DIII Cross Country: 2011

adddf wrote:

Impressive showing from the NESCAC men:

6. Williams

7. Bates

9. Tufts

12. Midd

15. Bowdoin

And women (at least from the top 3):

2. Middlebury

3. Williams

11. Amherst

20. Tufts

Best league in D3 this year.

That is pretty damn impressive, but its also easier to show dominance when your conference is split into different regions. I'm guessing some of the WIAC schools could have qualified elsewhere if they weren't stuck in the midwest.

Part of the problem with the South is that high school running there isn't very good. That translates up into colleges in D1 and D3 since there aren't as many good runners to recruit in the first place.

Freelove wrote:

Part of the problem with the South is that high school running there isn't very good. That translates up into colleges in D1 and D3 since there aren't as many good runners to recruit in the first place.

That's definitely part of it, and it explains some of the disparity. But I went to school in Texas, and while it may not be a total hotbed of distance talent, it's still a pretty large state with plenty of fast kids. And my college team had, I believe, plenty of talent. We just didn't do much with it. Our head coach didn't expect much of us, and we met those expectations. I'm out of school a few years now, but my school is still chugging along doing the same thing. And why shouldn't they? It's easy, and squeaking out a team spot or a couple of individual spots is always possible, because it's the South.

All of the NESCAC schools aside from Hamilton are in the New England region.

Well shit, my bad then. I guess I wasn't paying attention. The strength of the NE goes unnoticed sometimes because of the MW. They really should think about mixing up the regions to make things a little more equal. The last few years have had way too many strong teams in the same regions and hardly any in the others.

Its pretty clear that the MW and NE are by far the best regions. Part of that is that there are so many schools in each region. The south and west have less then twenty teams while the MW has more than forty...its no wonder those teams took the last spots at nationals.

Normally Id say the WIAC is the best confrence in the country, but this year the CCIW was almost as strong with NCC, Wheaton, and Augustana. Add Wash U to that and you have more than half a dozen teams better than any school in the west or south. It sucks for school like Chicago who never make the nationl meet despite being a perenial top 30 team.

Bottom line, not a lot of DIII Schools in the South/Southeast.

run10miles wrote:

Its pretty clear that the MW and NE are by far the best regions. Part of that is that there are so many schools in each region. The south and west have less then twenty teams while the MW has more than forty...its no wonder those teams took the last spots at nationals.

Normally Id say the WIAC is the best confrence in the country, but this year the CCIW was almost as strong with NCC, Wheaton, and Augustana. Add Wash U to that and you have more than half a dozen teams better than any school in the west or south. It sucks for school like Chicago who never make the nationl meet despite being a perenial top 30 team.

There are more schools in the south and west, I assume that it's just that some of them don't want to travel all the way to a regional meet halfway across the country if they know they are going to finish near the bottom of the region. This doesn't really have an effect on the quality of the region, though if you took out the bottom 10-20 teams from the MW,ME,NE,etc. you could probably say the same thing.

NCAC wrote:

There are more schools in the south and west, I assume that it's just that some of them don't want to travel all the way to a regional meet halfway across the country if they know they are going to finish near the bottom of the region. This doesn't really have an effect on the quality of the region, though if you took out the bottom 10-20 teams from the MW,ME,NE,etc. you could probably say the same thing.

I believe there are 20 teams on the Men's side, and 20.5 on the Women's side (Mills College has dual NAIA/NCAA status, and decided to run NCAA Regionals this year). UC Santa Cruz only just got a Men's team back, and their program is Independent anyway.

We are home to such illustrious programs as Chapman University (Independent until next year) and CalTech. Even when Regionals is not in SoCal, these teams tend to make the trip.

There are a few good teams and Individuals on both the Men's and Women's side. The Women especially, with the Pomona-Pitzer runner getting 3rd, the CMS women getting 4th, and CMS's top runner running the 6th or 7th fastest DIII time ever earlier this year before getting injured. As for the Men, well, they all blew it this year. They weren't supposed to be super impressive (CMS supposedly had some big injury issues, same with Pomona-Pitzer which prevented them from even qualifying), but they definitely underperformed, especially on the individual level (Brainard, Kleinsasser, Castillo).

555-5555 wrote:

Bottom line, not a lot of DIII Schools in the South/Southeast.

True, but I think sending a school or two like WashU down there would really help balance things out.

St. Louis really isn't in the South, though. You're talking about turning an 8 hour trip into 15+ hours or an expensive flight.

Azaleas wrote:

St. Louis really isn't in the South, though. You're talking about turning an 8 hour trip into 15+ hours or an expensive flight.

I understand that, but Virginia and North Carolina are even further away and teams from those states ran regionals in Texas. It might take some work/planning, but there has to be a way to balance things out a little. There is no reason why the MW or NE should have 7-8+ deserving teams fight for 5 spots every year while teams like Lynchburg and Centre get auto bids only to finish last.

Interesting read about the women's winner, Del Piccolo, on the Williams Athletic website. Apparently she wasn't even their #1 runner at the beginning of the season. She looks a lot like Jennifer Gossels to me... which, speaking of, does anyone know what happened w/ her? Did she transfer to another school? So weird that she won the outdoor 10K and then didn't run XC.

delpiccoloooo wrote:

Interesting read about the women's winner, Del Piccolo, on the Williams Athletic website. Apparently she wasn't even their #1 runner at the beginning of the season. She looks a lot like Jennifer Gossels to me... which, speaking of, does anyone know what happened w/ her? Did she transfer to another school? So weird that she won the outdoor 10K and then didn't run XC.

She's still enrolled at Williams and is supposedly running track. Your question won't get answered in this thread because either the posts or the thread itself would get deleted.

delpiccoloooo wrote:

Interesting read about the women's winner, Del Piccolo, on the Williams Athletic website. Apparently she wasn't even their #1 runner at the beginning of the season. She looks a lot like Jennifer Gossels to me... which, speaking of, does anyone know what happened w/ her? Did she transfer to another school? So weird that she won the outdoor 10K and then didn't run XC.

If you've seen either in person the extent of the similarity of their appearance is their height and the williams uniform

anyone know where I can find some photos from the meet?

Enjoy the pictures!

Men

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150548897388238.473932.638483237&type=1&l=b6264c0936

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150548934728238.473936.638483237&type=1&l=97edfbbfdc

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150548966563238.473940.638483237&type=1&l=d3054e403d

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150549008333238.473945.638483237&type=1&l=ad98589df7

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150549083168238.473964.638483237&type=1&l=5eedf1cc4b

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150549112438238.473965.638483237&type=1&l=04ad1c4cb7

Women

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150548889958238.473930.638483237&type=1&l=542204b3a9

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150548943998238.473938.638483237&type=1

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150549046348238.473955.638483237&type=1&l=665f8c5a57

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150549071258238.473959.638483237&type=1&l=13b54bdcbc

TrollFace wrote:

CALVIN Y U NO RUN FAST?

Been wondering the same thing. 7 places over their national rank? Calvin is better than that, we've seen it.

Are results from the prediction contest ever going to be posted?