The official HEPS track and field thread, 2015-2016

1. Pat Gregory ftw over Richard B. Morris in the 3k indoors.

2. Sam Berger drops out of the 10k outdoors

3. Vig will not show up to indoor heps due to "emotional distress" , but will be very visible at outdoors

4. Dan Nestor will be princeton's interim coach at indoors

5. The fleuhr twins will not sweep any event

6.Brian Masterson will win something

7. Myles Marshall will not

Ok, now that thanksgiving has passed, I could start thinking about the indoor season, but at this time, I cannot really contribute anything as I don't know much about the squads (but this thread deserves to be bumped). I am curious on how the rookie sprints/jumpers/throwers will do in their meets prior to the winter break in a few weeks.

But I do know that Erika Fluehr is at Michigan now, using up the remaining NCAA eligibility.

This weekend's action (according to schools' websites):

Brown hosts the Alden Invitational (Saturday)

Columbia, Princeton at the Metro Holiday Season Opener (Saturday)

Cornell hosts the Greg Page Relays (Friday & Saturday)

Dartmouth, Harvard at the BU Opener (Saturday)

Penn at the Lehigh Invitational (Saturday)

Yale hosts the Yale Season Opener (Saturday)

I took a look at the season schedule, and it looks like there will be a number of meets being held at the new Staten Island facility, Ocean Breeze (including the indoor HYP meet and a few Villanova-sponsored meets). I've heard the track is supposed to be fast. Anyone been to that facility yet? Columbia and Princeton are supposed to be there this weekend for the Metro Holiday Season opener.

I hope it's fast. I remember when the steeply-banked Chelsea Piers track was used for a meet: a lot of "hot" DMR squads showed up, hoping to run times that would get them into D1 Nationals--and all the times stunk. I haven't heard of a meet there since.

Interesting question: will the SI track be more of a "home" facility for Princeton or Columbia? It may actually take longer to get there from Morningside Heights than from the Trenton area...

Cornell held its annual rustbuster relay meet last weekend. Results were the usual mix of good and meh at this season opener:

http://www.leonetiming.com/2015/Indoor/GregPageRelays/

Word from East Hill is that the CU men have been working extremely hard this fall. With the loss of Stephen Mozia and Bryan Rhodes the Big Red's throwers are a little depleted but there were good results in most other events. (Rudy Winkler won the WT but was officially unattached because he's away from school on an engineering co-op job this fall. He returns to school next semester.)

Rutger Admirand sustained a terrible head injury at Penn Relays in 2013. This was his first competition since then. He ran a near-PR 500 of 63.63 on Barton Hall's flat track. (This is the last season for the current track. The new one will still be flat but should be faster.) He followed up with a fast anchor on the 4x400. Grant Sisserson won the vault by jumping 5m off a short approach. Alex Rodriguez took the LJ with 7.26. Lots of last-attempt heroics in that one with the first three places being decided by sixth jumps. Austin Jamerson had a strong first day en route to a heptathlon win.

The Cornell women had a quieter meet. Their only win on the track was the 4x800 but they did better in the field. They went 1-2 (and four of five) in the HJ and were outstanding in the throws. They took the top five spots in the shot and the first three were two frosh and a sophomore transfer. Three frosh went 1-3-6 in the WT with a winning throw of 17.07m.

I was wondering why Winkler was unattached at this meet, but good to hear he will be back for the main part of the indoor season.

Glad to see Admirand back in the results too.

In terms of who not to see in results, I spy that Julia Ratcliffe is NOT on the Princeton roster for 2015-16. I'm guessing she's taking the year off to focus on the Olympics.

In addition, Karleh Wilson is NOT on the Yale roster either, but I think it might be related to this article she wrote about racism on the team...

http://downatyale.com/post.php?id=658

C/M Runner wrote:

I was wondering why Winkler was unattached at this meet, but good to hear he will be back for the main part of the indoor season.

As I understand it, something to do with his fall engineering co-op affecting eligibility. Shouldn't be an issue come 2016.

Anywho, action starts up again this weekend.

Princeton participating in their annual scoring meets - women hosting a tri-meet with St Johns and St Joes; men at Navy.

Dartmouth has their annual Relays.

Cornell hosting Harvard at the Southern Tier today.

Yale hosting Brown at the Collegiate Invite tomorrow.

I'm not expecting many big names to be seen yet, but in the Cornell starting lists, I see that Harvard frosh Myles Marshall will be making his collegiate debut in the 500m (he's expected to be competitive in the mid-distances later this year).

C/M Runner wrote:

Anywho, action starts up again this weekend.

Cornell hosting Harvard at the Southern Tier today.

Thanks for this info. Based on the entries I would guess that Cornell is not yet back in session--or at least doesn't have its full squad ready to participate in this meet. OTOH if Harvard is still under the "traditional" academic calendar then this should be a chance to see their whole squad (or most of it, anyway)*. I note that the Crimson are top seeds in many events.

Harvard is a great "get" for this meet, though I suspect Cornell didn't have to do much selling: a good opportunity for the Cantabs to become familiar with the facility, the travel, and the lodging they'll use during Heps. This suggests they're pointing very seriously for that meet. With solid additional competition in a number of events provided by Binghamton and Buffalo, this should actually be a high-quality early-season track and field competition.

*"After further review"--I see that Harvard has almost no one entered in the throws. This is pretty atypical for them! And the Harvard men have no entries in the horizontal jumps, either. So I'd guess we're only looking at a partial squad for the Crimson, after all.

Ivyguy wrote:

*"After further review"--I see that Harvard has almost no one entered in the throws. This is pretty atypical for them! And the Harvard men have no entries in the horizontal jumps, either. So I'd guess we're only looking at a partial squad for the Crimson, after all.

It's the same for Cornell - very limited fields for them. I saw a big name or two for the women (Akpaete doing the 200-400 double), while Harvard has some of their top sprinters running. But yes, I anticipate this being more of a iHeps venue preview for the Harvard group since they don't run on flat tracks that often.

Cornell had a good scoring meet with several other NY teams. Also good representation from non-scoring D3 teams:

http://www.leonetiming.com/2016/Indoor/UpstateChallenge/

The Big Red were missing a few of the big names from their squads. They don't resume classes until next week so maybe that was why. The other teams in the meet may have been in a similar situation.

Anyway not a lot of leading marks but a really *competitive* meet that was fun to follow. Albany always comes to compete and gave the Cornell men a good fight right down to the relays. The Cornell women trailed Syracuse and Albany early on but came back to win big. Their weight throwers are looking good but so are everyone else's in the Ivy League this year. That should be a great event at Heps.

There are a lot of rookies in contention for that women's weight throw title. Julia Ratcliffe is taking the year off to focus on the Olympics, so it will be anyone's title. But three rookies as the top 3? Impressive.

Ok, we got a little more than 3 weeks to go until Indoor Heps. Any thoughts since it looks like most of the big names have competed at least once (not necessarily in their main events, but I think we may see something happen in the next two weeks for NCAA qualification attempts)?

I had some fun trying to do projected iHeps scoring with marks through this past weekend. It seemed like to me that there are a lot of flat->banked converted marks this time around (I'm guessing because iHeps will be at Cornell, more attempts are being made to get used to a flat track) so I did a scoring comparison between converted and unconverted marks. It looks like it had more of an impact on the men than the women...

Men projected scores (converted marks as seen on TFRRS)

Cornell - 191.663

Princeton - 149.33

Dartmouth - 85.333

Columbia - 47

Brown - 40.5

Harvard - 36.663

Penn - 27.5

Yale - 21

Men projected scores (unconverted marks)

Princeton - 166.33

Cornell - 159.163

Dartmouth - 91.333

Brown - 49

Harvard - 42.663

Columbia - 40

Penn - 29.5

Yale - 21

The converted marks really helped out Cornell in the projected scoring, as they went from being 42 points ahead of Princeton to behind Princeton by 7 points if you use the unconverted marks. Columbia also had a bit of a boost as well from the converted marks (they had some great showings at Dartmouth's track for the Col-Y-D tri-meet).

Women projected scores (converted marks as seen on TFRRS)

Harvard - 150

Cornell - 116.166

Princeton - 107.333

Dartmouth - 86.5

Brown - 41.5

Yale - 41.5

Penn - 38

Columbia - 32

Women projected scores (unconverted marks)

Harvard - 157

Princeton - 107.333

Cornell - 105.166

Dartmouth - 79.5

Brown - 46.5

Penn - 42

Yale - 39.5

Columbia - 36

The converted vs unconverted marks don't have as great as an impact for the women as it did for the men. Harvard is the favorite for now, while it looks like there will be a great battle for second/third between Princeton and Cornell (and in my opinion, I think Princeton will edge out Cornell because of their depth, especially in the distance events) (and as a second aside, I think Harvard once again gave away the HYP women win for the second year in a row in the name of resting up for iHeps - shame).

Of course, all of these scores will be turned upside down once we get more real distance results out there - the top names from the XC season haven't done much so far and we have limited data for the distance relays and multievents.

Any thoughts?

Important to note that schools' home tracks heavily influence whether or not they have many converted marks at this point in the season. Cornell's men's bump down in the scoring reflects largely the fact that the team has not traveled much yet this season-- their men have raced at home every weekend except one mid-January Penn State meet (the women traveled to BU for Terrier but the men did not). They haven't had much time to show what they can do on banked tracks yet.

Conversely, I've always thought Harvard's banked track runs closer to Barton than it does to BU, but they don't get a conversion out of it. So it's even safer to say that Harvard will remain the heavy favorite on the women's side.

It's also interesting to note that the past few years when Princeton has beaten Cornell at Heps despite projections to the contrary, it has been on the shoulders of distance guys coming through and beating their ranks in championship-style racing. Princeton's XC team struggled mightily, however, this year, so perhaps they may not be as reliable for a scoring bump as they have been in the past.

chaserofsteeples wrote:

Important to note that schools' home tracks heavily influence whether or not they have many converted marks at this point in the season. Cornell's men's bump down in the scoring reflects largely the fact that the team has not traveled much yet this season-- their men have raced at home every weekend except one mid-January Penn State meet (the women traveled to BU for Terrier but the men did not). They haven't had much time to show what they can do on banked tracks yet.

Well, why should Cornell travel? They're hosting iHeps this year so get the most use out of their home facility so they are the most comfortable with it. Harvard traveled out to Cornell in January, likely to get the chance to run on the iHeps track or deal with a flat track (Cornell did something similar the year before when Harvard was hosting and Cornell came out for the Battle in Beantown).

Cornell have sent some individual people to other places for better competition (Jamerson in the multi, Gowan in the 800m) but I don't know if they are Cornell's only opportunities for getting NCAA qualifiers. I would think Rainero would have a chance in the 5km but I don't know when he'll get in another fast 5km before the end of February (I don't think his 14:04 will hold up)

This weekend Cornell heads to PSU. Next weekend they go to Staten Island to the new Ocean Breeze Facility (maybe this will be their main NCAA qualifying opportunity) and then host two more home meets before iHeps. And then they will likely send a big squad to IC4As/ECACs in Boston.

As for the projections vs reality - the distance events always seem to throw off the projections because all of the big names don't compete in the 3km or 5km until iHeps. They are usually entered into the heat sheets as "NTs". Maybe this will help out Penn and Columbia more this indoor season than Princeton or Cornell based on the results of this past XC season.

Sure.

Based on marks up to this point, I see the Princeton men as clear, though narrow, favorites. I won't take the time to do it, but I think it'd be interesting to see the projections minus any December marks. For one example, that would delete the 500m leader, Cornell's Admirand (he ran a 1:58 800 in mid-January, and TFRRS doesn't show another 2016 mark from him).

For the women, I don't see Princeton as just ahead of Cornell, but actually giving Harvard a tussle. If nothing else, fielding *six* DMRs at 11:50 or better, in the same race, really does bespeak the Tigers' depth that you mentioned. But PU also has good representation in the jumps and weight, and if Harvard had some disappointments in the short sprints and hurdles, the Tigers could be right there. (The Cornell women could fare better outdoors, where their great crew of throwers will have more impact.)

In any case, I think that the banked/flat-track conversions are mostly bogus and that unconverted marks are a better guide to reality. Thanks for putting those unconverted projections together!

The next couple of weeks, as you suggest, could shake things up considerably. I expect a surge from Penn (both sexes), and I think that both Dartmouth squads deserve recognition for having shown considerable quality and competitiveness so far (and they bring many people back next year).

Quite a night last night:

- two new conference records were set: w-60 (7.38 by Harvard rookie Thomas) and w-PV (13-09.5 by Princeton junior Harris)

- three other top-10 performances: m-WT (74-10.5 by Cornell Winkler), w-pent (4.050 by Princeton's Morgan), w-PV (12-11.5 by Harvard's Sabatino)

Umm...if I read the recordbook correctly, Winkler's throw beat his own school record by two meters plus--way to go, Rudy!

GO BIG RED!

Sykes/Sabock results:

http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/c-track/stats/2015-2016/ssccresults.html

Team scores:

Female Team Scores

Place School Points

======================================

1 Penn State PSU 211

2 Cornell CORN 122

3 Princeton PRIN 110

4 James Madison JMU 60

4 Liberty LIB 60

6 Binghamton BING 40

7 William and Mary WAM 30

8 Umbc UMBC 21

Male Team Scores

Place School Points

======================================

1 Penn State PSU 178

2 Connecticut UCT 151

3 Cornell CORN 97

4 Liberty LIB 82

5 William and Mary WAM 62

6 Binghamton BING 50

7 Umbc UMBC 27

Both Ivy programs (Cornell M&W and Princeton W) had multiple people not competing.

Quoting the Cornell folks: "History on Staten Island tonight! First sub-4:00 mile Cornell school history as James Gowans '17 ran 3:58.24!!!!!"

WOW! I guess that maybe answers the question I was actually going to ask on this board: "Do people think the SI facility is fast, or just average?"

GO BIG RED!