HEPS XC 2013 OFFICIAL THREAD

Never mind--as of today (9/21) it looks like he's back.

Leakos and Korolev burn it hot early and fade in the championship season. Honestly, you can count on this. Seems pretty clear they are not timing their season correctly. To me, this is the biggest mistake among college programs. I root for all Ivy League guys, so I hope they can rethink their training with an eye on post-season success. Take your lumps in Sept/Oct and take home that All-American medal in November.

Brown was at Iona this weekend--doesn't look like many (any?) of their front-liners competed:

http://www.tfrrs.org/results/xc/4829.html

cghk wrote:

Never mind--as of today (9/21) it looks like he's back.

Actually, that was me doing my best Brett impersonation (which I will admit is terrible). Both Brett and I have been slammed with our paying jobs over this past summer. Mine has let up for some degree but Brett is still extremely busy. We're still working to the best of our abilities to update HTC whenever we can.

Ivyguy wrote:

Brown was at Iona this weekend--doesn't look like many (any?) of their front-liners competed:

http://www.tfrrs.org/results/xc/4829.html

Yale competed as well in that meet.

But no other Ivies for the weekend.

FYI - some Ivy grad students to keep an eye out for this season:

Peter Callahan (Pr) and Sammy Silva (H) - on New Mexico XC rosters

Kevin Johnson (Cor) - on FSU XC roster and competed last weekend

Nathan Mathabane (Pr) - on Oregon XC roster

Olivia Mickle (B) - on Texas XC/TF roster

Mel Newbury (Pr) - on Oregon track roster

Any other word of other grad students?

It looked to me like both Brown and Yale women were auditioning for athletes to step up to the HEPS/NCAA NE Regional squad. Brown's Eickhoff (10th at Iona) was the only returning runner to consistently score last year for the Bears. Nobody from Yale seemed to be a factor last year although Rizzo (17th) ran well Saturday. With all five scorers in the top 50, Brown's depth chart looked somewhat better that Yale's.

The weekend's (American) football Ivy action, prominently featuring Heps sprint champ John Spooney of Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s3SEJKLqzo

Looked like the top Yale women were at VCP working out prior to the races. And seemed like Brown ran women who didn't race at Dartmouth. It will be interesting to see what happens in less than 2 weeks at Paul Short.

hepsfan wrote:

It will be interesting to see what happens in less than 2 weeks at Paul Short.

Agreed, but let's not look *too* far ahead. There's a HUGE meet coming up at Franklin Park this weekend (actually, another one of those terrible Friday meets):

With Providence and Oregon, the meet will have two of the NCAA's current top-three women's teams, plus Cornell at #9 and a dangerous Syracuse squad. As the hosting BC coach observed, there could be some good "at large" points at stake.

Ditto on the men's side, with Wisconsin, SU, and UO all in the current top twelve, and Providence also a top-25 team. What fields for this meet!

[The one thing I feel a bit anxious about is the course. Franklin Park is not an "intuitive" course (in my experience), and unless it's *very* well marked--better yet, roped off--people can go astray. I've seen the entire field run about an extra kilometer in a conference-championship college race, for instance. I hope BC does a good job of course management--there's a lot at stake.]

Anyway, this should be an opportunity to get a better look at the Yale men and women--you're not likely to leave anyone home voluntarily for this one. I do believe this will be the season-opener for Cornell's front group (on the men's side).

BC this week, Short next: a pretty tough 1-2!

Great post kibitzer. I agree that FP is not intuitive. Perhaps that will advantage PC's FR Catarina Rocha who won the last MA high school state championship held there in 2011.

This BC race does bollix up the schedule a bit being just a week away from Paul Short. For those who like to go every other weekend, it's off cycle for HEPS and Regionals.

Also, hepsfan, you are correct about Brown and Yale women. I saw [some of] Yale's top women all day except for at the finish line and the Brown coach was clear he was alternating and [my word] auditioning.

kibitzer wrote:

Anyway, this should be an opportunity to get a better look at the Yale men and women--you're not likely to leave anyone home voluntarily for this one. I do believe this will be the season-opener for Cornell's front group (on the men's side).

BC this week, Short next: a pretty tough 1-2!

No Yale men at the BC XC Invite, even though it was originally on their schedule. The Yale media website still shows the Yale women attending.

Harvard is attending another big gun invite - this one down in Virginia. According to flotrack, these are the big names attending the Panorama Farms Invite:

Men's Teams - Virginia, Auburn, Cal, Duke, Syracuse, UNC, UNC-Greensboro, Mississippi, William & Mary

Women's Teams - Virigina, Auburun, Cal, Harvard, Navy, UNC, UNC-Greenboro, Mississippi, William & Mary

I hope a few Ivy squads get some good "at large bid" points this weekend. But I know the Paul Short will be worth more.

Speaking of Paul Short - anyone planning to go to that?

C/M, et. al.,

The Paul Short website lists the mens and womens teams which have been approved. I see all but Yale on the list for the women. It's a bit hard to navigate...

http://www.paulshortxcrun.com/PSLayer.php

Yale women and Columbia men schedules do not have Paul Short listed on them.

September 30th is when they will announce who will be in which Paul Short race (Gold, white, brown)

Noticed Harvard's top XC recruit is now playing soccer. WTF?

Roar Lion Roar wrote:

It looked to me like both Brown and Yale women were auditioning for athletes to step up to the HEPS/NCAA NE Regional squad. Brown's Eickhoff (10th at Iona) was the only returning runner to consistently score last year for the Bears. Nobody from Yale seemed to be a factor last year although Rizzo (17th) ran well Saturday. With all five scorers in the top 50, Brown's depth chart looked somewhat better that Yale's.

Rizzo, a Yale freshman, has more talent than her h.s. times reflect. Her promise as a mid-d track athlete is better than in x/c.

klondikebar wrote:

Noticed Harvard's top XC recruit is now playing soccer. WTF?

Ashi Geberkidane... interesting. And he's played in some varsity matches too. I wonder if he'll come back for any part of the XC season or any of indoor/outdoor, but I find it amusing that his entire soccer bio is all about his running accomplishments.

I know Harvard has one other track/soccer crossover: Connor McCarthy (sprinter)

Here are the Boston results:

http://racewire.com/live_results.php?id=3497

Go to "Women Scoring" and "Men Scoring" to get team affiliations of the athletes.

First impressions: I'd expect the Cornell women to take somewhat of a hit in rankings (assuming another set of rankings comes out before Paul Short). A solid effort, but BC and Wisco were just "too close"--more likely to result in a dropping of the Big Red's ranking, rather than an elevation of BC's/Wisco's.

Cornell continues to thrive on its depth. Two of the people projected (in preseason) as its top four didn't score: Kellner (out for the season?) and McMahon (someone said she's recovering from illness), who did move back into Cornell's top seven. Looks like this was an "audition" race for next week, where the Big Red will be trying to repeat their strong performance from 2012.

Only eight Yale women appear in the results. Their 1-2 broke up the Cornell top seven, but CU put nine in front of YU's #3.

On the men's side, Yale did not run. Cornell has eleven men in the results. Outstanding grouping for the Big Red--17 seconds between #1 and #7!--which may have been their emphasis in this race. It will be interesting to watch this team through the season, particularly if one or two men can pop out from the group.

Anyone from this thread make it to the meet? Impressions?