Biggest Surprises at 2012 NCAA XC Nationals

Here's another: How about David Rooney of McNeese State in 7th as the top non-African born runner?

I know the Irish guys has been running pretty well in xc this year but that's an unreal showing for a 13:53/28:54 guy who didn't even score in the 5k in the spring and was 50th at NCAAs in 2010.

Plus he was only 5th at Notre Dame and 7th at Pre-Nats.

Duke 7th place(women) they beat teams like Iowa st and Washintion

Reed Connor.

Duke ran six underclassman and one senior

Tulsa Men, although O'Hare disappointed a little

NAU finishing 4th with 2 freshmen, 2 Sophomores, and 1 junior.

Freshman (women)

9 – Laura Hollander 136 FR Cal Poly 19:45.2 3:18

10 4 Sarah Collins 308 FR Providence 19:50.7 3:19

20 13 Kelsey Lakowske 168 FR Duke 20:03.4 3:21

26 19 Emily Stites 389 FR William and Mary 20:05.8 3:2

28 21 Cayla Hatton 321 FR Stanford 20:06.2 3:21

44 32 Allie Woodward 298 FR Oregon 20:19.5 3:24

BTW: Footlocker champs...Four will be back next year..probably...and plus this years champ?

217 179 Molly Seidel 279 FR Notre Dame 21:39.1

other Footlocker results

3 2 Jordan Hasay 292 SR Oregon

21 14 Aisling Cuffe 318 SO Stanford 20:03.8 3:21

24 17 Kathy Kroeger 322 SR Stanford 20:05.0

48 34 Megan Goethals 368 JR Washington 20:21.7

206 168 Ashley Brasovan 166 JR Duke 21:33.5

Indiana men ranked 24th, lose NCAA 1500 champ Bayer who was probably a top 10-15 team scorer based on how he's raced with Mayhew and the Wisconsin guys in three hard races this year (adidas, Big Ten, Regional) and still finish 18th. With Bayer they could have been top 10.

Connecticut women with a top 10 in their NCAA debut. They're a good team, ranked 14th coming in, but you still gotta do it on the day. They did and then some.

Rooney had been saving a lot throughout the xc season, great story as he has lost both his mother and brother within the past year and he has been backed by a small school all 5 years and competing with the big boys. If he can stay healthy throughout track he'll be someone to really watch.

He has been severly overlooked in my opinion.

He really wants to stay in the states and continue his running, if I was a professional/semi professional training group I'd really take a look at this guy. This guy is a gamer and not scared. I am obviously biased because of my friendship/teammate relation with him.

Thanks Rojo for noticing and giving props to the guy!

Can't tell if Florida State men manage to sometimes step up unbelievably at nationals, or if they grossly underperform most of the time.

Colorado's men's team is all things considered the biggest surprise. They have one guy who was national class in high school, and he wasn't close to 100% at NCAAs, and the other four guys were 9:09-9:19 in high school--all very good, but not national class. Compare this, for example, to Wisconsin, who have a 14:12, a 4:01, an 8:58, a 4:05, and a Nike cross champion out of high school.

RuKiddingMe!!! wrote:

Duke 7th place(women) they beat teams like Iowa st and Washintion

UConn women were a bigger surprise than Duke. Duke was ranked higher.

rojo wrote:

Here's another: How about David Rooney of McNeese State in 7th as the top non-African born runner?

Being the first white runner is an accomplishment? What year is this? 1936?

Montesquieu wrote:

Colorado's men's team is all things considered the biggest surprise. They have one guy who was national class in high school, and he wasn't close to 100% at NCAAs, and the other four guys were 9:09-9:19 in high school--all very good, but not national class. Compare this, for example, to Wisconsin, who have a 14:12, a 4:01, an 8:58, a 4:05, and a Nike cross champion out of high school.

Start a separate Wetmore worship thread, if you must.

O'Hare ran fine. He's a pure miler. Look at what the likes of

Centro and Manzano did in XC before they lit up the track.

I know she was an individual champion contender throughout most of the season, but I was pleasantly surprised by Abbey D'Agostino actually being within a second of the win after not competing for a month. I seriously believed she would not have had enough juice to keep up with the top group in the last parts of the race.

I agree C/M. I think Abbey ran a great race. I wonder if you or others think she should have challenged earlier. Given the way it did finish, Hasay was clearly out of gas but I thought Saina was done too. If the race is 50 meters longer, Abbey wins. Of course, it's not, but what if she starts to press earlier?

C/M Runner wrote:I know she was an individual champion contender throughout most of the season, but I was pleasantly surprised by Abbey D'Agostino actually being within a second of the win after not competing for a month. I seriously believed she would not have had enough juice to keep up with the top group in the last parts of the race.

sxsw wrote:

Thanks Rojo for noticing and giving props to the guy!

My pleasure.

I saw a white guy finishing with an M on his chest and told our reporter I thought it was Dan Lowry of Brown. Then I saw the results and was like - what a minute...

Rojo, I think you meant "Dan Lowry of Michigan [formerly of Brown]"

Rustamon wrote:

I agree C/M. I think Abbey ran a great race. I wonder if you or others think she should have challenged earlier. Given the way it did finish, Hasay was clearly out of gas but I thought Saina was done too. If the race is 50 meters longer, Abbey wins. Of course, it's not, but what if she starts to press earlier?

If Abbey had challenged earlier, I don't think she would have gotten 2nd or won. Jordan gave up near the end, which was how Abbey snuck past her. Jordan would have held on longer and likely take the 2nd slot over Abbey.

Saina reportedly has very good closing speeds (her teammates have a hard time besting her in 400ms, I heard in a post-race interview on flotrack) and I don't know if Abbey has THAT kind of speed.

I think if Abbey had competed in Wisconsin (provided that she wasn't injured), I think she would have known more about how to race against Saina and would have adjusted her race accordingly. I think not knowing enough about how to best race against her competition is probably what led to her not winning, but her sheer guts on that finish kick is what got her 2nd. I originally did not think she could have bested Hollander at NCAAs since she didn't race against her before and has not had that kind of "fast start and hold on" race this season.