HEPS XC 2013 OFFICIAL THREAD

Syracuse is a top 5 team in the country IMO. The Big Red men did not look particularly pleased after the race, and watching the race it looked like they had a strong pack off the front that faded back in the later stages of the race. They may not have a Korolev, Geogehan, or front runner as of now, but their depth may come up big at Heps...

Well "interesting" doesn't necessarily mean "good" or "fun" right? :-)

I too think it'll be interesting. The Big Red graduated a lot of their top guys last year and some returning guys who were expected to be up front for them this season have not been competing. So it's pretty much a bunch of no-names and I notice that people on this thread are picking them for about sixth at Heps. It'll be "interesting" to see whether a no-stars bunch can do better than that.

[quote]kibitzer wrote:

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.

By this logic, shouldn't Oregon also take a hit in the rankings since they (the #3 team in the nation) weren't significantly ahead of Cornell and BC? And that drop in the polls doesn't seem likely given how good most believe the Ducks to be.

More reasonable is that Cornell and BC gave Oregon a good scare. Not sure why Cornell would suffer in the polls or why BC wouldn't jump up. And the Wisconsin women were competitive and will now get ranked.

The #1 team in the nation won easily over three top 20ish teams that were bunched very closely.

Logical wrote:

Not sure why Cornell would suffer in the polls or why BC wouldn't jump up. And the Wisconsin women were competitive and will now get ranked.

The #1 team in the nation won easily over three top 20ish teams that were bunched very closely.

And I hope you're right!

In other news, this has been a quiet weekend around the League, with most teams idle. The Harvard women competed at the Virginia/Panorama meet, and were a good fourth out of fourteen in a competitive field:

Viviana Hanley and Morgan Kelly are looking like all-Ivy material.

Penn competed in the Main Line Invitational on Thursday:

(no team scoring)

As noted by others, the Cornell men and women and Yale women were at the Beantown meet. Cornell ran 16 women there; another 15 ran at the Harry Anderson meet in Rochester, with all but one finishing in the top quarter of the race:

We could well see some of the women from that Cornell "B" squad make the 12-woman team for Heps. It appears that, except at the very top (Sorna and Shearer), the Cornell pecking order is not at all established. I'd expect more changes at Paul Short...

Paul Short race assignments:

Men Gold (11am) - Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Yale

Women Gold (11:45am) - Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn

Men Brown (12:15pm) - Princeton

Women Brown (1:00pm) - Princeton

According to Columbia's website, the men are supposed to be at Notre Dame Invitational (10/4) but no details on Notre Dame website on race assignments. Maybe the Columbia women are going to attend as well?

Yeah, I took a look at the assignments (from

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

) and am a bit confused.

If I recall correctly, several Ivy teams (men and women) ran people in the Open races last year, and those races had hundreds of participants. This year, I didn't see any assignments for a men's open race, and just a few for the women's--no Ivies among them.

Has the meet's schedule of races been changed?

Kibitzer - the open races are scheduled for 10am and 10:10am, so before all of the gold/brown/white races. I don't know if that was what they had done in past years.

As for the assignments, perhaps the squads are not bringing as many runners as in previous years. Or they are not announcing which individuals are in the open races until the day of?

Princeton is splitting their squad up for the weekend - it looks like they are sending their A teams to the Notre Dame Invitational for Friday night (they entered for the Blue men [5pm] and women races [4:15pm]). Columbia men will be in the Blue men race as well.

Notre Dame Invitational race assignments:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nd/sports/c-xc/auto_pdf/2013-14/misc_non_event/nd-invitational-teams.pdf

Looks like we both called it. Cornell did take "somewhat" of a hit, though it only dropped one place; Oregon fell a couple spots; Wisconsin is still unranked, though it received some votes; and BC edged up slightly:

Not too far off what I expected: I've dealt with some of the coaches who vote on this, and they are typically much more ready to drop a team in the rankings than to elevate it. Which is to say, a bad outing generally hurts more than a good outing helps.

That said, I do expect some adjustments--maybe including a couple of major ones--this weekend.

kibitzer wrote:

That said, I do expect some adjustments--maybe including a couple of major ones--this weekend.

That's putting it mildly! On the women's side at Paul Short, Dartmouth--which is basically running in a "score four" scenario (plus one, for AD'A) all season--drubbed Cornell, which had many MIAs. "Dartmouth was only six deep"--how deep do they have to be? They got their sixth runner in before Cornell's fourth!

[Actually, I'm a little impressed that Cornell finished as high up as they did. Their two leaders did pretty well, and their #3 (today) is having a breakout season, but it looks like they're going to continue with a musical-chairs lineup throughout the season.]

Excellent race from Waverly Neer (and solid Columbia performance overall); with Princeton's young team looking great, the women's Heps race really seems to be up in the air!

On the men's side, this weekend was Upset City. Not everybody (I should say "every body") was running--looks like the Cornell men only ran JVs at Paul Short, for instance, making it hard to understand why they were in the Gold race--but even so, it looks like the pecking order has been seriously rearranged. Great job by the Big Green at Short!--and an outstanding win by the Crimson's Leakos there.

But of course the real headline was the Lions' race at Notre Dame. Wow!

Check out today's latest USTFCCCA Poll ; Six Ivy teams in Top 30 - three in each gender, including Columbia and Princeton both in Top Ten for men and Cornell and Dartmouth in Top 15 for women. Great meet coming up at Princeton!

ivyfan2 wrote:

Check out today's latest USTFCCCA Poll ; Six Ivy teams in Top 30 - three in each gender, including Columbia and Princeton both in Top Ten for men and Cornell and Dartmouth in Top 15 for women. Great meet coming up at Princeton!

Here is a link to the poll:

Cornell's women are rated about where they probably should have been all along. Even Cornell people were saying that they thought the team's earlier rating was a little higher than it deserved.

Congratulations to Columbia and Dartmouth for their breakout races.

Geoghegan for the win!!!!

Chris Bendsten.

HEPS MEN Top 29 Individual Rankings

RANK| PB FloRating | YR Achieved | YR | Athlete | School

01 | 217.3 | 2013 | SR | James Leakos | Harvard

02 | 212.4 | 2012 | SR | Maksim Korolev | Harvard

03 | 211.9 | 2012 | SR | Chris Bendtsen | Princeton

04 | 208.3 | 2012 | SR | Alejandro Arroyo Yamin | Princeton

05 | 208.0 | 2012 | SR | Jake Sienko | Columbia

06 | 206.3 | 2013 | SR | Will Geoghegan | Dartmouth

07 | 205.9 | 2013 | SR | Tyler Udland | Princeton

08 | 205.0 | 2013 | SR | Nico Composto | Columbia

09 | 204.7 | 2013 | JR | Daniel Everett | Columbia

10 | 201.9 | 2013 | JR | Matt McDonald | Princeton

11 | 201.6 | 2012 | SR | Jonathan Vitez | Princeton

12 | 201.3 | 2013 | SR | John Gregorek | Columbia

13 | 200.6 | 2013 | JR | Sam Pons | Princeton

14 | 200.0 | 2013 | SR | John Bleday | Dartmouth

15 | 199.2 | 2012 | JR | Matt Nussbaum | Yale

16 | 198.8 | 2012 | SR | Max Groves | Cornell

17 | 198.6 | 2012 | JR | Eddie Owens | Princeton

18 | 196.4 | 2012 | JR | Dylan O'Sullivan | Dartmouth

19 | 195.9 | 2012 | SR | Steve Mangan | Dartmouth

20 | 195.7 | 2012 | SR | Kurt Ruegg | Harvard

21 | 193.9 | 2013 | FR | Jack Boyle | Columbia

22 | 192.9 | 2012 | SR | Byron Jones | Columbia

23 | 192.3 | 2012 | SO | Tom Purnell | Harvard

24 | 192.1 | 2012 | SO | Thomas Awad | Penn

25 | 191.6 | 2012 | SO | Ben Golestan | Columbia

26 | 190.7 | 2013 | ? | Henry Sterling | Dartmouth

27 | 190.7 | 2012 | SO | Brendan Smith | Penn

28 | 190.2 | 2012 | JR | John Schilkowsky | Cornell

29 | 190.1 | 2012 | SO | Curtis King | Dartmouth

A lot of work there, fun. Thanks!

The Metropolitan meet was held at VCP this afternoon. The course was in the best shape I've ever seen it: there'd been a bit of rain earlier that was just enough to lay the dust and firm the footing. The only drawback in otherwise excellent conditions was a rather high (noticeable) humidity.

Columbia ran second to D3 NYU (which underscored the rest of the conference combined) in the men's race:

http://www.gojaspers.com/fls/12500/stats/crosscountry/2013/men-overall

[1].pdf?DB_OEM_ID=12500

But the Lions were easy winners over a good Violets squad in the women's race:

http://www.gojaspers.com/fls/12500/stats/crosscountry/2013/women-overall

[1].pdf?DB_OEM_ID=12500

At the meet, Willy Wood said that he'd kept out the top 12-14 from each squad, so Columbia was essentially running "C" teams in both races. The Lion women are particularly notable for their tremendous depth, putting six women under 19:00 on a not-fast course.

Big shakeup on the women's side this weekend. What's your thinking now: 1. Dartmouth, 2. Princeton, 3. Cornell?