2015 NESCAC Cross Country

Why does your top 5 have six teams? Do you go to Trinity?

Anyway, this is too early and not funny at all..

Where are NESCAC's being held this year?

trackandbacon wrote:

Where are NESCAC's being held this year?

NESCACs @ Wesleyan

Regionals @ Conn. College

Typo. My bad. I think originally I was going to do five but ended up including six. Never went back to change the number.

Why so hostile? I never meant this post to be a joke. Its just some fun speculation.

Doesn't it seem premature to do this when we still have 3 weeks of track left?

Individually, Mazaheri and Chelimo will be orders of magnitude above everyone else. Mazaheri looks stronger coming out of a breakthrough Track season, but Chelimo will be with him if he stays healthy over the summer. I could see Hussein in the mix with them, he\'s one of the best freshmen I\'ve seen.

2015 NESCAC Championships results

Williams

Midd

Colby

Amherst

Tufts

Bates

Conn

Bowdoin

Wesleyan

Hamilton

Trinity

2015 Regionals will be NESCAC results with MIT placing 3rd and pushing everybody else down one spot.

Teams to NCAAs (5)

Williams

Midd

MIT

Colby

Amherst

I'm going to assume the OP is from either Williams or Amherst. Either way, he is clearly very biased in this preseason write-up and neither team will likely contend for the NESCAC title.

Questionable claim that neither will contend for the NESCAC title. When was the last time Williams was out of contention for a league championship? Sure, they lose some guys, but they always put themselves in a spot to win.

With no real favorites or clear powerhouses heading into the season, putting Amherst and Williams as potential champs is a no brainer. I think Colby will win behind the best 1-2 punch in the nation, but it will not come easy.

Dude, under what delusion does Colby have the best 1-2 punch in the nation?

Their top 2 returners were 11th and 38th and neither of them went to NCAAs this spring.

Wisconsin Eau Claire has Josh Thorson and and Ryan Mugan, who were 3rd and 10th last year - both better Colby's top runner. Thorson just won the 5k outdoors.

St Olaf has Paul Escher and Jake Campbell (14th, and 9th in xc). Escher is now a two time National Champion and Campbell a multiple time all american with a National title in the 3k.

NCC has Sebhat and Kelleher (Sebhat finished right behind Chelimo and has performed better in track since then, Kelleher has been injured but the kid broke 30 and ran 14:14 as a sophomore).

Even in the region, there are better 1-2 punches:

MIT: Godwin and Deyo, both All Americans. Deyo just finished 4th in the 10k.

Williams: Mazaheri has just made a huge jump to run 29:39/14:21 and Hale's recent 14:42 puts him in position to be running with Eastman and challenging for a top 30 spot at nationals.

Colby will have a good 1-2 punch, yes, but by no means is it the best in the nation.

Prediction: Amherst is getting deeper, seems like they have figured something out. It will probably be close between Williams, Amherst, Colby at Nescacs. MIT's program also seems to be coming together. If they can figure out how to peak, they may be the top team in the region.

1. MIT

2. Williams

3. Amherst

4. Colby

Individuals:

1. Mazaheri

2. Chelimo

3. Hussein

4. Deyo

5. Hale

6. Nichols

7. Godwin

8. Eastman

9. Bosworth

10. Crowley

A few things:

First, how can you justify Hale at any spot higher than 9th?! This is Williams' Peter Hale since Colby's Jeff Hale just graduated. Sure, he ran well in track. But his 14:42 does not indicate that he will be ready to take down studs like Nichols, Godwin, Eastman, and O'Connor (who you failed to put Top 10 despite great XC last fall and a 9:12 steeple).

Second, you claim Amherst is getting deeper. In track, I have to agree they looked good indoors. But track has an outdoor season as well. The only Amherst runner with performances from this outdoor worth noting was Hussein. All the others (who could contribute to 2015 XC) either didn't improve on their indoor seasons or just didn't have good track seasons. While the team did exceptionally well last fall, expect Hussein to be the only one really making noise this XC season as the Jeffs fall back into their traditional November burnout.

Third, you claim MIT may be the top team if they figure it out. Let me save you some time- they will be the top NE team, and it won't even be close.

Lastly, don't sleep on Tufts. Nichols has proven his all-star potential, and O'Connor and Guarnaccia could both be low 25:00s if not under. Curley brokeout indoors. If they get a 5th, they could make some noise.

I'm making bold picks based on what I've seen. I'm not trying to give a list that nobody will disagree with. Hale is one of my wildcards. He ran two 5ks in the 14:40s 6 days apart when I didn't even know about him before. He is the second fastest returner in the 5k, which is often the best predictor of cross country success. Thats the kind of talent that I could see breaking out big time next year.

Yes, my bad in leaving O'Connor out. I do not think a 9:12, with his indoor 3k and 5k performances indicates him being any better than Peter Hale next year, but he should certainly be in the top 10 there somewhere.

Curley had one good race indoors and I've seen nothing since then. Tufts could make noise, but there are a lot of ifs. Guarnaccia still has some large strides to make before he is a sub 25 guy, and his current status matched by a ton of other guys in other teams who could make the jump after a good summer of training.

MIT has a lot of good talented guys, but they ALWAYS do, and never seem to put it together at the end of the season. They had 3 All Americans last year and still bonked as a team at nationals. In no world would I put that much confidence in their performance. A school like Williams with 2 low 31 minute guys (Williams and Decker), a 14:40s guy, the top runner in the region, and a history of performing well at the end of the season could definitely contend with them. That being said, I would put a lot of money on MIT wining purple valley...

Finally, Amherst has Hussein (10k AA, sub 14:30 indoor), Crowley (14:47) and a sub 15 freshman Nelson, who has performed better in outdoor than Curley. Add in Raymond Meijer and you have an arguably more solid top 4 than tufts. Both need a 5th though.

delusionalmule wrote:

Dude, under what delusion does Colby have the best 1-2 punch in the nation?

Their top 2 returners were 11th and 38th and neither of them went to NCAAs this spring.

Kind of hard when one of those two doesn't run track.

Guarnaccia has graduated, so he will not be factoring into Tufts scoring.

Any info on talented incoming freshman?

Amherst has a pretty good history of producing great track teams and then getting mediocre xc seasons out of out. I think it could be argued that last year was the exception not the rule.

This might as well be the New England DIII XC thread. Besides NESCAC and MIT guys is there anybody left that's relevant discussion?

For real wrote:

This might as well be the New England DIII XC thread. Besides NESCAC and MIT guys is there anybody left that's relevant discussion?

What about Brandeis?

I heard Williams is getting 4 sub 9:15 guys who barely meet the academic standards of a nescac school, as usual. none of them will contribute for 3 years though, so nothing to worry about

lolololo wrote:

For real wrote:

This might as well be the New England DIII XC thread. Besides NESCAC and MIT guys is there anybody left that's relevant discussion?

What about Brandeis?

Top regional finisher that is returning who isn't NESCAC/NEWMAC is Cattanach from ECSU. 20th at Regionals, 78th at Nationals, 1:50/4:15 indoors. This is assuming he is staying at ECSU.

Out of the top 40 finishers at regionals last year only 4 were not from those two conferences. Scheibenpflug, Cattanach, McGowan, and Sukeforth.

Brandies might have been ninth overall but their top finisher was 45th. However, none of their top 7 graduated.