23 Brandon Price SO Harvard 3:11.2 25:38.5 21 24 Jack Leahey SO Princeton 3:11.3 25:39.0 25 Adam Houston FR Yale University 3:11.4 25:39.7Seeing those results remind how hard it is to win if you aren't Columbia/Princeton. You kind of need to be perfect as the big boys have so much more depth. Eight in before Yale's 5th and the Princeton sophomore class probably isn't even as deep as normal as that was Vig's 1st year.It's way easier to find 5 of 8 guys to run well at Heps versus going 5 for 5.

kibitzer wrote:

The Big Red handled the West Point men only slightly less roughly:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/army/sports/m-xc/auto_pdf/2014-15/box_score/stats_20140912aaa.pdf

Two of Cornell's first three were freshmen.

2nd straight year there has been a freshman winner of the race for the Cornell men. "You can only be undefeated once." That was one of my favorite sayings to freshmen. I remember saying it a few times in track but don't think a frosh ever won the 1st meet when I was there??

JK?? Do you know??

kibitzer wrote:

The Black Knights actually have some talented women and if they get healthy (big if) they'll beat some good teams this fall.

Army was not the only team with injury problems. Cornell left some of their top men and women home and I don't think it was voluntarily.

Dartmouth results:

http://lancertiming.com/results/fall14/dartmouthm.htm

http://lancertiming.com/results/fall14/dartmouthw.htm

Big wins for Dartmouth, with Brown second in each race. The Big Green were dominant on the men's side and a tidal wave on the women's. Their men certainly rate as a top-half team in the Heps--the real question is whether they'll be in the top two--and their women, bolstered by outstanding frosh, have to rate as the (slight) Heps favorites right now.

I don't think the Brown results should be overlooked. In particular, their first five men averaged under 25min in this meet.

Ivyguy wrote:

I don't think the Brown results should be overlooked. In particular, their first five men averaged under 25min in this meet.

Rule #1. XC Times are meaningless. I used to get HSer after HSer, saying "How fast do i need to run in xc to get recruitied?"

I'd respond, "Show me your state meet results." I knew what a time at Holmdel meant as that was fairly stable. Grassy courses, like I'm assuming the Dartmouth course is, vary A TON based on conditions.

Brown may be much improved this year but the facts are Dartmouth put 9 in before their 4th so someone like me, who is really only interested in who wins, is going to overlook Brown. Well I also care how Cornell does but there is only 1 or 2 guys that I ever coached left on the team so maybe before Heps I'll look to see how Brown/Cornell matchup.

Dartmouth looks like they could be real good in 2015. Their top 9 at this meet included zero seniors. Last year was a crazy year at Heps - lots of good teams. This year it's wide open.

Neither Dartmouth nor Brown ran complete squads Saturday. Gorman + others seemed to be spectating, as did a whole lot of the Brown team.

Columbia Men 2nd at Stony Brook Invite behind Providence

http://www.goseawolves.org/sports/c-xc/stats/2014-2015/stonybrookxcresults9.13-men.html?DB_OEM_ID=9600

Columbia Women tie for 2nd with Stony Brook. Providence women win

http://www.goseawolves.org/sports/c-xc/stats/2014-2015/stonybrookxcresults9.13-women.html?DB_OEM_ID=9600

Ithacan wrote:

Army was not the only team with injury problems. Cornell left some of their top men and women home and I don't think it was voluntarily.

Hold on, Sparky. It's the first weekend. Lots of healthy people didn't run, or didn't run all out. Maybe you have inside info, but by itself an early meet result can't tell you that someone's hurt.

For example, "Neither Dartmouth nor Brown ran complete squads Saturday. Gorman + others seemed to be spectating, as did a whole lot of the Brown team." And looking at all the group finishes (Penn at Big Five, for instance--link to results at hepstrack.com), it's pretty clear that a lot of folks weren't making killer efforts.

We'll get a better idea of how things stand--for now--after the big meets on the last weekend of this month. Until then I think there's going to be a lot of "sandbagging" by most of the teams.

Any teams racing this weekend?

Ivy Fan wrote:

Any teams racing this weekend?

Brown and Yale are scheduled to send people to the Iona meet at VCP. Ditto the Princeton women, I believe.

Whether they'll go with varsities/partial squads/etc., I don't know.

Brown, Yale, and Princeton went 1-2-3 on the women's side at the Iona meet:

http://www.icgaels.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=64277&SPID=7093&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=209665916&DB_OEM_ID=14900

I haven't found any men's results yet.

Updated women's results:

http://www.icgaels.com/fls/14900/stats/mcrosscountry/2014XC/14-09-20-MOC-Women.htm

And the men's results (Brown/Yale go 3/7):

http://www.icgaels.com/fls/14900/stats/mcrosscountry/2014XC/14-09-20-MOC-Men.htm

An earlier remark about "sandbagging" sounds about right. Just about everybody should be serious next weekend, though.

Note in passing: with Will Boylan-Pett as head coach, and now Erison Hurtault as one of his assistants, NYU is developing quite an Ivy flavor.

http://gonyuathletics.com/news/2014/9/11/MXC_0911140143.aspx

Do the men do the back hills at this meet? Or is it just loops like Regionals last year?

[I brought this over from another thread, given that half the Ivy teams are involved.]

Info courtesy of the Cornell website:

The men's 8K race on the Franklin Park course will begin with a shotgun start at 3:30 p.m. [on Friday 9/26]

Full List of Teams

Boston College

Connecticut

Columbia (. . . No. 4 Northeast Region)

Cornell (No. 8 Northeast Region)

Dartmouth (No. 6 Northeast Region)

Fordham

Georgetown (No. 5 Mid-Atlantic Region)

Hartford

Harvard (No. 7 Northeast Region)

Johns Hopkins

Lipscomb

Massachusetts

New Hampshire (No. 12 Northeast Region)

Northeastern (No. 9 Northeast Region)

Oregon (No. 3 Nationally; No. 1 West Region)

Providence (No. 16 Nationally; No. 3 Northeast Region)

Rhode Island

Stony Brook (No. 15 Northeast Region)

Syracuse (No. 8 Nationally; No. 1 Northeast Region)

And although that's a stellar men's field, I'd say the women's has it beat (again, info from Cornell):

The Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown, hosted annually by Boston College, figures to be one of the most competitive meets of the early season. Six nationally ranked teams will make appearances at the event. No. 1 Michigan, No. 5 Georgetown, No. 14 Syracuse, meet host No. 17 Boston College, defending national champion No. 18 Providence, and No. 25 Dartmouth will all send runners to the historic Franklin Park cross country course. . . .

The Northeast Region will be heavily represented, as ten of the top-15 and nine of the top-10 ranked teams in the region will send runners to the event. No. 1 Syracuse, No. 2 Boston College, No. 3 Providence, No. 4 Dartmouth, No. 6 New Hampshire, No. 8 Harvard, No. 9 Stony Brook, No. 10 Columbia and No. 13 Connecticut will all be in attendance. Cornell checks in as No. 5 in the Northeast heading into the competitive run.

In addition to the litany of competitive Division I teams, the field also boasts Division III power Johns Hopkins. The Blue Jays are the defending Division III national champions and are currently ranked No. 1.

. . .

The women's 5K race on the Franklin Park course will begin with a shotgun start at 3:00 p.m.

Full List of Teams

Boston College (No. 17 Nationally; No. 2 Northeast Region)

Connecticut (No. 13 Northeast Region)

Columbia (No. 10 Northeast Region)

Cornell (. . . No. 5 Northeast Region)

Dartmouth (No. 25 Nationally; No. 4 Northeast Region)

Duke . . .

Eastern Michigan

Fordham

Georgetown (No. 5 Nationally; No. 1 Mid-Atlantic Region)

Hartford

Harvard (No. 8 Northeast Region)

Johns Hopkins (No. 1 Nationally Div. III)

Lipscomb

Massachusetts

Michigan (No. 1 Nationally; No. 1 Great Lakes Region)

New Hampshire (No. 6 Northeast Region)

Northeastern

Providence (No. 18 Nationally; No. 3 Northeast Region)

Rhode Island

Stony Brook (No. 9 Northeast Region)

Syracuse (No. 14 Nationally; No. 1 Northeast Region)

It's great to see there will be more Ivy representation at the CtCBfB meet tomorrow - last year, it was just Cornell (w & m) and Yale (w).

Brown, Princeton, and Yale have the weekend off.

Penn races tonight at the Haverford Invitational.

I think the teams that are doing Beantown this week and Paul Short next are smart--good practice for the end of the season.

If you really can't handle two quality races eight days apart now, how do you expect to handle Regionals and then Nationals?

lease wrote:

I think the teams that are doing Beantown this week and Paul Short next are smart--good practice for the end of the season.

If you really can't handle two quality races eight days apart now, how do you expect to handle Regionals and then Nationals?

That's an interesting way to see this... good observation.