HEPS Cross Country 2012

ivyguy wrote:

Looks like a very quiet weekend for the League. Paul Short should be interesting.

According to HTC, Columbia women will be in Toledo tomorrow:

Friday, September 21

Columbia (women) at the Toledo Bubble Buster — Ottawa Park Golf Course (Toledo, Ohio)

Other than that, nothing until the 28th.

Does anyone know the rhyme/reason on why there are so many XC meets on a Friday? Why not Saturday?

Details about Heps XC are available:

https://www.facebook.com/events/499022130123516/

I was thinking about how competitive Heps XC teams are nationally and couldn't help but dream about what it would be like if the schools could keep their 5th year seniors or accept 5th year transfers. Imagine the current Princeton team with Cabral, Amirault, and Stilin added to the mix. Lowry and Merber as strong front runners for Brown and Columbia. Truly one of the best distance conferences in the nation even without 5th years...

Now that would be fun... Possibly 4-5 teams ranked nationally if so?

Just Dreaming Here wrote:

I was thinking about how competitive Heps XC teams are nationally and couldn't help but dream about what it would be like if the schools could keep their 5th year seniors or accept 5th year transfers. Imagine the current Princeton team with Cabral, Amirault, and Stilin added to the mix. Lowry and Merber as strong front runners for Brown and Columbia. Truly one of the best distance conferences in the nation even without 5th years...

Now that would be fun... Possibly 4-5 teams ranked nationally if so?

Yes, it would be fun and nice if the Ivies allowed 5th year seniors/graduate students to compete on the teams. But I don't think we'd have more nationally ranked teams as Princeton and Columbia are already nationally ranked for the men. If anything, I think they would be ranked higher in the standings. Lowry would/should get All-American again, but you really need a high quality distance group for the team to be nationally ranked, and I don't think Brown has that group quite yet. Perhaps Dartmouth women could sneak in if Alexi Pappas could still run in the Ivies...

From my understanding, not many of the graduating Ivies who still have eligibility decide to compete in graduate school. Maybe that would change if they allowed the 5th years to compete, but when I was running in the Ivies, it wasn't really discussed.

Predictions for Paul Short. Go.

Ho. Lee. Crap. Cornell women at Paul Short.

Gold:

http://runhigh.com/2012RESULTS/R092812AE.html

Open:

http://runhigh.com/2012RESULTS/R092812AC.html

I understand that G'town wasn't running all its top squad, but the Big Red women nevertheless dominated a good field and got some big scalps on their belt. Dayumn. Rosettie (sp), their fifth today, has taken a whole step upward this year. They still have about 8-10 candidates for their 5-6-7 spots at Heps, though.

Meanwhile, I'm told that D'Agostino was running with the field with a mile to go; finished easing up; and nevertheless won by 24secs. Can you say "National Champion"?

On the men's side, Dartmouth broke out fast and finished first among Ivies.

Gold:

http://runhigh.com/2012RESULTS/R092812AC.html

Open:

http://runhigh.com/2012RESULTS/R092812AB.html

With Princeton's and Columbia's "A" teams not in the race, Cornell looks like it's going to have a real fight to get on that podium at Heps. However, I'm immensely impressed by the season that Nick Wade, nominally an 800 man, is putting up for the Bid Red this fall.

Okay, let's try these for the men's Gold race:

http://runhigh.com/2012RESULTS/R092812AD.html

Nerts.

So Princeton and Columbia didn't have their A squads at Paul Short, but Princeton dominated Georgetown at Spiked Shoe and Columbia's top guy at PS, Ben Veilleux, is probably about their 10th guy right now (although he was 6th on their team at last year's NE Regional). September results aren't always the best predictors for the championship part of the season, but that shows how good those two teams were in their early races.

Harvard didn't run Leakos, Korolev and Lindaas, who all beat Yale's top guy in their dual meet. They could have beaten the squad Dartmouth ran with all those guys healthy* and racing. * = Staying healthy in October sure wasn't Harvard's strong point last year.

Cornell had an off day from Potts, who led the team in the first two races. Word at the meet was that he's been ill, so if he was 100%, they also beat Dartmouth in this meet ... but Dartmouth had a freshman run 24:49 in the open race, which would have theoretically made their team score about 20 points better, putting them within single digits (plus or minus) of a Cornell team with Potts scoring in the 20 range.

So right now, it's looking like Princeton and Columbia battling for the conference title as was expected, then Harvard if they can stay healthy and fit, then Dartmouth and Cornell (also depending on who stays healthy), then Yale, then Brown (looks like a couple of the Brown guys ran subpar) and then Penn.

Thanks for added detail, Ex!

Another thing - the Paul Short course was sloppy but not as bad as last year. 2009 had the best course conditions in the last few years and last year's times for place were 37 seconds slower for the top 25, 50 and 75 (34 for 100th) than they were in 2009 even though the field was stronger last year. This year the course was 20+ seconds slower than it was in 2009 (and between 15 and 20 seconds faster than last year). Times for 25, 50, 75 and 100 were 25, 22, 26 and 29 seconds slower this year than in 2009, but the field was barely deeper in 2009.

Princeton men's A ran at Notre Dame finishing second.

Yes, Princeton beat 9 ranked teams, including 3 ranked ahead of them. Of course, rankings at this point in the season aren't that meaningful or accurate. Tulsa won but came in ranked behind Princeton, for example. But those teams are still all very good even if they might be ranked out of order at the moment. Princeton has to be one of the top 15 teams right now, maybe top 10 on a banner day.

Ex Ivy Guy wrote:

Princeton has to be one of the top 15 teams right now, maybe top 10 on a banner day.

Yeah, nice that when Vig came in to Princeton, he had some material to work with. Most new coaches aren't so fortunate.

Speaking of new coaches, Steve Dolan's Quakers certainly had a dominant win in the Brown race yesterday. Nice that somebody had brought in some good frosh for him to develop.

Ex Ivy Guy wrote:

Harvard didn't run Leakos, Korolev and Lindaas, who all beat Yale's top guy in their dual meet. They could have beaten the squad Dartmouth ran with all those guys healthy* and racing. * = Staying healthy in October sure wasn't Harvard's strong point last year.

Caution seems to be the theme this fall for Harvard men after the entire A squad imploded last fall prior to Wisconsin. Not over racing your top guys is certainly one way to keep them healthy, but wouldn't just telling them to hold back a bit serve the same purpose - plus give them some big meet experience? Anyway, very nice to see Ruegg back running well. Hopefully the whole group will run Wisconsin - it would be so great to see this team fulfill its potential.

lease wrote:

Ex Ivy Guy wrote:

Princeton has to be one of the top 15 teams right now, maybe top 10 on a banner day.

Yeah, nice that when Vig came in to Princeton, he had some material to work with. Most new coaches aren't so fortunate.

Speaking of new coaches, Steve Dolan's Quakers certainly had a dominant win in the Brown race yesterday. Nice that somebody had brought in some good frosh for him to develop.

Also: Did anybody do a comparison of the Penn men's times with those of the other Ivies (in the Gold race)? If so, how did Penn stack up?

lease wrote:

Also: Did anybody do a comparison of the Penn men's times with those of the other Ivies (in the Gold race)? If so, how did Penn stack up?

Okay, I just saw the results from the Brown and did a quick eyeball of the Ivy results in the Gold--looks like Penn would have had its hands full with most of the other Ivy teams (*assuming* course conditions were similar for the two races).

Thanks Ivy Guy for the solid analysis. I just wanted to add a few more insightful insights:

If you multiply Cornell's score by 2, and then divide it by 3, then they would also have beaten Dartmouth. When you add in the fact that Cornell had to travel the furthest to get to Paul Short, then I think they're up there with Columbia and Princeton at this point.

It's also important to note that Harvard held out their 3 best runners at one of the biggest invites of the season/one of their few opportunities to earn points for nationals. This is clearly a psychological trick to make people think they suck when they really don't and I think it sets them up to do really well the rest of the season.

At this point I can safely say that I can make excuses for any of the Ivy teams' performances and set up hypothetical rankings for how things might have gone differently if everyone on every squad might have had their ideal race. I look forward to providing more insightful insights following next week's action.

lease wrote:

Steve Dolan's Quakers certainly had a dominant win in the Brown race yesterday.

It was smart to put that squad with a lot of freshmen in the Brown race. Not only could they stay focused, confident and in control by running near the front the whole way, they could also get a team win to help with recruiting.

Another Ex Ivy Guy added:

a few more insightful insights

Gee, those factual facts were astonshingly astonishing! Here's something else that probably nobody thought of: If you just added Lawi Lalang, Henry Lelei, Paul Chelimo, Mohammed Ahmed and some random guy off the street - like, say, Imane Merga - to Penn's roster, assuming they could stay healthy, didn't get stressed out about traveling all the way to the meet, and all ran at a strong tempo effort, there's a pretty decent chance (probably better than 73%, depending on course conditions and the number of bathroom breaks on the trip to the race) they could beat Dartmouth as well. But, alas, Penn doesn't have those guys. Oh, those silly Ivy teams and their excuses. Always talking about coulda beens.

Heps XC is becoming like the track - a dual meet. Columbia took ten guys to Louisville. Their top 2 guys (#11 and #12) at PShort broke into every other Ivy's top 5 at worst and many's top 3. It seems Columbia can put 12 guys in everyone else's top 5 and PRINCETON is even better than Columbia The meet will be a dual meet.