Would Newbury Park have won D3?

Engineer of Plates wrote:

Wartburg is the best team in D3 and they ... finished 9th at nationals.

Oh

Engineer of Plates wrote:

How many of those guys were on the top 5 teams this year? I guess none. The point is that NP would have lost to several D3 teams and those teams have 7 runners each and a large number of them ran 9:40 in high school. NP has a top 5 capable of going sub 9 yet they would lose to a bunch of guys who ran 9:40 in high school. Now do you get it? Not all of the guys ran that slow in high school but a bunch did.

PP's finishers

Colin Kirkpatrick- 1:57/ 4:17 (never did 3200)

Derek Fearon- 4:36/ 9:45 (altitude for both)

Lucas Florsheim- 9:41

Ethan Widlansky- 4:28

Dante Paszkeicz- 1:54/ 4:17 (never did 3200)

Paul McKinley- 4:10/ 9:09

Jack Rosencrans- 4:16/ 9:27

MIT's finishers

Sam Acquaviva- 4:28/ 9:17

Finn Jacobson-Schulte- 9:51

Matthew Kearney- 4:14/ 9:23

Ryan Wilson- 4:17/ 9:38

Andrew Mah- 4:19/ 9:11

Vedang Lad- 4:25/ 9:11

Reid Kovacs- 10:10

Williams finishers

Elias Lindgren- 1:56/4:18/9:27

Aidan Ryan- 4:14/9:09

Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos- 4:14/8:59

William Spollen- 4:31/ 9:30

Charles Namiot- 4:24/ 9:19

Nate Lentz- 9:34

John Lucey- 4:35/9:34

Very few are legit 9:40 guys.

But the real question is how many of them are 8:00-8:05 3k runners now?

None. I'm sure Aidan Ryan and possibly Elias Lindgren could do it though. Not that a 3k time matters in the slightest while comparing 8k cross country teams.

No, Alabama can't beat the Detroit Lions, this year or any other ever.

And NP would do okay with their top three or four maybe, then the fifth man finishing in 28:37 or 35:58 would hurt the overall. One other thing, too: 8K is nearly two miles further than high schoolers run.

I'll grant the 5th man problem as relevant but I refuse to concede that high school 3k/5k times don't mean anything in xc. The college guys can't be all that great if their 3k/5k times are worse. Their slower 3k/5k times translate to slower 8k times. Besides, NB does workouts like 8k of 8x1k at faster than 5k pace on grass, so they'd handle 8k fine.

I'm looking at this year's D3 champs results. 23:27 8k and 8 under 24 in a D3 race would have been completely unheard of a few years ago. The quality depth has improved a lot, or at least the shoes have. A number of years ago you wouldn't even often see sub 23:30 in D1. Pomona-Pitzer was competing separately from Clarement-Mudd-Scripps even though they're all part of the same little set of colleges and campus. Add in the #3 and 22 finishers overall from Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, and you get 61 (less not counting individuals not with teams), which would be tough to beat. Still, you're talking about a high school team with four potential sub 14 5000m guys and two guys a minute back who have alternated place this year.

The boys determined to say NP would win should have proposed a 5k race instead of having to race 8k two weeks in a row (regionals and nationals). That is more likely than winning D3 NCAA nationals.

This thread reduces to saying that some high school sports teams have multiple D1 recruits, whereas D3 college teams typically don’t. It happens all the time in soccer in CA or FL or TX- softball and football too. Could a HS soccer team with 6 or 10 D1 recruits beat a D3 team? Could it beat the D3 champ? Idk and I’m not going to start that thread either…

The NP truthers are hard to really get through to. The issue is the 5th guy. He ran fast on the track last year but is not running as well this year. He’s still an excellent high school runner and a great #5. But being 45 seconds back in a 15 minute race is a huge problem when you’re going to make the race more than 50% longer. That doesn’t hold up vs college teams. If he was running 20 seconds back the D3 thing would be real.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

No, Alabama can't beat the Detroit Lions, this year or any other ever.

And NP would do okay with their top three or four maybe, then the fifth man finishing in 28:37 or 35:58 would hurt the overall. One other thing, too: 8K is nearly two miles further than high schoolers run.

36 are you out of your mind?

Pomona has not had a track season since 2018. 2019 was cut after like 2 meets due to Covid and the SCIAC conference which Pomona was in did not compete last spring due to Covid as well.

That means that only 2 of their top 5 have even raced track in college.

For example, all of Pomona's 5th runners PRs are from his freshman year. He is a senior now.

LACCTiC is peer based, meaning your rating is heavily dependent on how you ran relative to your competitors. Nationals was obviously a faster day (historically fast), so running a 25:35 is less impressive.

In 2018, Pomona runner Andy Rieschling ran 25:04 (The course is very hilly) at the SCIAC championship to win in a competitive race. He went on to run 14:07 in the 5k that spring. (He had run 14:15 the spring before)

Pomona's Top 7 on the same course at the 2021 SCIAC champs: 24:30, 24:47, 24:51, 25:00, 25:03, 25:03, 25:04

Pomona's entire top 5 could break 14:10 in the 5k guaranteed.

I disagree with everyone saying moving up to 8k would hurt NP. These guys are real distance runners who have fantastic coaching, probably better than most d3 programs. Throw them on the course at d3 nationals in their current fitness, they could definitely compete, maybe win. Give Sean Brosnan a full season to train them for the 8k, and I would say they would most definitely win. Daniel Appleford, their 5th guy, ran 8:56 in the 3200 last year. Converted to 3k (~8:22), this time would have qualified him for Indoor Nationals in 2019, and also is faster than the 3k/3200 PR of most All-Americans. Easy W for Newbury Park.

Also, looking at how well Nico and Jace (23:36 for 24th at PAC 12s last spring) have run in college,

the Newbury Park top 4, with Colin, Lex, and Leo running better than Nico did his senior year in XC, and all running better than Jace, would easily be in the top 10. Just to throw numbers out there, I say they go 3-4-7-8-30 for 52 points

So they add 2 miles and their 5th guy narrows the gap to 30 seconds? Doesn’t make any sense.

Many of these guys lost a high school track season.

patrackfan wrote:

Also, looking at how well Nico and Jace (23:36 for 24th at PAC 12s last spring) have run in college,

the Newbury Park top 4, with Colin, Lex, and Leo running better than Nico did his senior year in XC, and all running better than Jace, would easily be in the top 10. Just to throw numbers out there, I say they go 3-4-7-8-30 for 52 points

Wow, 52 is impressive. How do you think NP would do against the Brooks Beasts, or BTC, or possibly a Kenyan all-star team? Or maybe Hanson’s?

PP's guys are all 8 flat guys.

What does Nico's college performance have to do with his high school times or their high school times? He ran significantly faster his freshman year in college than he did in high school. You should pay more attention to the sport.