Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational -- 27 Sep 2024

In addition to your thoughts, can Appleton of UVA stick with the strong runners from Providence, Washington, Georgetown, Oregon? As you say, will the track success of the athletes from these programs translate to XC? Is Millard of Providence as good as advertised? How much does Jenks add to Georgetown? Peters and Caesar of UT had exceptional races at Nationals last year - can they replicate/or improve? 1st race of the season for most of the top runners.

Pre Nats in Wisconsin on October 19 will be Nuttycombe Part 2

My thoughts:

1 Providence - May/Millard/Doyle/Flockhart/Mooney or Buckley - is Doyle healthy and fit though?

1a Georgetown - Scrimgeouer/Riggins/Jenks/Gonzalez/Nerurkar

3 Oregon - Aayyildiz/Elmore/Barnett/Kazimerskia/Thompson

3a Washington - Maatoug/Foerster/Stiles/O'Sullivan/David-Smith/Tran - is Maatoug healthy and fit though?

5 Utah

5a Virginia

I didn't see Appleton listed on the UVA start list. Maybe move UNC into the 5a spot?

Start Lists and link to runnerspace+ live stream:

With the athletes entered I'd say Georgetown clear favorite, then WA, UT, OR, Providence very close for 2-5, the UVA and NC pretty close for 6-7.

No Doyle or Buckley for Providence, no Tran or O'Sullivan for WA, no Clute and I assume no Kazmierskia for OR. David and Menninger entered for UVA, but no Appelton (:

Kazimierska is listed. Furman looks stronger this year. At the SC Eye Opener, the scorers finished in a tight pack and I'm not sure they were racing flat out. If everyone has a great day, maybe they slip into the top 10.

How many athletes actually get to run? When I glanced at last years competitors on actual race day it looked like 8? So some may just be entered to keep the competition guessing or race day decisions I'm thinking. So we won't know team strength until they actually line up

Oregon and Wisconsin women both have 19 entries? Guessing thats the max for entries and then 8 will actually toe the line?

There is also a "B" race

I did some updates, and now I'd put Wisconsin and Lipscomb in there with UVA, and maybe NC a bit further back. but I am sure I will learn a lot from the race.

Likewise. Still loads of unknowns across the board. For instance, if I knew Scrimgeour and Riggins were uninjured and Riggins had upped her mileage and completed lots of strength work (3k/5k/10k workouts) this summer, I'd half expect a Georgetown 1-2 finish. But Riggins' DNF at Charlottesville makes me unsure what to expect from her in clutch situations on the grass. As you note, lots to learn.

I tried to watch Flo tracks preview and it was awful. What is going on w these platforms lately. Dyestats was short and uninteresting.

FloTrack's interview this week with Wisconsin head coach Mick Byrne wasn't bad. He made an interesting comment that suggests tempered expectations for this meet:

”...you’re probably not going to see a full squad.... Again, for me, September’s all about training. We’re going to stick to that plan and the team that we see out there on Friday will not be the same team that you’ll see when it really matters and that’s from Pre-Nationals on.

no Kazmierska, nor Aayyildiz nor Elmore for OR, no Scrimgeour for Georgetown it seems

Is Nuttycombe ~100m short? I've always felt like it was a bit short

A little surprised Oregon is running Ince as a freshman when she hated cross country in high school and obviously her strength is middle distance. but she did do well in an earlier meet I saw. but they arent running the Humphries or Lablond or many of their other freshmen. whatever happened to Lily Cridge and Kate Peters? and is Conde De Frankenberg still in Argentina or is she finally back with the team?

Relax, no pressure on Wisc side. This is actually an entry exam for UNC and UVA to get a potential BiG Ten invitation in the next round of conference realignment.