USTFCCCA News & Notes
THE WARM-UP LAP: Pre-National Invitational
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The defining weekend of the NCAA Division I cross country regular season is here. Wisconsin adidas Invitational on Friday. Pre-Nationals on Saturday. Nearly every ranked team is at one of those two meets. You can follow along LIVE with both on the USTFCCCA National Results Wall! |
Hey, E.P. “Tom” Sawyer Park: Get ready for another close-up.
Two weeks ago the Greater Louisville Classic served as the Pre-Pre-National Invitational as a healthy number of teams wanted to get a first look at the area that will host the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships come November.
This Saturday, 11 ranked men’s teams and eight ranked women’s teams converge on Louisville, Kentucky for the actual Pre-National Invitational.
Both seeded races should have plenty of strong racing and drama for cross country fans.
On the men’s side: Can No. 3 Oregon close the gap between itself and top-ranked Colorado? Can No. 13 UTEP and No. 17 Louisville continue their meteoric rise through the ranks?
For the women: Will the three-way duel between No. 2 Colorado, No. 4 Oregon and No. 5 Michigan look as good on the course as it does on paper? How will No. 9 Stanford look for the second consecutive meet without All-American Elise Cranny?
We’ll answer these questions and more in our meet breakdowns.
You can follow along with us live as we update and analyze the race as it happens on the USTFCCCA National Results Wall, featuring a live breakdown podcast shortly after the conclusion of the men’s race.
Pre-National Invitational Men
9:30am ET (Seeded Red Race)
Team Race
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Following a strong showing at the 2014 Rocky Mountain Shootout, speculation about the eventual national champion Colorado Buffaloes swirled.
Can anyone run with the Buffaloes? Is this the best CU team ever?
Two weeks later at the Pre-National Invitational, speculation on at least that first point was definitively put to rest: No.
It was never even close as Colorado put four top-10 finishers across the line and six within the top-14 to win with a meager 35 points to runner-up Oregon’s 91.
Four of those runners are back – Ben Saarel, Ammar Moussa, Pierce Murphy and Connor Winter – as the Buffaloes look to recreate that dominance in their first competitive race of the 2015 season.
Murphy looked exceptional in winning this year’s Rocky Mountain Shootout, as did redshirt senior Morgan Pearson – who didn’t run last year but has an 18th-place NCAA finish to his name – and Winter.
Colorado’s top two runners from its 2014 NCAA title team – fifth-place Moussa and seventh-place Saarel – haven’t raced to their full potential yet this year after some early-season hiccups (Moussa didn’t race Rocky Mountain, while Saarel ran unattached), but both will likely be good to go for Pre-Nats.
Familiarizing themselves with packrunning and moving up in a pack on the same Louisville course that will host NCAAs next months will very likely be a priority for the Buffaloes.
It should be quite a pack that CU has to work its way through, as well. The Buffaloes headline a herd of 11 nationally ranked teams (plus five more receiving national votes) all vying for all-important head-to-head wins for NCAA Championships at-large qualifying.
Chief among their competitors is the same team that they most closely defeated a year ago in No. 3 Oregon. The Ducks will, of course, be led by two-time national champion Edward Cheserek. Entries haven’t yet been released, but he’ll likely be joined by a full complement of teammates including Jake Leingang, Jeramy Elkaim, Matthew Maton, Tanner Anderson, and Blake Haney, among others. UO is coming off a win at Washington over No. 4 Stanford.
No. 10 Georgetown will be racing for the first time since upsetting Villanova – then No. 7, now No. 12 – at the Paul Short Run.
No. 13 Arkansas will face its first major test with a young roster, while No. 13 UTEP will look to follow up on an impressive win at the Notre Dame Invitational, and No. 17 Louisville looks to keep its home momentum going after a strong fourth-place effort on this same course two weekends ago.
With four teams ranked atop their respective regions and two more ranked No. 2 – remember, top two teams in each of the nine regional championships advance to the NCAA Championships automatically, with the remaining 13 teams filled in with at-large bids – there exists a very strong opportunity to notch important head-to-head wins.
UTEP, Louisville, No. 22 California and vote-receiving North Texas are all currently ranked No. 3 in their respective regions, while No. 23 Colorado State is No. 4. Wins over those No. 1 or No. 2 ranked squads would be huge for their NCAA resumes.
Similarly, there exists another group of nine teams ranked fifth or sixth in their regions that even more pressingly need those head-to-head wins wherever they can get them. That group includes No. 25 Southern Utah and three vote-receiving teams in Purdue, Virginia Tech and Eastern Michigan – all of whom hail from deep and volatile regions in the Mountain, Great Lakes and Southeast.
Individual Race
NOTE: Individual entries have not been announced as of publication. This individual preview is based on all teams running at full potential.
We know Edward Cheserek and the herd of Buffaloes will be at the front of the pack when the dust at the finish line clears, but who will be up there with them?
It has the potential to be a very crowded lead pack with a weekend-best 12 returning All-Americans potentially among the field – plus more looking to make the jump into the top-40 by season’s end.
Cheserek, Moussa and Saarel all come to Louisville as top-10 finishers a year ago, as does Indiana State’s John Mascari (eighth). Anthony Rotich of UTEP was 11th a year ago, but was fourth overall when NCAAs were last held on this course in 2012.
Mascari is coming off of a minor injury that slowed him to a 10th-place finish at Notre Dame two weekends ago, while Rotich narrowly took the win in that same race over All-American Matt McClintock of Purdue and Rotich’s teammate Jonah Koech – a potential All-America contender, himself.
Keep on going down the list and you come to Chris Walden of Cal (17th), McClintock of Purdue (19th), Edwin Kibichiy (23rd) and Ernest Kibet (32nd) of Louisville, Kevin Dooney of Yale (34th), and Winter (24th) and Murphy of Colorado (36th).
Some more names to watch for:
- Louisville – Japhet Kipkoech
- California – Thomas Joyce
- Colorado State – Jefferson Abbey & Jerrell Mock (1-2 at Roy Griak)
- Air Force – Patrick Corona
- North Texas – Troy Taylor
- Virginia Tech – Thomas Curtin
- Duke – Shaun Thompson (dominant win at Princeton)
- Campbell – Lawrence Kipkoech (narrow loss to All-American Erik Peterson of Butler)
- Houston – Brian Barraza
Pre-National Invitational Women
10:15am ET (Seeded Red Race)
Team Breakdown
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With so much attention paid to the women’s race at the Wisconsin adidas Invitational – and justifiably so – it would be easy for the same race at the Pre-National Invitational the following day to slip through the cracks.
After all, there are only eight ranked teams in Louisville, Kentucky and five others who received votes in the latest poll, compared to 20 ranked teams and four vote-getters the day before in Madison, Wisconsin.
Stop right there. Look at these ranked teams.
- No. 2 Colorado
- No. 4 Oregon
- No. 5 Michigan
- No. 7 Georgetown
- No. 9 Stanford
- No. 26 Villanova
- No. 27 Texas
- No. 29 Cornell
Five of those ranked teams are in the top-10 and three are powerhouses usually in the top-5 of each poll – No. 2 Colorado, No. 4 Oregon and No. 9 Stanford.
Do we have your attention yet? Perfect.
There are three teams that have been firing on all cylinders early in the season and should contend for the team title – the Buffaloes, the Ducks and No. 5 Michigan.
Colorado debuted two weeks ago at its own Rocky Mountain Shootout and flexed its muscles in the process. Led by Erin Clark, who won the individual race by 41 seconds in 20:13, the Buffaloes swept through the top-6 and scored a perfect 15 points.
Oregon is looking for its second win in as many meets as the team posted an impressive victory at the Washington Invitational on Oct. 2. The Ducks put all five scorers inside the top-15 and Alli Cash finished second behind Stanford’s Aisling Cuffe.
Don’t count out the Wolverines, who will be racing on the course at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer Park for the second time this season. Two weeks ago Michigan used the one-two punch of Erin Finn (first) and Shannon Osika (second) to win the Greater Louisville Classic in a landslide (34 points to runner-up Iowa State’s 63).
It wouldn’t be prudent, though, to brush aside the Cardinal or the Hoyas.
For the second consecutive countable meet, Stanford will be without 2014 All-American Elise Cranny (injury). That hurts the Cardinal’s chances, because unless another runner steps up to join Cuffe as a top-7 finisher, the team might not have a low enough score to be able to take down the likes of Colorado, Oregon or Michigan just yet.
Georgetown has yet to display its full roster, so this will be a good chance for it to do so. The Hoyas last raced an abbreviated team at the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown on Sept. 25 and placed third behind Providence and Syracuse.
Villanova, Texas and Cornell all need solid showings this weekend to strengthen their NCAA resumes. The Wildcats, Longhorns and Bears are all currently on the bubble.
Individual Breakdown
The contenders for the individual crown will most likely come from the top-ranked teams in the field with the exception of one outlier.
Colorado’s Erin Clark, Michigan’s Erin Finn and Stanford’s Aisling Cuffe have already shown this season that they have what it takes to win. California’s Bethan Knights also proved that back in September at the Roy Griak Invitational.
Outside of those four runners, be on the lookout for Oregon’s Alli Cash and Waverly Neer, Mississippi State’s talented trio of Rhianwedd Price, Ffion Price and Marta Fritas, as well as Utah’s Sarah Feeney.
The individual race won’t be as wide-open as the one in Madison, Wisconsin, but it will be equally as exciting among the top-tier athletes.