Could the FM (Manlius) girls team have qualified for NCAA D1 Nationals?

(at, their) sorry about those typos

You can't do a "simple extrapolation" like that with cross country times. Courses vary so much and conditions fluxuate as well. Therefore, your logic is flawed. Manlius would not have made D1 nats. This is just another stupid thread to provide uneccessary hype. They ran well, clearly. But everyone needs to get over their love affair with this team.

I'm guessing the fact that the three girls who graduated last year did not make it on the top seven of their regional teams (two teams made nationals) I find it hard to believe this is even a discussion. There is a huge difference between what goes on in hs and what goes on in college racing. FM is good relative to their competition. They run more miles, do more weight lifting, sacrifice more life, eat better foods, do more cross training than anyone else in the country. thats why they win. to become great college runners you need sustainability. FM has not proven to have that. it seems they have a shelf life of improvement of about total years at most they plateu or get worse. Most don't notice because at FM someone else has stepped up to shine.

just stupid wrote:

I'm guessing the fact that the three girls who graduated last year did not make it on the top seven of their regional teams (two teams made nationals) I find it hard to believe this is even a discussion. There is a huge difference between what goes on in hs and what goes on in college racing. FM is good relative to their competition. They run more miles, do more weight lifting, sacrifice more life, eat better foods, do more cross training than anyone else in the country. thats why they win. to become great college runners you need sustainability. FM has not proven to have that. it seems they have a shelf life of improvement of about total years at most they plateu or get worse. Most don't notice because at FM someone else has stepped up to shine.

Pretty good assessment.

Does anyone wonder how Gina feels about recruiting Courtney Chapman, seems to be on the decline.

Manlius are good mudders. Their mothers were mudders. Saugus is all about the CA hardpack.

I love the arrogance of some people. Guess what High School runners are runners too. And you do not automatically become superior than all high schoolers when you start running in college.

You see it all the time. High Schoolers winning the Jr. XCs or Jr. Track Champs over young college stars.

One such example is that Jordan Hasay won US Jrs. 2008, beating the 51st finisher (Stanford) at NCAAs (2nd at Jrs.) by 13 seconds among other runners who competed at the 2007 NCAAs. HS runners beat up on College runners all the time (especially girls/women). Based on this finish it would be reasonable to predict that Hasay would have finished in the low 30s at Nationals.

Even assuming that none of the FM runners could beat Hasay in this race, it is still reasonable to say that their first runners would have been close to Hasay. Assuming that the first runner would have lost by 10 seconds, and then going off of that. Their team score at NCAAs would have extrapolated to...(conservatively)

46, 112, 113, 140, 188 = 599

31st place.

So it would be a stretch to say they would make it, but they are certainly in the ball park.

That's insane to think about. I doubt FM would have averaged that fast, but I would love to see them run against Saugus at Mt. SAC.

How awesome would that be?

Even if this comparison is adequate, the conditions at NXN were incredibly slow, thus exaggerating the time differences between FM and Saugus. Maybe had they both run at Woodward, FM would have been 40 seconds faster.

I just find it hard to believe that FM, as good as they might be, could put that many runners within the range of Jordan Hasay. You also have to consider that these girls were in the thick of the race, chasing each other, etc. where Hasay was by herself.

Additionally, California teams historically do poorly at NXN, especially when conditions are difficult. Thus, in dry and still conditions, Saugus may finish closer to FM.

Chapman was injured at the start of this year and raced a good part of the season not at 100%. She may indeed be on the decline but her year this year doesn't necessarily indicate that.

I already did use 40 seconds instead of 56.

To continue the number-crunching comparison game, let's take a look at the caliber of athletes on Rice's 31st-place team from this year:

Nicole Mericle - 4:29 1,500, 9:32 3,000, 10:15 St., 16:52 5,000

Becky Wade - 4:47 mile, 9:31, 10:19 St., 16:27, 34:30 10,000

Allison Pye - 4:33, 9:43, 16:35

Halsey Fowler - 4:50 mile, 10:37 St.

Britany Williams - 4:26, 16:11

Meredith Gamble - 4:37 (high school 2009)

Marie Thompson - 4:39, 17:04, 35:25

Could a high school team really stack up with that squad? They'd need a top 5 that could average 4:50 or under for 1,600, 10:20-ish for 3,200 or close to 16:30 for 5,000 - and they'd have to be good over 6k, which they don't run in high school. Maybe it isn't impossible, but the chances are remote. No high school team has ever been close to that level. A list of high school all-stars from any given year isn't much better than that. Even if F-M is by far the best high school team ever, they would be hard-pressed to beat any of the teams that made D1 nationals. On top of that, to make the meet, F-M would have had to qualify out of the Northeast, beating Boston College, which was a much better cross-country team than Rice.

Yes they could. Those times are great 1500s and miles, but the 5km's are actually not that impressive. I think on the track FM could have a team spread between 16:00-17:00

Molly Malone, Mackenzie Carter, and Hannah Luber all were not top 7. Even if you go look at the girls that graduated in 2009 and are sophomores now to take into account adjusting to college life it seems FM girls aren't doing great at college-Meaghan Anklin barely runs at BC, Kathryn Buchan also seems to be barely running at Cornell and Alexandra Chapman is not running very well at Bucknell, Kristen Buchan is doing okay at Wake Forest. Jocelyn Richards, the lone senior on the 2007 NTN team no longer runs. The 2006 NTN team seniors Jessica Hauser, at BYU Hilary Hooley, at Colgate run but haven't made much improvement and Catie Caputo plays lacrosse at Georgetown.

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that all four of the girls from the '04 Toga squad who qualified for Footlocker as individuals ran in the NCAA championships last year in some capacity or another. Some would have made it individually, some made it with teams, but all four made it.

Yea, for all the talk about how bad the Kranick's are, their kids seem to still run and run pretty well after their time at Toga. haven't seen that from the FM kids.

I don't understand how the success or lack of success of HSers in College is the HS coaches fault. All that tells me is that he got his athletes to run at a higher percentage of their potential than other coaches. That is unless they are unable to improve because of injuries incurred in High School.

How closely do you actually follow college running? Do you have any idea how hard it is to run 16:00 for 5K for college women, let alone high school girls?

Only 11 women in NCAA Division I broke 16:00 for 5K on the track last spring. There were 40 at 16:15 or better. The 100th best female in the NCAA Division I ran just over 16:30. I find it beyond belief that a high school girls team would put its whole team starting near 16:00 and all under 17:00 on the track for 5K. Could they break 17:00? Sure. But many college teams that don't even sniff the NCAA meet can say they put five under 17:00 on the track. Rice, with three women between 16:11 and 16:35, has a solid group that is unlikely to be matched by a high school team.

The 1500 times that were listed earlier for the Rice team that you find to be so "great?" 4:26 for 1500 is not even in the top 100 amongst NCAA Division I women in the outdoor 2010 season. This is not great - 16:00 is a lot closer to "great" than 4:26. All of this isn't a slam on Rice - clearly their top 7 is comprised of very solid steeplechasers and 5K/10K types, not milers. Is 4:26 a great high school time? Probably, but value it higher than 16:00 for 5K as it clearly is not in the same ballpark.

F-M is a great, great high school program. But I thought the earlier poster, when they listed the Rice women's impressive track times, makes it quite clear that F-M could not approach, even on a great day, the 31st best team in Division I. So, I believe you are wrong. As good as F-M is, their kids are not currently capable of running the times on the track that the Rice women have run.

Bring the focus back to what they did do: an historic win against great high school competition! What they've done over the past five years is truly remarkable. These unfair comparisons with older runners take away from F-M and diminish the college teams.

If any high school team could do it to date, it would be this one. But it's still a tall order.

Those 17:00s are harder than you think. A time of 17:00 for 5,000 is actually about as common as a 4:33 for 1,500 at the college level. That in turn is worth about 4:53 for 1,600. And you'd think high school runners would have a harder time running good 5,000s (and would be even less familiar with cross-country 6ks). Last year's college lists also have 4:24.99 and 16:31.04 as the 96th-fastest pre-Regionals times, again underscoring the fact that 4:33 (4:53 1,600) is comparable to 17:00 (8 seconds slower in the 1,500 would be roughly 30 seconds slower in the 5,000). 16:30 is probably the equal of 4:44 1,600 and 10:15 3,200. That's awfully good for high school. Maybe - just maybe - F-M could have their top 5 average that. They're pretty damn good. But how would they fare being farther behind than usual in a race at a completely unfamiliar distance (6k) with runners who are far, far more experienced at racing the 6k distance? It's much easier when you're near the front, and in a college Regional, they'd be up against a lot tougher competition. Jumping into a higher-level field and being in 50th instead of in 10th halfway through the race doesn't always end up that swimmingly.

If so, it would still be barely good enough to compete favorably with bubble teams for NCs (not that that wouldn't be incredible for a high school team). There are several college teams that have one 16-low, a couple of 16:30 types and a few more under 17:00 that don't make Nationals. Dozens of teams talk about how they've got an on-paper squad just like that and how they will make it to the meet next year, but they never do it.

dgk;;kl wrote:

Molly Malone, Mackenzie Carter, and Hannah Luber all were not top 7. Even if you go look at the girls that graduated in 2009 and are sophomores now to take into account adjusting to college life it seems FM girls aren't doing great at college-Meaghan Anklin barely runs at BC, Kathryn Buchan also seems to be barely running at Cornell and Alexandra Chapman is not running very well at Bucknell, Kristen Buchan is doing okay at Wake Forest. Jocelyn Richards, the lone senior on the 2007 NTN team no longer runs. The 2006 NTN team seniors Jessica Hauser, at BYU Hilary Hooley, at Colgate run but haven't made much improvement and Catie Caputo plays lacrosse at Georgetown.

BYU, Colgate, BC, Cornell, Wake, Bucknell, Georgetown. Don't know much about their running at this point or if they'll ever live up to the expectations people on a running forum have for them BUT if I were Aris, I'd be proud they are attending those institutions.

Find 7 girls from the same school, same cross country team from a 4 year period that are now students at 7 better schools. It's about more than producing Olympians. They are STUDENT athletes.