What does everyone think about the NESCAC? You have the powerhouses: Bates, Tufts, Bowdoin, Midd, and Williams. Amherst will look to bounce back after last year. Wes might struggle, Conn should be solid. Hamilton and Trinity...will try to improve as the season progresses. But, interestingly enough, Colby got a very good recruiting class, led by 4:02 1500m runner Tom Barry and 9:27 3200m runner Silas Eastman. Will they be able to do anything with them?
the cac wrote:
What does everyone think about the NESCAC? You have the powerhouses: Bates, Tufts, Bowdoin, Midd, and Williams. Amherst will look to bounce back after last year. Wes might struggle, Conn should be solid. Hamilton and Trinity...will try to improve as the season progresses. But, interestingly enough, Colby got a very good recruiting class, led by 4:02 1500m runner Tom Barry and 9:27 3200m runner Silas Eastman. Will they be able to do anything with them?
HA - The bates guys can't break 10 in a beer mile, Tufts always chokes, Midd lost Hebble (so they are cooked), Bowdoin is a bunch of wierdos (Horowitz pretends to be a cat?), Williams doesn't have any talent, and who is Amherst?
Wesleyan is in rough shape - Probably near Trinity and Colby. Conn solid? Really? Conn is led by an inconsistent scub. Enough said.
Bottom line NESCAC schools are NE good, but not nationally good.
Individual will shape up to be chiara del piccolo versus Alana enabnit
2011 d3 champ chiara del piccolo at Paul short? Wendy pavlus type of performance?
Chiara del piccolo?
Wait what.
Back on topic.... I do think Crain is the "favorite" coming in, but is by no means far and away the best (ala Sathre and Nelson). But individual is always far more boring than team anyway ;)
JRR
Does anyone know anything about Lyndon State in Vermont? My friend is going there, I was wondering if its any good.
smallrunner4life wrote:
Does anyone know anything about Lyndon State in Vermont? My friend is going there, I was wondering if its any good.
Perennial national powerhouse. I heard they have a really solid freshman class coming in. I'm surprised no one has mentioned them as favorites to win it all. Although the school itself is questionable as there is no state named after Lyndon...
i speak the truth wrote:
smallrunner4life wrote:Does anyone know anything about Lyndon State in Vermont? My friend is going there, I was wondering if its any good.
Perennial national powerhouse. I heard they have a really solid freshman class coming in. I'm surprised no one has mentioned them as favorites to win it all. Although the school itself is questionable as there is no state named after Lyndon...
Ol' Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, VT. Had some great memories there at GMRC....oh and no clue on the team
Maybe I'm old school and maybe this is just me preaching but doesn't everybody think it would be cool to see more of the top teams race head to head during the season? I understand that in the current college environment, people tend to race less and less and we have basically seen the near complete extinction of the dual meet within the college ranks- however, I think it is sad that sometimes, we only see the "studs" race each other once a season and that's it.
Some would say that this is a good thing- that it hypes up nationals more and adds the element of unpredictability- the whole idea that "anything can happen". And I can't wholly disagree that the element of teams and individuals being slightly unknown does partially enhance the buildup to nationals, however, I think we also lose some of the potential hype and excitement from the season.
My example would be the high school model: most states feature big meets that often host a majority of the state's top teams before the state meet and often, top teams face off a few teams, even if they are geographically far apart. We rarely see that at the D3 level- mainly because of geographical constraints that from a financial standpoint, are a bit more difficult to justify and budget for (versus d1 teams which normally can choose and finance for any meet they would like to go to). I feel like high school state meets and seasons in general are more exciting because we get to see the top end talent race each other more, attack course records and build story lines leading into the meet.
This isn't to say we don't have some regional buildup. The Midwest, Northeast, and Atlantic all have their own big season meet that the teams get to test themselves against each other but that only gives a comparison within the region vs. within the nation (think local high school district meet vs. big invite).
This is probably more of a rant than anything because I doubt we'll ever see the current model of meets shift from what it is now for the reasons I listed- such as travel costs, preference not to race, etc. However, I just think it would greatly improve our sport and appeal in general if there were more story lines, rivalries, etc.
Take Prenats for example- (as I'd assume if I didn't bring up, someone would). Its become an absolute joke the last few years. CMS won (who got 11th at nationals) and Augustana got 2nd (who didn't make it to nationals). That's our "Pre-national meet"? 1 team in the top 15?
One way or another, I just feel that D3 cross country would be much more interesting and exciting if teams would just sack up and race each other during the season, old school style, and would make nationals that much better
I agree with you 100%. I run for a west coast school and we really don't see much good D3 competition until Nationals. Sure we get some D1 and D2 competition, but I'd love to race some of the teams we see in November earlier in the year, just to give us some sense of where we stack up.
I think Prenats would be a great meet to showcase some of the best D3 schools across the country. I wonder why more of the good Midwest schools don't show, as it makes for a good chance to try out the Nationals course. My guess is if the top Midwest Regional teams started showing up, other schools might see more reason to compete there.
This is a great way of talking about Colby College... Have they ever gone to nationals... Have they ever broke top 10 at regionals... bump. NESCAC are choke artists and as for beer mile my bets on Fannon.
hey...bro...Tully... Hannan... will... win... the... beer... mile...
Go Bates!
West Coast Swing wrote:
I agree with you 100%. I run for a west coast school and we really don't see much good D3 competition until Nationals. Sure we get some D1 and D2 competition, but I'd love to race some of the teams we see in November earlier in the year, just to give us some sense of where we stack up.
I think Prenats would be a great meet to showcase some of the best D3 schools across the country. I wonder why more of the good Midwest schools don't show, as it makes for a good chance to try out the Nationals course. My guess is if the top Midwest Regional teams started showing up, other schools might see more reason to compete there.
I disagree, I don't think most of these midwest schools are racing each other often, either. NCC races some Illinois schools, WU races southern IL and MO schools, Calvin races... no one? Really only the northeast races really competitively, and as a result they tend to be less impressive at NCAA.
Just my $.02
LOL tully hannan is "bate"-ing his meat in europe right now. he'll epic fail
While everyone wants great races every week teams need to worry about their priorities. For NCC, Calvin and the wisco schools nationals is all that matters and they tend to worry about training and not racing during the middle of the season.
There are meets that happen every year that the Western schools could come to in the Midwest and they could see NCC, Calvin and Oshkosh at Notre Dame, the big meet at Oshkosh.
If a team wants to do well at Nationals they have to train and not worry about Pre Nationals.
More teams from the midwest would do pre-nats if it was close, but it costs money to travel a squad to a meet like that. The public schools in Wisco sure don't have the budget to fly for a competition like that.
two bills wrote:
More teams from the midwest would do pre-nats if it was close, but it costs money to travel a squad to a meet like that. The public schools in Wisco sure don't have the budget to fly for a competition like that.
I would imagine very few D3 schools do.
Bates College: worst drinking school in the Cac