MIAC CC 2016

Coffey

Bugler

Gerhartz

Newsum

Timm

Bird

DCG

All 5 Gustavus scorers holding hands

A Frosh from St. Olaf

Oles win, meh.

Guys you already know this, but the Gusties return their top 6 and were 13 points out of 2nd place last year. They'll be a lock for second place if nothing goes wrong.

Hamline's in an uncertain spot, as are Saint Mary's and Macalaster. I'm not saying these teams are all alike, but someone or several people are going to have to step it up if these teams don't want to scoot closer to the bottom. I don't think Augsburg is going to catch anyone and I KNOW that Concordia won't, but still it will be interesting to see who sinks and who floats.

Carleton's lucky if they get third. Barry and DCG need to come back strong.

St. Thomas has a lot of potential to get top three, I'd say more likely than Carleton.

Bethel is young, should do well though even with Berens gone. I'd say 6th again.

St. John's will be in that scramble for third as well.

Then again, freshman, study abroad kids, stress fractures and a freak ACL tear at summer ultimate frisbee will probably throw all my predictions out the window.

DCG abroad for the fall semester.

AND THERE YOU GO

newsflash wrote:

DCG abroad for the fall semester.

Barry, Gerhartz, and Nordquist were all seniors this year. None of them are coming back next fall.

I didn't know that anyone besides Mac students studied abroad.

How can so many athletes be marked wrong at the college level (at the MIAC Championships of all places)? That information is kind of important now.

Gerhartz was an XC junior because he didn't race his freshman year. So no incorrect info there..

Why didn't Bird (UST) run track this year?

How fast is Carleton's course? How does it compare to places like Central College, Saint Olaf and Eau Claire?

It's fun to see the progressing of Coffey and Bugler throughout their college cross country career. Honestly. Just look at their placing at the conference meet the past three years.

Joe Coffee:

Freshman Year: 139 Joe Coffey, Fr 28:56.4 St. Olaf

Sophomore Year: 130 Joe Coffey, So 28:38.5 St. Olaf

Junior Year: 10 Joe Coffey JR 26:34.3 St. Olaf

Ryan Bugler

Freshman Year: 144 Ryan Bugler, Fr 29:02.0 Saint John's

Sophomore Year: 35 Ryan Bugler, So 26:47.7 Saint John's

Junior Year: 11 Ryan Bugler JR 26:37.6 Saint John's

Both of their progressions from freshman year, now going in to senior year have been, in my opinion, the true embodiment of D3 runners. Going from average high school runners, to All-Americans. Fantastic. Hope they can stay healthy keep it going in to their final seasons for their respected programs.

St Olaf

St John's

St Thomas

Gustavus

St Mary's

Bethel

Carleton

Hamline

Macalaster

Augsburg

Concordia-Morehead

St Olaf is obvious.

I think St John's will beat out St Thomas because of their experience--St Thomas is young and most of their scorers will have only run the MIAC course last year, a rainy, sloppy mess of a meet. Gustavus loses Nordquist, that's a bummer, but still is a lot stronger than the remaining teams.

St Mary's vs Bethel is a toss-up. If this track season hints at the future Newsum is possibly top 5. They also have a 9:43 steeple/4:05 1500 guy, and a 1:56 800 guy. Bethel has a 1:55 800 guy, a 4:03 1500 guy, and a 15:48/33:39 guy. Their sophomores and juniors ran 28s and 29s last year at conference, and no returners ran under 27:20. Albeit St Mary's only has one, but I think, and you can disagree, that Saint Mary's returners had much better outdoor track seasons than Bethel's. Combine that with the fact that Bethel loses Matt Berens, and I think Saint Mary's has a realistic shot, losing only their #3 runner. But they need need NEED a 5th runner, who will probably be a freshman. If none of their freshmen pan out, their #5 guy is a 33:11 8k from last year. It looks like they only have 5 returners from MIAC last year, so a VERY fragile team.

Hamline and Carleton behind St Mary's and Bethel might be surprising, but look at who they lose.

Hamline loses their #1 guy. They have a 15:33 5k guy, their #2 didn't even run outdoors, and only 3 returners qualified for outdoor. 2 didn't make finals. James Logan was the only true distance scorer for Hamline. Unless Isaac Krause decides to run CC, they better hope for some fast freshman and improved returners.

Carleton is "deep" in that they have solid stable of "good" runners. However they lose Hornor, Barry, AND Cook if he really is abroad net fall. The remaining team is still "good"--They return 15:33, 16:03, 16:04, 16:46,16:49, and 16:50 guys from outdoor, as well as their #4 CC runner from last year (unless he graduated) Walter Edstrom. Decent, but unless one of these guys can become a front runner in cross, they are in trouble. I have them losing to Hamline because if you take last year's MIAC teams and take away the returners, Hamline wins.

Macalaster is going to be "meh" this year, losing their #2 and #4 from a team that finished 9th place a year ago. Returning a 2:00 800, 4:06 1500, and a 15:57 5k from outdoor.

That's my two cents, and I have to agree that some fast freshman will probably throw off these predictions. Looking back I'm a little bit negative on Carleton (they still have a good team), and a little bit nice to St Mary's (one guy goes down and they might be DNF as a team). Overall, Hamline, St Mary's, Carleton, and Bethel are a jumbled mess, as we are months away from finding out freshmen and more months away from seeing how everyone is running, but I think I got the top 4 and last 3 right. For the middle pack, it will come down to recruiting, health, and improvement over the summer months.

Any exciting incoming freshmen for any schools? State Champs? Fat kids? Foreigners? Goth kids? Soccer players? 24 year olds?

You're list sucks

Oles

Tommies

Gusties

Jonnies

Beth

Carly

Hamdogs (pipers?)

Cardinals--that's SMU I didn't know that until today

The Vegans

Auggies

Concordia Morehead, who, just going to say it, I honestly like their uniforms.

Gustavus's only good showing last year was at River Falls the very first meet and they cut every single corner there was. What'd they do after that? Hop off bruh.

Well they only graduate one guy and they're 6th and 7th runners were up there so...

1. St Olaf- easy pick

2. St. John's- experience and always show up. Bugler will be tough

3. Gustavus- only graduated one guy in the top 7

4. St Thomas- agree with the previous poster about them being young but they definitely have the talent.

-big drop off

5. Bethel- huge freshmen class last year rumor has it this years will be similiar.

6. Carleton- losing a lot but still a large number of solid runners and someone will step up.

7. St Mary's if they can get atleast one decent freshie

8. Hamline- unremarkable without Peterson

9. Concordia- I guess they still compete in the miac ?

10. Mac- theyll be around I guess

11. Augsburg- lol

I'll throw down some individual predictions too. Meet is going to be a lot more wide open at the top than it has been in the past with 8 of the top 10 graduating.

1. Joe Coffey St Olaf - benefit of the doubt because of the program's history. Has the track credentials but we'll see.

2. Ryan bugler St. John's- surprised me every week with how much he improved last track season. Huge race at nationals Potentially for the w as well.

3. "Slob" Knobbe gustavus- consistently has shown up in cross. Has shown some speed on the track as well

4. Jovan Newsum St Mary's-big track season last year

5. Ephraim bird St Thomas- young gun from St Thomas. Definitely has the talent to be up there.

6. Evan jones gustavus- missed the track season last year but had a big miac meet during cross and placed 9th.

7 and 8. Keith Ketola and Paul Timm St Olaf- should be 2/3 for St Olaf could be in either order.

9. Lachlan hinwood macalaster- had a solid miac meet last year. Should be the glimmering hope on an otherwise mediocre team.

10. Carston Damman gustavus- 21st last year at miac but had a pretty solid track season scoring in the mile and steeple.

11/12. Bjork/eggers St Olaf- toss up they have been pretty close in cross. Probably more of speed guys but can have strong performances.

13. Abdullahi salan Augsburg- only strong performer from Augsburg. Could place higher but very inconsistent.

14. Walter edstrom Carleton- guessing he'll be the guy to step up for Carleton.

15. Evan hatton bethel- very good track season expect to see some improvement from his 33rd place last season. More of a speed guy but should still perform fairly strongly on the cross course.

This 5th-8th positioning is different for every predictor so far.

Carleton: Edstrom, Dodge, Nakajima, Irvine, and Hoffert, with their 6th and 7th right behind.

Bethel: Hatton, Haugen, Rasmussen, Svennes, and Nelson

Saint Mary's: Newsum, O'Hare, Krogman, Moga, and a decent freshman

Hamline: Logan, Jewson, Duchenes, Paladi, Merhof

If you rank these guys' cross seasons last year, I'd go

Bethel

Carleton

Saint Mary's

Hamline

If you rank their outdoor track seasons, I'd go

1.Saint Mary's- Newsum, O'Hare, and Krogman scored

2.Bethel- Hatton scored

3.Carelton- Dodge scored

4.Hamline-Logan scored

Looking at just the track scorers now. Also you have to get into 800 vs 5k vs XC and the obvious difference race distance makes. Hatton and Krogman scored in the 800, Hatton scored 23 spots ahead of Krogman. O'Hare scored in the steeplechase. Newsum, Logan, and Dodge scored in the 5,000 Newsum scored 9 places ahead of Logan who scored 11 ahead of Dodge last season. O'Hare scored 2 places behind Dodge.

The steeplechase and 5km times are significantly more telling towards cross country ability than the 800 times though.

I think this will be a close race between all four teams unless Bethel has a stacked DISTANCE class (not middle distance) like the above post claims.

If you google Mercier Score Calculator, you can see how the 800, steeple, 5k times stack up against each other and pretty much every other event. It won't help much as different runners have different ranges and aren't actually equally good at different events. Still interesting to look at though for who had better track seasons (according to that specific criteria).

That's my unhelpful garbage for this premature baby of a MIAC thread.

Big fan of Hawaiian shirts wrote:

Well they only graduate one guy and they're 6th and 7th runners were up there so...

Lets see how they do on a double lined course before we assume quantity equates to quality.

I don't know how you are seeing River Falls as their best performance. They considerably better at La Crosse and were sixth (2nd MIAC team) at regions. If you did in fact run at regions or la crosse, then you know both courses had double lines.