PAC 12 - #4 Oregon women destroy #1 Colorado and #6 Stanford - #4 Stanford men handle #7 UW, #8 Colorado and #11 Oregon

Many (most? all?) of the competitors had black ribbons pinned to their singlet in a show of support to the Utah team who lost Lauren McCluskey this past week.

On a lighter note - Centro was in attendance wearing UW gear!

It will be interesting to see how the Oregon women progress through the postseason. Helen has a knack for racing athletes really hard even when it is not absolutely necessary.

Sometimes hard nosed wins, and sometimes finesse wins. Will be fun to watch.

rojo wrote:

TLDR Results wrote:

Team scores?

Hot take?

Men’s results?

I put leading results up in the first post.

My quick take is "the program is bigger than the coach." The Oregon women were Very Good.

On the men's side, unless STanford was holding someone out (where is Ratcliffe?), how can we expect them to challenge BYU or NAU at NCAAs?

Full results here:

http://www.rtspt.com/events/pac12/xc2018/

You forgot Fahy. with either of those guys in their top form, or even fairly close, this is a great-looking team now.

They still might not be quite good enough to challenge NAU/BYU, but they'd be closer than anyone else in the country.

But I don't think either one has been seen since an early-season pack run at SF, so unless they're both just being held out till Regionals, you gotta figure they're either hurt or just haven't been able to get fit enough.

If either, or both, pop up at Regionals and are close to their previous form, though, this team will be a solid favorite for third, and maybe even have an outside shot at better.

joedirt wrote:

Most of the times when programs are relying heavily on foreigners, they throw out the excuse it is because US athletes don't want to run there (UTEP, UNM, Alabama, Arkansas, etc.) or as she argued at NCAA's last year that San Francisco was a real multi-national location and the composition of the athletes was merely a reflection of the existing culture. What is the excuse in Oregon? US athletes typically want to run there, and it's not like Oregon is this melting pot of cultures. What I'd like to see is honesty if she is interviewed at Nationals: "Yeah, the American athletes were too entitled so we told them to go someplace else and we decided it was in the best interest of the program to develop Olympic athletes for other countries."

Um, the Americans went to UW and the USF foreigners went to UO. The excuse is that there was a major reshuffling this year with the coaching change.

What would be more interesting is that since Winters has relied heavily on foreigners at USF when she was at a recruiting disadvantage will she continue that strategy when she has a recruiting advantage?

ItsNotMeItsYou wrote:

ASU got a new coach, who is faced with basically starting from scratch, so not much was expected from them. It appears he's hitting on some good recruits, so we'll see how the Devils improve over the next 2-3 years.

Right now, though, if you took all of the colleges in Arizona and had a XC meet, ASU would be fifth behind NAU, Arizona, Grand Canyon and Central Arizona.

If the idea of transfers is to get better immediately, then ASU fails spectacularly in this respect. All 3 of the transfers had pretty dang good resumes and a Kenyan to boot. You hate to see that

Jefe in the CO wrote:

Um, the Americans went to UW and the USF foreigners went to UO. The excuse is that there was a major reshuffling this year with the coaching change.

What would be more interesting is that since Winters has relied heavily on foreigners at USF when she was at a recruiting disadvantage will she continue that strategy when she has a recruiting advantage?

Burdon is a Kiwi and jumped with Rainsberger

Kangaroo reference. Hardy Har

How did the results compare with last years?

Washington vs Oregon specifically since there were some major coaching/culture changes?

lagsun wrote:

Foreign athletes don't bother me but interesting Oregon seems to get a pass while other programs are called out. Here are the countries of their top 7 women today:

Australia

Poland

Kenya

Spain

Sweden

UK

California

When did California separate from the USA?

lagsun wrote:

Foreign athletes don't bother me but interesting Oregon seems to get a pass while other programs are called out. Here are the countries of their top 7 women today:

Australia

Poland

Kenya

Spain

Sweden

UK

California

Isn't that primarily due to their new coach, doing the same thing with many of the same athletes from the University of San Francisco? Oregon in recent years was recruiting more foreign athletes, though. That was not supposed to be and did not need to be the game at Oregon because they recruit so well. That should be for schools like UNM that don't think they can recruit great American runners.

Hot_Take wrote:

On the men’s side based on number 5 runner finish

Washington- 20

Stanford- 23

Oregon- 30

Colorado-41

This could be the upset maker at natty’s. Those high popsicle sticks hurt in the deep races.

Well, Colorado isn’t in the west region so they’ll have a cake walk.

Coach Pink wrote:

Kangaroo reference. Hardy Har

A kiwi is a NZ bird.

And a fruit high vitamin C

Is Matthew Maton done running? I think he's still at Oregon, but he hasn't competed for them in ages.

Anyone know what's up with Brie Oakley? Injured?

hayward102 wrote:

Is Matthew Maton done running? I think he's still at Oregon, but he hasn't competed for them in ages.

not on team anymore

dont know why but hes done running for Oregon

When was the last time Washington men finished 2nd?

eye of the tiga wrote:

OREGON IS JACKED wrote:

Under 30 points!!

That's over 30 points, but I know academics aren't a focal point at Oregon.

It's acaxemics.

hrryj wrote:

hayward102 wrote:

Is Matthew Maton done running? I think he's still at Oregon, but he hasn't competed for them in ages.

not on team anymore

dont know why but hes done running for Oregon

That’s a bummer, sad to see Maton’s and Slagowski’s college careers be busts.

rare wrote:

hrryj wrote:

not on team anymore

dont know why but hes done running for Oregon

That’s a bummer, sad to see Maton’s and Slagowski’s college careers be busts.

On the other hand, Talon Hull is running amazing! He was very good in high school but he was no sub-4 guy or anything. I'm surprised nobody had mentioned his second place finish next to #1 ranked Grant Fisher. By only .4 seconds! Interested to see what he'll do at NCAA's.