HEPS Cross Country 2012

I was wrong: Cornell jumped up a spot to #4!

http://pics.lockerz.com/s/252534104

Columbia men 5th!

CUXC wrote:

Columbia men 5th!

Tied for 5th

So will Harvard have a shot at mens individual title at Heps? Looks as if Korolev had the fastest time of the Ivy runners at Wisc, 23:44, 18th place overall in a stacked field. Outstanding.

veritas wrote:

So will Harvard have a shot at [men's] individual title at Heps? Looks as if Korolev had the fastest time of the Ivy runners at Wisc, 23:44, 18th place overall in a stacked field. Outstanding.

A shot? Sure. How is he on the track? Given that the WW course is pretty track-like (in decent conditions!), that's a relevant question.

A quick look at those women's results from Wisco suggests that Cornell's ranking is unlikely to change much: all the teams they beat were lower-ranked (going into the meet) than they. And even though Cornell was reasonably close to a couple of highly-ranked teams, they didn't beat them.

By contrast, the Providence team that just missed beating Cornell should improve a lot in the national poll, having beaten quite a few teams that had been ranked ahead of them. Ditto for Yale--some nice scalps on their belt, and their ranking should improve some.

Did both the men's and women's races have major falls, btw? I've only heard about the men's...

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I plan to head to tomorrow's meet at Princeton. Supposed to be (literally) freezing, but I'll hope to cope. Columbia's JVs are outstanding and should have a shot, but the hosts should also be competitive in the field. Evidently Cornell will be busing some runners down, as well.

Whoa. I just watched the video of the women's race (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptmxV4O5q2o&feature=youtu.be), and at about 1:00 into it, most of the Cornell women come by--virtually at the back of the field, including K. Kellner. Dunno if there was a fall or that was a deliberate pacing decision--most likely the latter--but Kellner would certainly have had to run around a *lot* of people, to end up as high as she did. Their (usually) #2, Sorna--who's been very strong in steeplechase but was not in their top five in xc last year--continues to have an eye-opening season.

I think it was more so strategy than anything else. I guess to avoid the traffic. Cause its CROWDED! But word has it that D'Agostino is hurt which is why she didn't race.......

bigred2222222 wrote:

But word has it that D'Agostino is hurt which is why she didn't race.......

Distressing news, if true. I hope it's nothing long-term.

After taking another look at the results, I'm even more impressed by the Yale women. They've got a really solid group. (Don't seem to have a lot of depth, but then it only takes five.) They beat some big guns today--credit where it's due!

Nothing long-term. She'll be back before the end of the year (unless they re-evaluate things). It would be a real shame if both Neer and Abbey are out for Heps. I know Neer is done for the season but hopefully Abbey makes it back by then.

What happened to neer? Was it the same thing that plagued her outdoors last year?

I hope you enjoyed the trip to Princeton it was a beautiful fall day, I don't know where you got the idea that it would be freezing.

Tigerfan wrote:

I hope you enjoyed the trip to Princeton it was a beautiful fall day, I don't know where you got the idea that it would be freezing.

I enjoyed it very much--what a picture-perfect day for a cross-country meet! Early forecasts from weather.gov had projected an early-morning temp of 0C--freezing, literally--but there was no wind, the sun was out brightly, and it felt at least 10C, maybe warmer. What a privilege to be a cross-country runner (or spectator) on a day like that!

On the men's side (http://www.goprincetontigers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=46850&SPID=4261&DB_OEM_ID=10600&ATCLID=205711579),

St. Joe's dominated the race but Harvard, which hadn't been mentioned in the pre-meet publicity, finshed a strong second, ahead of Iona. (Many of the top-finishing teams, other than St. Joe's itself, I believe, were running "B" or "C" squads.) Harvard's talent-in-depth is striking (they had a few more competitors in the open race,

http://www.goprincetontigers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=46850&SPID=4261&DB_OEM_ID=10600&ATCLID=205711582

).

Columbia was incomplete, with Steve Inglehart (5th) the first Ivy finisher; John Schilkowsky (apparently running well within himself) was the next Ivy man and the only notable finisher for Cornell, which otherwise had mostly frosh/soph representation. The field of 200+ seemed a bit large for the course, with a couple of small bottlenecks at tight spots, but that'll be no problem with a Heps-sized field.

The women's race (http://www.goprincetontigers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=46891&SPID=4272&DB_OEM_ID=10600&ATCLID=205711584) had an even larger field. Columbia's JVs took the win (83 points) over some good competition, with Caroline Williams and Leila Mantilla (5th and 6th) both under 22 minutes. Columbia finished three before Cornell's first, rookie Claire DeVoe, but the Big Red had another five across within 25 seconds and finished third. Princeton was sixth and Harvard tenth; there were no Ivy runners in the open race.

Incidentally, word from the Cornell coaches (I spoke with one or two while at Princeton's meet) was that the Cornell women did *not* go out intentionally slowly at Wisconsin, but (maybe in part because of their position on the starting line) simply didn't get out with the field and had a lot of catching up to do--on a course where, per the video that was posted, there were several tight spots (at least for a field that large) that made passing almost impossible. This makes K. Kellner's finish even more impressive to me: she had to pass (somehow) 300+ to get where she ended up!

I really wonder whether so many teams will want to attend that meet next year. Obviously you want the opportunity to compile some "push" points for getting to the NCAA meet, but it appears that the crowded field hurt, rather than helped, some teams in that regard. Even the Cornell women, if they hadn't eked out that one-point margin over Providence, would probably have been considerably less pleased with their result.

Anyway, next weekend should be "quiet" for most Ivy teams as they prepare for Heps. I know Cornell has a home meet, but doubt that any their Heps-probable runners will compete; Princeton isn't scheduled for anything, and Brown has its Rothenburg run--wouldn't expect to see the varsity there, either. Harvard has nothing scheduled.

Huh. I just saw the FloTrack video of the women (http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/249798-2012-Wisconsin-XC-Invitational/video/658369-Wisconsin-adidas-Invitational-Womens-College-6k), and if their splits (esp. film at the mile) were right, Cornell's elder Kellner passed most of those 300 people in about the last 1200m of the first mile--wow.

My Initial mid-season predictions for HEPS Women along with their respective finish at Wisconsin and comments/questions.

1. Cornell(5) Moving into a lock for HEPS title

2. Columbia(36) Neer out for season - yikes!

3. Yale(13) In line with expectations, solid run

4. Dartmouth(44) Ran without Abby D - will she be back?

5. Princeton(25) May get podium? Now Harvard is their problem

6. Harvard (23) In the thick of the solid, but still 2nd, tier

7. Brown (26) As for Harvard and Princeton

8. Penn - Ran at Lafayette - won easily. No competition.

I had read somewhere that for next year, the Wisconsin invite will be limited to 30 teams again (I believe this was the standard up to this year, where they let in 45 teams). But the races did look very crowded in the photos I saw. Perhaps Dolan saw this coming and that was why penn didn't head out there...

no, steve dolan did not see that coming, he pulled the same thing he did at the paul short open race, where he had his team run an easy meet so that they wouldn't see how bad they really are, and they'd get good headlines for winning