Stanford men will 3-peat at NCAA

Why just 3-peat? If they win this year, Lex and Leo can help them win more than twice.

Based on Sahlman's time at Nuttycombe, there's a decent chance L&L won't affect their scoring next year. ~60 points for your 5th scorer isn't going to be a score that gets you on the podium.

There's also the chance that Stanford loses Robinson or Hicks to early pro careers.

Cole Sprout also hasn't proven himself on XC 10K level yet. He's dropped good track 10K's at least, but he needs to be low 29 minutes on the XC course to be a major factor for them. All the other elite runners are doing that.

Too early to say dynasty

using one time from a kid who wasn’t even going to race this season is not enough info to make a claim like this lmao. colin clearly isn’t at his best rn, unless you believe whatever freshman beat him is actually just better

20 year old frosh that beat him, still an awesome story though

Sprout was 15th at the spring XC nationals as a true freshman. He's already proven himself.

Yeah, why don't you use their brother as reference, who conveniently ran very similar times to them in high school?

Stanford men potentially will have the entire roster back next fall if one or two of them like Meika B-R take advantage of their free C19 year . . . if so, Lex & Leo would have to be at their best to even crack the top-7, much less top-5 , , , it's 2024 and beyond where they potentially replace Hicks, Sprout and Robinson as team leaders . . . along with the Topper and Sherry twins . . .

There's honestly a decent chance L&L aren't top 7 next year. I think it's more likely that they are, but Stanford has so much young talent that can develop by then (Bergen, Sherrys), not to mention a 13:37 guy didn't score for them today when they crushed the rest of the NCAA. I think Sahlman is a bit of a different case because he spent track focused on the mile and is acclimating to altitude. If there's so much depth that L&L aren't even top 7, I think it's safe to say we're seeing the start of a dynasty.

While Stanford will certainly be leading contenders, it is worth noting BYU put 4 sophomores in the top 21 and Clinger didn’t run and comes back next year. If BYU wins this year, which they have a decent shot at, they likely would be favorites to repeat next year and be strong again in 2.

if Lex and Leo can’t make the top 7 next year, then neither can Nolan topper

az.milesplit.com

Desert Twilight XC Festival 2020 - Unattached/Club Sweeps (Raw)

MileSplits official Unattached/Club Sweeps raw results for the 2020 Desert Twilight XC Festival, hosted by Queen Creek High School in Queen Creek AZ.

Open link

No there's too much competition. Too many good programs. Several teams could easily beat Stanford this year. All it would take is an injury or an off day with a couple key runners. XC isn't run on paper.

NAU is extremely talented. BYU was missing it's top 2 runners yesterday(both 2-time top 20 XC all-Americans).

Going forward transfers will make a huge impact. All it takes is for one or two athletes to transfer.

BYU was still far behind Stanford today even if you plug their missing runners in based on where they landed at OSU. Stanford had 4 in front of BYUs 1 and will have 3 in front of Clinger. To win NCAAs it almost always requires at least 2 runners in the top 15 (often top 10) and having the best #3 man in the race almost always comes from the winning team. Stanford checks those 2 boxes and BYU does not.

BYU could have Clinger, Allen, and Nokes all in the top 15, so while Stanford’s top 3 are ridiculously good, BYU’s top 3 also checks this box for a championship level team. It also looks like they could land their whole 4-7 in the top 30. Keep in mind the 2 sec spread doesn’t mean they are at the same level as each other, it means some could have finished much faster and chose not to.

So while Stanford looks very very good and should be the favorite, it isn’t like there aren’t other top level contenders who will push them and might just be better on a given day at Nats.

Wake Forest will beat Stanford by 2024. Better recruits for 2023 and younger roster.

Freshmen will typically have a ways to go to be top 30 nationally, but these won't be typical freshmen at all. Lex ran 13:43 as a junior and I expect that both will run in the low 13:30s this year, ahead of Rupp's record. 10k is an adjustment, but both Lex and Leo will have 5000m times better than Stanford #'s 4-5 as freshmen. For comparison, Ritz ran 13:44 as a senior and 13:27 as a freshman. Nico ran comparable to his brothers' junior years in high school--7:56.97 vs. 7:57, for instance, 13:50 on a hot day vs. 13:43--and he ran 13:24 as a freshman and 4th in xc.

Will Sprout and Hicks have eligibility? This year will be their 3rd XC Nationals. They both ran in the COVID with Nico Young. So I believe next year will be their last XC National

The Machine is back.

That’s a very optimistic “could”. Nothing they have done yet this season suggests that three of them will be in the top 15. If you’re saying BYU could have 4 in the top 15 then you’d have to say Stanford could have 4 in the top 15 based on Friday’s race.

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