2018 Wisconsin Invite: NAU Men Send Message, Colorado Women Surprise, Wisconsin’s Morgan McDonald & Alicia Monson Sweep Individual Titles
By Jonathan Gault
September 28, 2018
It was a tale of two races at the 2018 Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational. While the men’s race featured predictability and dominance, with wins by Wisconsin’s Morgan McDonald (23:17.3) and the Northern Arizona men (46 points), the women’s race saw a pair of big-time upsets as Wisconsin’s Alicia Monson (19:33.3) made it an individual sweep for the Badgers while No. 2 Colorado stunned the defending champion No. 1 New Mexico women, scoring 80 points (Boise State was second with 91 as New Mexico finished third with 130).
The two-time defending NCAA champion Northern Arizona men were undoubtedly the story of the day, winning their third straight title in commanding fashion. Running against a field that contained 18 of the top 30 teams in the country according to the most recent USTFCCCA poll (including seven of the top 10), the Lumberjacks put four men in the top eight en route to scoring 46 points — lower than the total NAU put up in both 2016 (78) and 2017 (50). And NAU accomplished all of this while holding out last year’s NCAA runner-up Matt Baxter. Yes that’s right, they held out their #1 man from last year and TOTALLY dominated.
Wisconsin is another program that will walk away from today’s meet feeling very good about themselves. McDonald, the Australian 5,000-meter champion with a 13:15 5000 pb, redshirted XC last year to give himself a shot at winning the individual on his home course in 2018. Today’s effort, in which he broke free of the field heading up the hill during the final kilometer and won in 23:17.3 — the fastest time on this course since 2013 — showed that McDonald is absolutely a threat to win it all at NCAAs which will be held on the same course seven weeks from tomorrow.
McDonald and NCAA 1500 champion Oliver Hoare (15th) led the No. 9 Wisconsin men to a surprising runner-up finish, but that was not the only thing the Badgers had to celebrate as earlier in the women’s race Monson broke away from New Mexico’s Weini Kelati rounding the final turn to pull off a shocker. Monson was only 139th at NCAAs last year but broke out with a 15:38 pb on the track in the spring and has only grown stronger since.
In the women’s team race, #2 Colorado, #5 Boise State, and #1 New Mexico all ran well up front as each school had three women in the top 13, but the Buffaloes’ superior depth won out as their #4 and #5 scorers, Tabor Scholl and Tayler Tuttle, finished in 19th and 38th, compared to 26th and 41st for Boise State and 35th and 83rd for New Mexico. 2017 NCAA 3k champion Dani Jones led Colorado by finishing fourth overall.
Results and analysis below.
Men’s top 50 individuals * Full results
Place TmPl Bib Name Yr Team 2k 4k 6k Time Pace ===== ==== ===== ===================== == ================== ======= ======= ======= ========= ===== 1 1 815 Morgan McDonald SR Wisconsin 5:53 11:53 17:37 23:17.6 4:42 2 2 568 Edwin Kurgat JR Iowa State 5:54 11:54 17:38 23:18.5 4:42 3 3 620 Tyler Day SR Northern Arizona 5:53 11:53 17:37 23:21.3 4:42 4 4 519 James Sugira FR Eastern Kentucky 5:53 11:53 17:37 23:22.3 4:43 5 5 625 Luis Grijalva SO Northern Arizona 5:53 11:54 17:37 23:23.8 4:43 6 6 664 Nick Hauger SR Portland 5:54 11:54 17:38 23:24.4 4:43 7 7 627 Peter Lomong SR Northern Arizona 5:53 11:53 17:37 23:26.8 4:43 8 8 622 Blaise Ferro SO Northern Arizona 5:54 11:56 17:38 23:29.0 4:44 9 9 499 Cole Rockhold SR Colorado St. 5:54 11:55 17:39 23:29.6 4:44 10 10 423 Alfred Chelanga SR Alabama 5:55 11:54 17:38 23:33.8 4:45 11 11 480 John Dressel JR Colorado 5:55 11:55 17:41 23:35.1 4:45 12 12 426 Gilbert Kigen SR Alabama 5:53 11:54 17:40 23:35.1 4:45 13 13 633 Ashenafi Hatte JR Oklahoma State 5:54 11:55 17:41 23:36.3 4:45 14 14 441 Yusuke Uchikoshi SR Boise State 5:56 11:56 17:40 23:37.0 4:46 15 15 813 Oliver Hoare JR Wisconsin 5:53 11:54 17:37 23:37.9 4:46 16 16 699 Jaret Carpenter JR Purdue 5:57 11:55 17:41 23:38.5 4:46 17 17 675 Caleb Webb JR Portland 5:53 11:54 17:41 23:39.3 4:46 18 18 484 Eduardo Herrera SO Colorado 5:55 11:55 17:42 23:39.9 4:46 19 19 811 Olin Hacker JR Wisconsin 5:57 11:55 17:42 23:40.2 4:46 20 20 411 Mickey Davey SR Air Force 5:53 11:53 17:41 23:40.7 4:46 21 21 726 Christian Ricketts SO Southern Utah 5:58 11:58 17:42 23:42.2 4:47 22 22 494 Eric Hamer SR Colorado St. 5:54 11:54 17:40 23:42.9 4:47 23 23 569 Festus Lagat SR Iowa State 5:54 11:55 17:41 23:44.5 4:47 24 24 549 Kyle Mau JR Indiana 5:56 11:58 17:46 23:45.9 4:47 25 25 619 Geordie Beamish JR Northern Arizona 5:54 11:54 17:41 23:47.1 4:48 26 26 436 Miler Haller JR Boise State 5:56 11:55 17:43 23:48.5 4:48 27 27 725 Aidan Reed JR Southern Utah 5:56 11:54 17:42 23:49.1 4:48 28 28 804 Chandler Teigen SR Washington St. 5:53 11:55 17:49 23:49.9 4:48 29 29 560 Jamie Dee FR Iona 5:54 11:58 17:50 23:50.5 4:48 30 30 736 Zach Long SR Tennessee 5:54 11:56 17:48 23:50.8 4:48 31 31 567 Andrew Jordan JR Iowa State 5:54 11:55 17:45 23:50.9 4:48 32 32 700 Curt Eckstein SO Purdue 5:59 11:57 17:46 23:51.3 4:48 33 33 809 Ben Eidenschink JR Wisconsin 5:54 11:55 17:46 23:51.4 4:48 34 34 482 Ryan Forsyth SR Colorado 5:55 11:56 17:45 23:51.7 4:48 35 35 782 Casey Comber JR Villanova 5:54 11:55 17:44 23:51.8 4:49 36 36 564 Dan Curts SR Iowa State 5:55 11:57 17:48 23:53.2 4:49 37 37 435 Addison Dehaven SR Boise State 5:54 11:55 17:47 23:53.9 4:49 38 38 711 Chris Olley JR San Francisco 5:54 11:58 17:51 23:54.1 4:49 39 39 671 Emmanuel Roudolff-Lev JR Portland 5:53 11:54 17:38 23:54.6 4:49 40 40 667 Stuart McCallum JR Portland 5:55 11:57 17:49 23:57.3 4:50 41 41 514 Jaime Romo SR Eastern Kentucky 5:54 11:57 17:49 23:58.1 4:50 42 42 476 Tom Nobles SR Charlotte 5:58 11:56 17:46 23:58.2 4:50 43 43 415 Trevor Siniscalchi SR Air Force 5:53 11:54 17:54 23:58.2 4:50 44 44 409 Jacob Bilvado SR Air Force 6:00 12:03 17:56 23:58.5 4:50 45 45 438 Jeff Lautenslager SR Boise State 5:54 11:55 17:47 23:58.9 4:50 46 46 672 Noah Schutte SR Portland 5:54 11:55 17:42 23:59.5 4:50 47 47 616 Ian Shanklin SO North Carolina St. 5:56 11:57 17:50 23:59.6 4:50 48 48 433 Elijah Armstrong SO Boise State 5:54 11:55 17:53 24:00.2 4:50 49 49 439 Ahmed Muhumed FR Boise State 5:56 11:59 17:54 24:01.1 4:50 50 50 704 Brody Smith SO Purdue 5:59 11:58 17:53 24:01.6 4:50
Men’s top 10 teams * Full results
1. 46 Northern Arizona ( 23:29.6 1:57:28.0 0:25.8) 2. 135 Wisconsin ( 23:44.9 1:58:44.4 0:59.7) 3. 140 Portland ( 23:47.1 1:58:55.1 0:35.1) 4. 152 Iowa State ( 23:47.9 1:58:59.2 0:53.6) 5. 160 Boise State ( 23:51.7 1:59:18.5 0:23.2) 6. 253 Colorado St. ( 24:00.3 2:00:01.5 0:55.3) 7. 267 Air Force ( 24:03.4 2:00:17.0 0:48.1) 8. 278 Colorado ( 24:02.9 2:00:14.1 1:10.2) 9. 317 Purdue ( 24:08.3 2:00:41.2 1:08.6) 10. 332 Southern Utah ( 24:09.4 2:00:47.0 0:57.7)
Quick Take: Should we just hand the NAU men the team title now?
NAU won by 89 points and didn’t even run their #1 guy. They scored four fewer points than they did at this meet in 2017 — when they went on to win NCAAs by 53 points. Somehow, NAU lost an NCAA champion in Andy Trouard and chose not to run their top guy in Matt Baxter and got better. We spoke with a bunch of men’s coaches earlier this month for our NCAA top 10 countdown and several of them told us they feared that NAU was untouchable and that they would run away with NCAAs in November. That certainly looks like the case right now.
The best news for NAU is that their supporting cast has greatly improved. We knew going in that Tyler Day (3rd today) and Peter Lomong (7th) would run great as both men finished in the top 10 at NCAAs last year. But for Luis Grijalva (60th at NCAAs last year, 5th today) and Blaise Ferro (didn’t race XC last year, 8th today) to be right up there with them has got to be scary for the rest of the NCAA.
As for why Baxter didn’t run, NAU coach Mike Smith told us that “we’re just continuing to build him, his volume is real high right now and we’ll open him up in two weeks at Pre-Nats.” Smith said that Baxter made the trip to Madison with the team and that he worked out on the course this morning and “looked good.”
While NAU undoubtedly ran great today and are clearly the favorites to win NCAAs, we’re not going to hand them the trophy in September. They crushed some great teams today, including last year’s NCAA runners-up in Portland, but the #2 and #3 teams in LetsRun’s preseason rankings did not run in Madison. Our #2 squad, BYU, ran at Notre Dame instead, and they did about as well as could be expected, putting six men in the top 11 finishers to score 23 points (full results here). Of course, the field at Notre Dame was a lot weaker (No. 28 Furman was the only other ranked team), but we’re not writing off BYU just yet. Our #3 team, Stanford, has also yet to race its top guys this year, but several of them should feature in tomorrow’s Stanford Invitational.
Quick Take: Wisconsin is back, baby!
Wisconsin has failed to qualify for NCAAs in two of the past three years, in part because of some bad injury luck and in part due to some strategic redshirting (had McDonald run in 2017, Wisconsin almost certainly would have qualified). But with McDonald back and Olin Hacker (66th at NCAAs in 2016) healthy, the Badgers ran great today at home. A lot can change between now and November, but with the Badgers effectively scoring four guys thanks to McDonald’s brilliance, they could be a podium contender at NCAAs.
Quick Take: What happened to Alabama?
With three returning studs in Gilbert Kigen (4th at 2017 NCAA XC), Vincent Kiprop (7th), and Alfred Chelanga (37th) plus the addition of 8:32 steepler Noel Rotich, many expected big things out of Alabama in 2018. The USTFCCCA ranked them sixth in the most recent coaches’ poll, and we ranked them #6 in our pre-season rankings, even going as far as to wonder if they could win NCAAs if everything broke right.
Unfortunately for Alabama, everything broke wrong today. The Crimson Tide were already at a disadvantage as neither Kiprop nor prospective fifth man Kwemoi Ndiwa started the race. Once the gun went off, things went from bad to worse as three Alabama runners failed to finish, including Rotich. The result was that only four Alabama runners finished the race (Chelanga and Kigen finished a respectable 10th and 12th, respectively) and Alabama did not even register a team score.
Alabama coach Dan Waters said that injuries were to blame and that he doubts the 8:32 steepler Rotich will race again this season.
“We have been struggling all year,” Waters said. “Been one thing after another.”
One of the points we made in our article on the Alabama men is that it’s very hard to have depth in XC when you’re also trying to be competitive in track and field — there just aren’t enough scholarships to go around. Today was the proof. Now the question isn’t whether Alabama can get on the podium, but whether they can qualify for the NCAA meet at all.
Quick Take: Colorado was only the third-best team from Colorado
We can’t remember the last time Colorado lost to two Colorado schools in XC, but it happened today as the Buffs finished 8th, behind Colorado State (6th) and Air Force (7th).
Colorado didn’t run 13:30 5k man Joe Klecker and took a hit at the #5 spot as a result (Paxton Smith was 138th). Had Klecker run, that would have likely knocked around 120 points off the Buffs’ team score, enough to move them from 8th to 5th. But the fact that Klecker didn’t run may suggest something was wrong with him (a messageboard poster says he did travel to the meet with the team so maybe he’s close to racing like NAU’s Baxter) as Colorado ran the rest of their top guys.
Assorted bits and pieces
On paper, No. 26 Boise State looked to have massively overachieved by finishing 5th. In reality, the Broncos were just under-ranked (we had them #9 in our preseason rankings) as there was clearly a lot of talent on the roster…Purdue, in its second year under former Syracuse and Stanford assistant John Oliver, finished 9th overall, the top unranked team in the field…We saw a new individual name emerge in Eastern Kentucky’s James Sugira, who finished fourth overall. Sugira, who hails from Rwanda, has a pretty impressive resume as he finished 49th at World XC last year (senior race) and ran 13:46 for 5k at altitude in Uganda. He was also 7th in the 5,000 at this year’s Commonwealth Games, and based on today’s result should be a factor in the NCAA for years to come.
Who were the biggest overachievers and underachievers?
Below we took a look at how the 18 men’s teams ranked in the most recent USTFCCCA poll fared in today’s race (national ranking in parentheses) as well as the best performances by unranked teams.
Women’s top 50 individuals * Full results
Place TmPl Bib Name Yr Team 2k 4k Time Pace ===== ==== ===== ===================== == ================== ======= ======= ========= ===== 1 1 402 Alicia Monson JR Wisconsin 6:44 13:25 19:33.3 5:15 2 2 176 Weini Kelati SO New Mexico 6:44 13:25 19:35.9 5:16 3 3 178 Ednah Kurgat JR New Mexico 6:44 13:25 19:38.8 5:17 4 4 84 Dani Jones SR Colorado 6:45 13:25 19:39.6 5:17 5 5 39 Allie Ostrander JR Boise State 6:44 13:25 19:40.4 5:17 6 6 87 Makena Morley SR Colorado 6:45 13:25 19:45.2 5:18 7 7 181 Charlotte Prouse SR New Mexico 6:44 13:27 19:55.0 5:21 8 8 30 Katrina Robinson FR Arkansas 6:44 13:25 19:55.3 5:21 9 9 43 Emily Venters FR Boise State 6:44 13:27 19:58.2 5:22 10 10 38 Clare O'Brien JR Boise State 6:45 13:25 19:58.4 5:22 11 11 376 Nicole Hutchinson SR Villanova 6:44 13:26 19:58.9 5:22 12 12 372 Caroline Alcorta SR Villanova 6:44 13:26 20:00.0 5:22 13 13 82 Sage Hurta JR Colorado 6:45 13:29 20:00.5 5:22 14 14 33 Carina Viljoen JR Arkansas 6:44 13:28 20:00.9 5:23 15 15 229 Sinclaire Johnson SO Oklahoma State 6:44 13:26 20:04.1 5:23 16 16 254 Lauren Larocco SR Portland 6:45 13:31 20:04.6 5:24 17 17 11 Jaci Smith SR Air Force 6:45 13:25 20:05.4 5:24 18 18 126 Margaret Allen SR Indiana 6:45 13:26 20:07.9 5:24 19 19 88 Tabor Scholl JR Colorado 6:45 13:32 20:08.0 5:25 20 20 34 Taylor Werner JR Arkansas 6:45 13:30 20:08.1 5:25 21 21 150 Cailie Logue SO Iowa State 6:45 13:29 20:08.2 5:25 22 22 256 Taryn Rawlings SR Portland 6:45 13:30 20:09.6 5:25 23 23 188 Elly Henes JR North Carolina St. 6:44 13:28 20:10.0 5:25 24 24 134 Katherine Receveur SR Indiana 6:45 13:27 20:14.4 5:26 25 25 397 Amy Davis JR Wisconsin 6:45 13:30 20:16.9 5:27 26 26 35 Alexis Fuller SR Boise State 6:46 13:36 20:17.4 5:27 27 27 406 Shaelyn Sorensen SR Wisconsin 6:45 13:35 20:20.7 5:28 28 28 298 Angie Nickerson SR Southern Utah 6:46 13:38 20:21.1 5:28 29 29 377 Rachel McArthur SO Villanova 6:44 13:31 20:22.0 5:28 30 30 247 Julia Paternain FR Penn State 6:44 13:29 20:22.7 5:28 31 31 147 Anne Frisbie SR Iowa State 6:45 13:39 20:22.7 5:28 32 32 122 Paige Hofstad SO Georgetown 6:45 13:35 20:23.0 5:29 33 33 166 Erin McDonald SR Michigan State 6:45 13:38 20:24.2 5:29 34 34 156 Maggie Farrell SO Michigan State 6:45 13:33 20:28.1 5:30 35 35 172 Adva Cohen SO New Mexico 6:44 13:34 20:28.1 5:30 36 36 237 Juliana Mount SR Oregon State 6:49 13:52 20:28.6 5:30 37 37 267 Abbey Wheeler JR Providence 6:45 13:38 20:30.8 5:31 38 38 89 Tayler Tuttle SR Colorado 6:52 13:50 20:32.5 5:31 39 39 312 Destiny Collins JR Texas 6:45 13:36 20:34.9 5:32 40 40 80 Val Constien SR Colorado 6:52 13:50 20:35.6 5:32 41 41 40 Maxine Paholek FR Boise State 6:48 13:49 20:35.9 5:32 42 42 183 Dominique Clairmonte SO North Carolina St. 6:45 13:42 20:36.2 5:32 43 43 102 Alexandra Hays SO Columbia 6:45 13:47 20:36.8 5:32 44 44 157 Annie Fuller JR Michigan State 6:55 13:55 20:37.8 5:32 45 45 250 Alison Willingmyre SO Penn State 6:45 13:41 20:39.6 5:33 46 46 257 Aoibhe Richardson JR Portland 6:53 13:55 20:40.3 5:33 47 47 101 Erin Gregoire SR Columbia 6:45 13:49 20:41.8 5:34 48 48 135 Sarah Schmitt FR Indiana 6:46 13:50 20:42.2 5:34 49 49 104 Libby Kokes SR Columbia 6:45 13:50 20:42.6 5:34 50 50 248 Danae Rivers SO Penn State 6:50 14:03 20:44.9 5:34
Women’s top 10 teams * Full results
1. 80 Colorado ( 20:01.2 1:40:05.8 0:52.9) 2. 91 Boise State ( 20:06.1 1:40:30.3 0:55.5) 3. 130 New Mexico ( 20:08.5 1:40:42.5 1:28.8) 4. 156 Villanova ( 20:23.4 1:41:56.8 0:49.5) 5. 173 Arkansas ( 20:22.8 1:41:53.6 1:00.2) 6. 192 Wisconsin ( 20:25.1 1:42:05.5 1:24.4) 7. 208 Indiana ( 20:33.5 1:42:47.2 0:45.8) 8. 268 Michigan State ( 20:42.7 1:43:33.3 0:46.7) 9. 276 Iowa State ( 20:41.9 1:43:29.1 1:03.1) 10. 283 North Carolina St. ( 20:44.4 1:43:42.0 0:56.3)
Quick Take: What a performance from the Colorado women
Colorado had never raced on this course before today; Mark Wetmore likes his teams to get a chance to see the NCAA course, and as a result the Buffaloes always ran at Pre-Nats instead of Wisconsin. But with NCAAs at Wisconsin this year, Colorado is running both the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invite and Pre-Nats. And for the women, the first trip to Wisconsin was a massive success. The strength of CU’s women in recent years has been their depth, and it was on full display today with four finishers in the top 19 and six in the top 40.
So how does Colorado’s performance today stack up against recent Wisconsin Invite champs? Very well, as it turns out. In the past four years, three teams have broken 100 points at Wisconsin, and all three went on to win NCAAs — Michigan State in 2014 (87), New Mexico in 2015 (32), and New Mexico last year (87).
But before you hand Colorado the title, remember that Boise State also ran extremely well today: the Broncos put three in the top 10 en route to scoring 91. Colorado showed today that it’s a serious NCAA title contender, but Boise State, New Mexico, and No. 4 Oregon all remain firmly in the championship conversation.
Quick Take: New Mexico has some work to do at #5
It’s only September, so we shouldn’t overreact to these results. But many — including us at LetsRun.com — expected New Mexico to roll through the 2018 season and today showed that they won’t have it that easy. Weini Kelati, Ednah Kurgat, and Charlotte Prouse all finished in the top 10, as expected. But 9:29 steepler Adva Cohen faded to 35th after running with the leaders early and UNM’s #5 woman, grad transfer Hannah Nuttall, was 83rd.
Cohen’s track season didn’t end until August 12 as she finished 5th in the steeple at the European Championships, so she figures to improve as the season goes on. But if the Lobos are going to repeat at NCAAs, they have to be a lot better at #5. Even if UNM had gone 1-2-3-4 today, they still would have lost to Colorado as their #5 scorer outscored Colorado’s entire team.
They can start by adding in Sophie Eckel, who won the open race today (her time of 20:59.1, which would have made her UNM’s #5 in the seeded race at 73rd overall). There’s enough talent on the roster — their #5 at NCAAs last year, Alondra Negron, also ran the open race, finishing 11th — that the Lobos might be able to fix this problem by NCAAs. And they’ll have to, if they are to contend with Colorado.
Who were the biggest overachievers and underachievers?
Below we took a look at how the 15 women’s teams ranked in the most recent USTFCCCA poll fared in today’s race (national ranking in parentheses) as well as the best performances by unranked teams.
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