NAIA XC/TF 2024-25

Cedar Rapids has not had rain since like before September and the Mt. Mercy staff said they rolled the course before the meet. Plus its not like the people at the front of the field are bad runners.

Weather played a huge role in all of these. I was around the races all day and noted the temps for each race. 59 degrees for the Gold - pretty ideal. 71 degrees for the blue races and 76 degrees for the silver. Teams in the Gold definitely had a huge advantage over the other two.

Without a doubt! By the time the Blue women were running it felt HOT in the sun. I didn’t stuck around for the silver races, but there was some carnage post race for the Blue women. Whereas after Gold and Blue men, everyone pretty much just walked off normally.

I’d like to see what William Carey men could do in good weather.

Compared to last time NAIA teams were in the gold race, the times yesterday were actually pretty slow

Ireland (whac champion 2023) had boots on the ground in iowa. Coincidentally he was scounting for a good spot to set up his blind come deer season in november.

any thoughts on Grace Christians' Ben Bird's season so far? he had a very strong track season breaking the steeple record and is looking to be a dog on the grass as well.

The meet as a whole was down from last year, not to mention 2021 the year you are referencing, when you had Wisconsin pulling everyone to fast times when they won with a 1:57 team time. If memory serves me correctly they went through the mile in something like 4:30 that year.

The overall quality of the field wasn’t as good as it was in those years but still I’m pretty surprised that some of those teams couldn’t run faster.

Rio Grande looks great through 3 but they look terrible at the 5.

Rio ran a faster team time and average than Cumberlands did last year at Louisville. I believe Cumberlands went on to finish third at Nationals after that. I am definitely not saying they will finish third as the NAIA has gotten a lot better as a whole.

Shawnee State also ran faster than they did and Montreat did last year. Both finished in the top 12 at Nationals. So it wasn’t as bad as some of you all are making it out to be!

Duh obviously they would run faster it was like 80 for the blue race last year and it was 60 for the gold race this year

The gold race is also a better field so of course they’re going to run faster

Compare their team times to the last time NAIA teams were in the gold field.

St. Francis-24:48 average (4th place finish)

Taylor-25:02 average (11th place finish)

Cornerstone-25:08 (18th place finish)

No NAIA team averaged faster than 25:12 this year at Louisville and the NAIA is faster than it was 3 years ago.

It’s hard for me to see how Rio Grande is getting ranked so high considering that

The field as a whole ran a bit slower than 2021, but I agree with your point.

We'll get to see those teams against a lot of the teams that competed at Gans Creek in about 3 weeks at Great Lakes which should be interesting.

I'm more interested in the Seminole Stampede results from this weekend to be honest (not saying Aquinas and St. Francis are better teams just more curious).

Aquinas looked so much better than they did at Gans Creek. St. Francis looked solid still 1-4, but their 5th finisher was pretty far back and took them completely out and made them closer to the teams behind them than they were to Aquinas. I looked into it and their 5th runner was their 1st runner at their home invite and their 3rd runner at the national catholic meet. Either he's burning out really early or he just had an off day. If the latter is the case St. Francis should recover fine for Great Lakes.

William Penn looked strong up front but really weak behind their top two.

Reif, Sytsma, and Beaver look really strong as individuals. Sytsma hasn't gotten the attention he probably deserves after finishing 3rd at IWU. Reif never seems to run well early in the season so him running this well in early October is a good sign. Big breakout day for Beaver as well.

The top Aquinas guys were 25:15 at Gans Creek and these guys all beat them, so it's safe to assume they would've been in the low 25s or sub 25 on that course.

Heard USF was dealing with some sickness

heard from a very reliable source that he is transferring to aquinas with lindsey strutz to form a power duo in the multi's

Hey buddy. Screw you.

Covid doesn’t exist on gods green earth.

The course is not short its just an insanely easy and flat course. Majority of the course is on asphalt, has a little bit of grass, and the finish is 200 meters on track. The course features no challenges/hills and the weather was perfect so of course there is gonna be insanely fast times.

Hikpiss may be in the NAIA, but he certainly has D1 rizz. 😩

The course actually was short. This has already been confirmed by credible sources.

Did the Taylor meet look slow to anyone else or do I just not know that course very well?