The Warm-Up Lap: Ivy League Heptagonals Among the Weekend’s Best Meets

NEW ORLEANS – Conference championships and final qualifying meets continue to dominate the collegiate track & field schedule with fewer than two weeks remaining before the National Championships in Divisions II and III and the NAIA, and three before qualification at the Division I Preliminary sites.

Compared to last weekend and next weekend, the next couple of days are light on conference championships action with 10 total around the country. Most Division II and III and NAIA conferences wrapped up a week ago, while many of the nation’s top leagues in Division I kick off their year-end competitions next week.

With what could be considered a light week on the schedule overall in terms of the number of meets – around 60 after having more than 100 the last few weeks – now would be an excellent time to catch up on some of the over-arching storylines of the collegiate track & field season.

In the National Team Computer Rankings, new women’s teams took over the No. 1 positions in the Divisions I, II and III rankings, as well as in the NAIA, while the men’s races all remained close.

Particularly in Division I, those teams chasing the ultimate team honor, a national championship, will in large part be driven by individual student-athletes pursuing collegiate track & field’s highest individual honor: The Bowerman Trophy.

Each of the top five teams in the DI men’s rankings have at least member on the Men’s Watch List announced Wednesday, while five of the top six women’s teams and six of the top 10 were represented on Thursday’s Women’s Watch List.

One member of the Women’s Watch List – Georgia’s Kendell Williams – is not only a top contender for collegiate track & field’s top individual prize, but also one of the world’s best on the Junior athletics scene.

The World Junior indoor pentathlon and American Junior outdoor heptathlon record-holder headlines the list of collegians in contention for the World Junior Championships just 74 days away on July 22-27 at  Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. – site of the NCAA Championships on June 11-14.

The full list of U20 collegians and how they stack up against one another can be found here, while the IAAF World Junior descending order lists for 2014 can be found here.

Now, for the weekend ahead. For those looking to watch track & field online and/or on television this weekend, a full list of known broadcasts can be found below. Information on each Division’s National Meet of the Week, conference championships and top-10 schedule can be found in their respective sections below.

USTFCCCA InfoZone: Broadcast Schedule

Friday, May 9, 2014

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Monday, May 12, 2014

Division I

Among those conferences that are competing this weekend is one steeped in rich history and tradition: the Ivy League with its Heptagonal meet, this week’s Division I National Meet of the Week.

May 10-11 at Yale will be the latest chapter in a Heptagonal rivalry between Princeton and Cornell in both the men’s and women’s competitions.

Princeton’s men, ranked No. 1 in the Mid-Atlantic Region in the USTFCCCA  Division I Regional Index, have won each of the past three Ivy League titles, but Cornell – ranked No. 1 in the Northeast Region – has won seven of the past ten.

Top individual match-ups include the high jump with Montez Blair of Cornell and Maalik Reynolds of Penn tied at No. 15 in the nation, and many of the distance events with the League’s typically deep stable of endurance runners.

Cornell’s women have earned eight of the past 10 league titles, including each of the last two, with Princeton taking the remaining pair. While Princeton is the highest-ranked team in its Mid-Atlantic Region at No. 5, Cornell at No. 3 in the Northeast Region doesn’t even make the cut as the top Ivy League school in the region.

That honor belongs to Harvard, who dropped down to No. 2 in the region this past week, though both the Crimson and the Big Red are virtually equals in the eyes of the computer. A title for Harvard would be its first outdoors since the 1990 season.

Some of the Ivy League’s all-time best women will be in action this weekend, including a pair of The Bowerman Watch List members in Dartmouth’s multi-time national champion Abbey D’Agostino (No. 5, 5000 meters) and "also receiving votes" honoree Julia Ratcliffe of Princeton, the collegiate leader in the hammer throw. Also in action will be No. 2 steeplechaser Rachel Sorna of Cornell.

This Weekend’s Div. I Conference Championships Click on each conference logo to be directed to more info about the meet. The full listing of Division I conference championships can be found here. Big East May 9 – 11 Ivy League May 10 – 11 Southland May 9 – 11 Sun Belt May 9 – 11

Division II

Topping the Division II schedule is the GNAC Championship meet at Western Oregon from May 9-10. No. 9 Alaska Anchorage headlines the men’s field, while a duel between No. 17 Alaska Anchorage and No. 20 Western Washington tops the women’s field.

Since the GNAC was founded in 2001, the AA men have yet to win a league title. Though they are No. 9 in the national rankings largely behind distance runner Micah Chelimo – who is nearing the all-time GNAC record in points scored – the Seawolves hold only a slim lead in the Division II Regional Team Index West Region standings at No. 3 over Western Washington, winner of three of the past four league titles.

Should the Alaska Anchorage men claim the team title, they would be following the footsteps of their female teammates, who won their first GNAC title last season. A repeat title for the Seawolves could be in the cards as the conference’s highest ranked team nationally and regionally (No. 3), though Western Washington (No. 5, West Region) will be pushing hard to win their first league title.

Also standing strong in the West Region rankings as potential contenders are No. 6 Northwest Nazarene and No. 8 Seattle Pacific. NNU is also looking for its first conference crown, while SPU is no stranger to the top as a six-time GNAC winner.

A look at the top individual contenders by event can be found here.

This Weekend’s Div. II Conference Championships Click on each conference logo to be directed to more info about the meet. The full listing of Division II conference championships can be found here.       GNAC May 9 – 10 NSIC May 9 – 10

Division III

It may not be a conference championship, but for some schools in the Northeast the New England (NEICAAA) Championships is second only to the National Championships in terms of importance. For Division III schools, it’s one last chance to mix it up with the Division I and II programs for regional bragging rights before the National Championships.

This year’s competition will be staged at Westfield State in Westfield, Mass., beginning yesterday through Saturday.

Four top-25 Division III women’s programs will be represented including No. 5 Wheaton (Mass.), led by two-time outdoor National Athlete of the Week Ashante Little; No. 12 Williams with NEICAAA hammer throw leader Amina Avril; No. 14 MIT and No. 17 Amherst.

Two top-25 men’s teams will be in action with No. 15 MIT and No. 25 Tufts.

This Weekend’s Div. III Conference Championships Click on each conference logo to be directed to more info about the meet. The full listing of Division III conference championships can be found here. IIAC May 8 – 10 MIAC May 10 Midwest Conference May 9 – 10

NAIA

The lone conference championship race in the NAIA that remains unresolved will be decided this weekend as the Cascade Collegiate Conference gets under way today through Saturday at Northwest Nazarene in Nampa, Idaho.

Former No. 1 Concordia (Ore) – now No. 2 in the latest USTFCCCA National Team Computer Rankings – will battle No. 6 Southern Oregon and No. 25 Eastern Oregon, while the No. 7 College of Idaho women will be challenged by No. 17 Concordia (Ore.)

With a league title a year ago, the Southern Oregon men snapped Concordia’s seven-year run of winning at least a share of the CCC title. The streak had almost been snapped in 2011, when Concordia edged out Southern Oregon by just ½ a team point for the title, 192½ – 190.

College of Idaho is the defending champion from 2013 after the Concordia women’s six-year streak atop the conference. The Coyotes went from fourth in 2009 to third in both 2010 and 2011 and runner-up in 2012 before ultimately claiming last year’s title.

This Weekend’s NAIA Conference Championships Click on each conference logo to be directed to more info about the meet. The full listing of NAIA conference championships can be found here.       Cascade Conference May 9 – 10