Official 2015 Heps XC thread

From what I recall of the scheduling, HepsXC at VCP has historically been held on a Friday. I think the park is in high demand and that is possibly the only time available.

All of the regional races need to be on the same day and near same time (to account for time zones). So I guess Friday was the only option that worked.

It just stinks that so many of the XC races are now on a Friday so that the athletes have to keep missing at least 1 day of classes in order to participate.

Which Heps teams are racing this weekend? Seems like most if not all should be toeing the line on either Saturday or Sunday.

Not quite sure whether "this" weekend means the one we're in, or the one upcoming!

Anyway, the Cornell women had a quiet "local" (Rochester, actually) meet on 9/19, against mostly D3 competition, and romped as you'd expect:

http://results.yentiming.com/2015/xc/9-19-2015-Yellowjacket/womens-results.html

The Big Red women won't race again until the first weekend in October (Paul Short).

The Cornell men will be at the Battle in Beantown this coming Friday (9/25), I believe. They did not compete on 9/18 or 9/19.

Note: For whatever reasons, the Ivies very rarely race on Sundays. Personally, I'd think that Sundays would be better than Fridays (fewer days of class missed), but evidently very few meet organizers agree. Maybe it's an NCAA thing?

Who dat 2k19 wrote:

Which Heps teams are racing this weekend? Seems like most if not all should be toeing the line on either Saturday or Sunday.

We have a weekend xc preivew up here:

Half of the Ivy men's teams will be in Boston - Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell and Harvard? Was Cornell's 15-50 trouncing of Columbia a few weeks ago legit or was Columbia simply taking it easy as teams often do in the first meet?

I know the Cornell women are taking the weekend off, or so a Cornell alumna has told me previously.

I also had this from school schedules:

Cornell (men B squad likely?) at the Harry F. Anderson Invitational (Rochester, NY)

Yale at the Virginia Panorama Farms Invitational (Charlottesville, VA)

Penn, Princeton have the weekend off as they both raced last weekend.

LetsRun.com wrote:

Was Cornell's 15-50 trouncing of Columbia a few weeks ago legit or was Columbia simply taking it easy as teams often do in the first meet?

As best I recall, the Cornell guys were running just to win (except their #1 was out there a little bit), and the Columbia guys were running just to run. You could have thrown a blanket over the Lions' first six guys (for the record, Heps 3k champ Tait Rutherford was their #6), and they had another three finish in the next few seconds before the Big Red's #6 came in.

So I think it'd be safe to say that neither group was all-out, especially not Columbia. Credit to Cornell--it *was* a race, and the objective is to win, which they did--but I don't think we saw the real potential of either squad. Plus I believe either team did have a few men who were hors de combat, for whatever reason(s).

As you say, it was just their first meet.

for the record, that 3k win was a major stroke of luck

is that the guy who won from the slow heat when the fast heat sandbagged the race?

The Sand Bagger wrote:

is that the guy who won from the slow heat when the fast heat sandbagged the race?

Yes. But a win is still a win, regardless of which heat it was from. He'll be in the recordbooks as the Heps champ.

In his defense, his times have improved in the longer distances during this past indoor and outdoor seasons and has continued to score at the various Heps. Is he a strong XC title contender? I don't think so, but he could make one of the all-Ivy squads.

Battle in Beantown was today.

In a bit of a surprise for me, Harvard women was the top Ivy squad (7th place) as Harvard's #1, Courtney Smith, was the top Ivy finisher over Dartmouth's Dana Giordano by over 12 seconds. Brown's Natalie Schrudowitz made it 3 Ivy women in the top 10. Dartmouth was one of four nationally ranked teams in the field, so I wonder how their ranking will be after this week as the Big Green team finished 8th in the team standings.

1 Melian, Christina JR-3 Stony Brook 16:50.0 1

2 Malone, Margo SR-4 Syracuse 16:51.0 2

3 Rocha, Catarina JR-3 Providence 16:53.9 3

4 Collins, Sarah JR-3 Providence 16:55.6 4

5 Smith, Courtney SO-2 Harvard 16:58.1 5

6 Giordano, Dana SR-4 Dartmouth 17:10.9 6

7 Mullins, Lauren JR-3 Providence 17:11.3 7

8 Nadel, Samantha SR-4 Georgetown 17:11.3 8

9 Peel, Georgia SR-4 Florida State 17:15.1 9

10 Schudrowitz, Natalie SO-2 Brown 17:15.9 10

Rank Team Total Pts. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Providence 1:25:45 42 3 4 7 12 16 21 51

2 Syracuse 1:27:31 127 2 13 28 32 52 67 80

3 Georgetown 1:27:50 134 8 22 26 33 45 53 117

4 Purdue 1:28:06 141 18 23 24 37 39 59 79

5 Lipscomb 1:28:16 151 20 29 30 31 41 49 62

6 Florida State 1:27:58 154 9 11 14 50 70 104 115

7 Harvard 1:28:04 164 5 19 34 38 68 73 81

8 Dartmouth 1:28:35 181 6 35 36 47 57 61 63

9 Brown 1:29:06 225 10 40 42 48 85 88 95

In the men's race, Cornell's Ben Rainero was the top Ivy with a 5th place finish, and from what I've seen in pictures, he was running near the front with the Syracuse and Purdue front runners. He's really having a good start to the season. Curtis King also finished in the top 10 (8th overall), helping Dartmouth to a 2nd place team finish. The only national ranked teams in the men's field were #3 Syracuse and #26 Florida State.

Place Name Year Team Time Score

1 Knight, Justyn SO-2 Syracuse 23:51.0 1

2 McClintock, Matt SR-4 Purdue 23:52.6 2

3 Hehir, Martin SR-4 Syracuse 23:54.2 3

4 Bennie, Colin SO-2 Syracuse 23:54.8 4

5 Rainero, Ben SR-4 Cornell 24:04.0 5

6 Hubbard, Joel JR-3 Syracuse 24:10.9 6

7 Goodwin, Jack SR-4 Florida State 24:11.3 7

8 King, Curtis SR-4 Dartmouth 24:11.5 8

9 Schienbein, Tate SR-4 Purdue 24:13.5 9

10 Lennon, Dan SR-4 Syracuse 24:16.7 10

Rank Team Total Pts. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Syracuse 2:00:07 24 1 3 4 6 10 16 17

2 Dartmouth 2:01:42 67 8 12 14 15 18 22 32

3 Purdue 2:01:41 82 2 9 19 24 28 46 53

4 Cornell 2:01:59 93 5 11 20 26 31 60 64

5 Georgia 2:03:12 154 13 25 33 40 43 49 63

6 Harvard 2:03:33 172 21 27 38 42 44 45 74

7 Florida State 2:03:46 187 7 34 41 51 54 62 83

8 Brown 2:05:38 288 30 50 55 68 85 92 97

Link to Beantown results:

https://xc.tfrrs.org/results/xc/8804.html

Worth noting that Dartmouth had five men in before Cornell's third--also, Syracuse beat the rest of the field combined.

Harvard women's performance not a real shocker, as one or two NY coaches had been saying to watch out for the Cantabs this year. Still, shaping up as a really interesting season!

kibitzer wrote:

Link to Beantown results:

https://xc.tfrrs.org/results/xc/8804.html

Worth noting that Dartmouth had five men in before Cornell's third--also, Syracuse beat the rest of the field combined.

Harvard women's performance not a real shocker, as one or two NY coaches had been saying to watch out for the Cantabs this year. Still, shaping up as a really interesting season!

I guess I'm surprised on the level of improvement for Smith. Last year, she didn't even score at HepsXC for the team. Now, she's besting some of the individual title contenders for HepsXC. I hope she can maintain it for the season as it will make it an exciting Heps in October.

kibitzer wrote:

Link to Beantown results:

https://xc.tfrrs.org/results/xc/8804.html

Worth noting that Dartmouth had five men in before Cornell's third--also, Syracuse beat the rest of the field combined.

Harvard women's performance not a real shocker, as one or two NY coaches had been saying to watch out for the Cantabs this year. Still, shaping up as a really interesting season!

The Big Green did indeed take down the Big Red but it should be pointed out that one of the Big Red's top 5 from the first meet didn't run.

Zach Israel ran the 'B' meet in Rochetser and won it going away. Apparently he had some school function that prevented him from going to Boston. Can you imagine that happening in any other conference?

Rochester results here:

Stray observations from Beantown:

- Rainero (Cornell) led for the first 5k, at one point gapping the Syracuse men by about 20-30 meters. They reeled him in fairly easily but his hanging with them for so long is a good sign that he may be a dark horse for the individual win at Heps

- HYP champion Tom Purnell (Harvard) was 27th overall, 11th Ivy finisher, and 2nd Harvard finisher. Probably an off day, but an early indicator that the squads that faced off at Beantown (Dartmouth and Harvard) should be at least evenly matched with Yale and Princeton without them actually racing head-to-head.

- Dartmouth had a 15-second spread from 1 to 5. Cornell's was 33 seconds. They only bested the Big Red by 3 seconds on average, but places win races in XC.

- Harvard sophomore Courtney Smith's (16:46/34:53) main accomplishment before this weekend was a 3rd-place finish in the Heps 10k last year. Saturday, she beat Dartmouth's Giordano (9:07/15:53), Brown's Natalie Schudrowitz (10:02 SC), and teammate Paige Kouba (4:43 mile). Speaking of dark horse picks... keep an eye out for her.

If you were feeling generous and put Zack Israel right up with Cornell's #3 or #4 they would still have lost handily to Dartmouth. You would need to put him as high as 5th or 6th place to give Cornell a 71-72 win over Dartmouth.

Overall this result is promising for the Big Green, who are still going without 4:01 mile/8:11 3k stud Tim Gorman, who has also finished 14th and 10th in the last two renditions of Heps XC.

It is still early, but Princeton looked slightly off their game at HYP. They need Sam Berger and one of their young guys to round out that top 5 or else they will come into Heps as underdogs for the first time in a several years. Also, for the first time in any of the current runners' careers they will not have home-course advantage and will be tested by some serious hills.

good race by dartmouth, great team running and tight spread 1-5. Can't read much into princeton's race at HYP as it was the season opener, nor columbia's at VCP, but dartmouth could definitely be seen as the favorite right now.

I'm a big Dartmouth fan but don't want to get too excited about the team yet. I had high hopes for last year's team early in the season, but was frankly a bit disappointed later in the season. Hopefully this year's squad learned from that experience and the focus is really on performing at a high level at HEPS and regionals.

FYI Mary: the college in Upstate NY is Roberts Wesleyan.

The key must have been sticky on my keyboard. ;-) Thanks.

Any idea on when Awad will debut? Penn has Paul Short AND Notre Dame this weekend, and then the Princeton Invite on 10/17 according to their schedule. The next race after that is Heps.