d3 xc nationals predictions

PP would be a highly credible D1 team. They ran very well yesterday and didn’t have their strongest team out there. Likely that’s true of a lot of the squads, but still, the reigning D3 champs look very poised to repeat.

Carleton raced for the 3rd week in a row. And they sat their No. 4. Olaf didn’t have their No. 2. Not sure if he is on campus or healthy.

Stout tempoed both races. The heat got to Eau Claire. I’d expect both to be back at Nationals.

chasingthestandard.com

Historical data suggest that WashU always underperforms early season relative to championship performance.

What's up Old Man- Ready for another season? This one should be fun. I agree that Pomona is the team to beat, but I found these results interesting (as with any early season races). Did Kobett just race out of his mind, or was the rest of the team simply running tempo. Its odd that a guy who has never broken 15:20 all of the sudden becomes the front runner on the nation's best D3 XC program. I'm taking nothing away from , its an amazing effort, and great job, but I also felt like Rosencrans, Fearon, Florsheim and Widalasnki were well back from where I would have expected them to be. It looks like they raced most of their team with the exception of Kirkpatrick (who is of course a huge factor), but without knowing what the effort was of some of last year's top 7, its hard to gauge where guys like Horsborough and Hatler are sitting. I can't look at the results from this one meet and honestly say that Pomona is a lock for the title as there were some runners who are going to need to be better to beat the likes of MIT and Williams. And with Henry Pick coming in 100th, I think its way too early to gauge things from this one race.

I will admit that JCU didn't look particularly strong in their opening meet, but it was their first race. However, on paper they lost too much firepower with Daily, Pierson, and Peppard to really be able to hang with the top 3 and it feels like they are a little over rated. MIT is always a bit cagey in their early season runs and while Mah looked great, Aquaviva was well back. But they have the ability to rotate an arsenal of runners through like Pomona that are all capable of AA performances on the right day. They certainly seem like the only team right now that can hang with Pomona's depth.

Apparently Williams was hit with the early season "flu" bug and half their team has been out sick the first 2 meets so you can't really gauge how they are sitting, but even at diminished strength, they look like they have backfilled from the loss of Aidan Ryan with the addition of super frosh Denatale and Lucey coming back into form. You know Lindgren and Tuohy are going to dominate up front, but I don't know if they can match the depth of Pomona on the back end to contend for the top spot. Until we see their full team run and some of this sick folks build back up, they are a mystery.

The other one I would watch out for is RPI. They were impressive at the Siena meet and they beat Williams pretty soundly- although take that with a grain of salt based on the above. But they are my current pick to be on the podium in November. Lecky looks great, and they have a very solid 2 through 5 all coming in about 15 seconds of each other. That group is going to have to be a lot faster to compete against Pomona's depth, but they are dangerous.

Like I said, Fun!

Wow, tough crowd! I think you might be a little over zealous in writing off some of these top teams without digging a little deeper.

Yes-RPI crushed Williams at Siena, but RPI is also a very underrated team that already had 2 races under its belt before that race. Williams was coming in flat as it was their first race of the season (they literally arrived on campus 5 days before), and with many members of their team apparently sick. From what I've heard, 14 runners are currently down with Covid including Spollen who is their captain and #3 who has been out the last 2 races.

As for their performance at Siena, Tuohy-Gaydos was apparently racing with a "chest cold" (what ever that means) so I think his 40th place should be taken with a grain of salt. It looks like he is recovering as he ran stride for stride with Lindgren (who won the Siena race) at Little 3's this weekend. Just as a side note, if Tuohy-Gaydos had simply come in second at Siena (which is where he most likely would have come if he was at 100%) Then Williams would have tied RPI instead of getting destroyed by them. Thats even without Spollen in the line up. So one person sitting out or running tempo for a weekend can severely swing the results (Henry Pick from Claremont is another example).

I think RPI is really solid, and I would love to see NCC return to its previous form. But to write off schools like JCU, Claremont, Wash U, or Williams from one or two early season races is naive.

Yes, Kobett leveled up. He was a minute faster this year than last year at the UCR invite. To be honest, I’m not sure how many of the PP men gave a max effort on Saturday. I think it was a mix. However, I didn’t like seeing Florsheim fall back 15 spots or so over the last km. Ok, off we go!

I doubt Lindgren ran all out at little 3s. Likely just helping his struggling teammates find their form.

If you dig deep into any teams results from early in the season there will always be excuses….bad races, runners sitting out. To just lay out Williams as the only team with these issues is a false narrative.

Lastly, to my knowledge Siena was the first meet of the season for RPI much like it was for Williams. The 2 teams are fairly even with the edge going to Williams if they have a perfect day but RPI is deeper, and seems to be much improved. Could be a great upset pick for November.

LOL- I had friends at the meet, and you can check both Elias and Graham's strava. They ran tempo for the first 5k and then it was an all out race for the last 2. Looks like both final miles were in the 4:47 range. If you think Graham is "struggling" I'd sure hate to see him when he is on form. He has been insane all summer.

RPI is good. They made some serious strides over the summer, and I agree they certainly can be on the podium in November. I also am not making excuses for anyone. Take a low stick runner away from almost any team minus MIT and Pomona, and they will fall dramatically from the rankings. And I clearly said that applies to all teams including JCU, Wash U, Claremont, etc.

As someone said earlier, RPI will be at Connecticut in a few weeks with everyone else. Hopefully the teams will be at full strength and we will see how they stack up.

Oh, I'm wrong, they will not be at CC in a few weeks with everyone else. I guess we have to wait until regions.

I don't think it should be controversial to point out that Lindgren and Touhy-Gaydos are both inconsistent and that should count against Williams. Even with Touhy-Gaydos running well though, Williams 5 would have been quite weak (RPI put 9 ahead of him) - that would have been fatal at the national meet. It seems incredibly unlikely that they will be able to win - they just don't have the depth.

John Carrol looked deeper than Williams, but I think it is fair to say that, based on what we have seen so far, NCC could beat them at the national meet, since NCC did beat them at MSU.

Someone else mentioned that WUSTL tends to look better later in the season - totally agree, I should have mentioned that in my earlier rundown. While I think they will continue to struggle to beat UChicago on the women's side, I don't think they will have any trouble beating Chicago's men in the postseason. Still, based on what they've shown so far, I'm standing by what I said about them right now not looking like a top 10 team for men (I think Chicago is ~20th at best, so a top 10 team should have beaten them by more than 11 points, even on an off day) - I really don't know what to think for their women, maybe 7-10 now? I don't know how Hope got ranked so high for the women - WashU was definitely better than them.

I have no skin in this argument other than the fact that I need to defend the Nescac, and I think you are dead wrong about consistency with either of those two runners.

Lindgren never placed lower than 3rd in any XC race over the last 2 years with most being 1st or second place. That includes league, regionals, and nationals. He raced every meet and considering many of those were against Aidan Ryan, placing in the top 3 every time is about as consistent as it gets. Next to Alex Philip I don’t think you would find someone who was more rock steady than Elias Lindgren on the grass. Sure he had an injury during indoor that sidelined him, but he was one of only 5 guys that qualified for outdoor nationals in the 5k and 10k after coming back. To me, that shows resiliency, and if you were going to refer to injuries as being inconsistent then you were never a serious competitive runner.

As for Tuohy-Gaydos, let’s make one thing very clear. He was a 19yo TRUE FRESHMAN last year who was a 4 time All American and the only runner besides Alex Philip and Jamie Dailey that qualified in the 3k/5k in indoor and the 5k/10k in outdoor. Henry pick and Lindgren didn’t do it, Morris didnt do it, Lecky didn’t do it, etc. And after Dailey he scored the most points at outdoor nationals for any distance runner. Even more than Philip. In the reverse of Lindgren you can say he wasn’t as consistent on the grass as he was on the oval, but let’s not forget that it was literally the first time he ran an 8k or was dealing with college and being away from home. Cut the kid a little slack. At nationals he placed 19th in XC, 14th in the 3k, 7th in the 5k for indoor, 5th in the outdoor 10k and finished with a stunning 2nd in the outdoor 5k. That’s a pretty solid growth curve. Can you name ANY other runner besides Phillip or Dailey who had that level of success over all 3 seasons last year? I mean jeez, what’s your standard for consistency!

Time to bring this thread back. Paul Short went crazy today. RPI edged Hopkins in the Gold race. Hopkins beat JCU again. CMU averaged the same as Hopkins in their Brown race W. Discus.

JCU not a solid team this year. Looking like no team has the depth to match PP. RPI doing very well and could see them on the podium in november. Williams impressive at purple valley

I have my money on a battle between PP and Williams. MIT might surprise but it seems they lost their depth from last year and still have no front power aside from Mah who may not even finish top 10.

PP’s kirkpatrick is going to turn a lot of heads when he returns, as will the PP squad as a whole. That squad knows a thing or two about when to peak.

Williams is over their flu bug and now we can actually see how dangerous this team is. 1-10 at PV is no joke. Look at the times from 2021 and compare with this year. Same course. Elias sub-25 on that course is very well more impressive than Alex phillips at paul short. And we know grahm will be right with elias when it counts. Their 3-5 is arguably better than MIT’s 3-5. Williams is somehow underrated for once… and it’s significant.

Hold your horses here - Williams best win is ... #33 Amherst? Whose best runner at PV has a 15:16 5k PR? There are plenty of teams who have 10 guys better than that. And you can't say Williams made a big jump because they ran faster on the same course on different years - just look at the past two national meets, Matt Wilkinson's 2nd place time in 2019 would have been 33rd in 2021 (2019 Wilkinson was, in fact, better than 2021 Christopher Scharf).

MIT just beat the #3, #5, and #8 teams in the nation at prenats. MIT is returning 4 XC All-Americans and the #48 finisher from 2021. Even if Williams gets a single digit point total out of their top 2, they have to count on either freshman and their back end from last year, who placed 87th, 91st, 126th, and 287 at the national meet. At no point has Williams shown they are capable of beating MIT.

I think Williams is #3 in the nation, but that is purely based off their track times - just looking at results from XC this season (who they've beaten and by how much), their current #11 ranking is generous. They will have a chance to prove themselves at Conn - MIT, Haverford, and Bates will all be there and I'm sure there will be others. It's hard for them to get good competition with how shallow the Northeast is this year - they really should have travelled this weekend to Paul Short or Prenats, they aren't getting anything out of pounding Amherst again.

Has anyone done any research into the guys on the MIT team? Pretty suspicious stuff here if you ask me. Mah, Kearney and Wilson all should have graduated this past fall. Are they being allowed to take 5th years in order to keep running? Not sure whats going on but if these guys are being allowed to do this for sports seems like the antithesis of what MIT claims to be about. This begs the question: are the MIT athletes getting to take easier classes/take shortcuts in order to boost their performances?

I don't think MIT student-athletes are getting any kind of special treatment. Most universities allow fifth-year undergrads and its possible they are withdrew during covid or are doing a masters.