Division I Women’s TEAM Preview: Can Anyone Beat Michigan State?

NEW ORLEANS – Yesterday we took a look at the most up-in-the-air NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships title race, the individual women’s race. While Kate Avery, Shelby Houlihan, Crystal Nelson and several other runners can lay claim to pre-meet favorite status for top women’s finisher, that’s simply not the case in the team race.

Based on regular-season competition, the national team championship conversation might only be two words long: Michigan State.

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To say the Spartans – shooting for their first national title in program history – have been impressive in 2014 would be an understatement. Whichever challengers emerged wherever they competed (their "A" team ran six races this season, with a seventh upcoming this weekend) were easily and summarily dismissed.

Roy Griak? Nearly halved the score of now No. 5 Iowa State (running with All-American Bethanie Brown, a point we’ll revisit later). Wisconsin adidas Invite? Trounced No. 4 Arkansas by more than 100 points in a field that included six of the other nine current top-10 teams. Big Ten Championships? Scored 26 points behind seven top-17 finishers as No. 6 Wisconsin scored twice as many points. Great Lakes Regionals? Pounded the Badgers even harder with 28 points to Wisco’s 82 and six runners in the top 15 (granted, it was just a qualifying meet).

How do they do it? It certainly helps to have a pair of frontrunners in the lead pack of any race in Leah O’Connor and Rachele Schulist. Schulist was runner-up in that loaded Wisconsin race while O’Connor has rounded into form over the past three weeks with Big Ten and Great Lakes titles now to her credit.

At that Wisconsin meet, those two were runner-up and ninth for 11 total points, second in the meet to Iowa State’s duo of winner Crystal Nelson and fifth-place Katy Moen for six points.

The key to MSU’s dominance, however lies within the rest of its pack. Take that Wisconsin meet, for example. Led by 14th-place Lindsay Clark, the Spartans’ No. 3 through No. 7 runners (Clark, Julia Otwell, Sara Kroll, Katie Landwehr and Allie Wiersma), taken as a scoring five of their own, posted 210 points, just shy of Arkansas’ 191 and just ahead of Iowa State’s 212. That’s with Wiersma having an off-day in 93rd place. She was MSU’s No. 6 at Big Tens and their No. 5 at the Great Lakes Regional.

In total, MSU has notched nine wins over the six teams currently ranked in the top 10 of the final National Coaches’ Poll it has faced this season, with no losses (not even any close races, in fact). A more detailed breakdown of how top-10 teams have fared against one another can be found here.

That begs the question: What about those teams the Spartans haven’t faced?

The Wild Cards

Those teams would be the next two in line after the Spartans in the final National Coaches’ Poll: No. 2 Georgetown and No. 3 Oregon, as well as No. 8 Colorado. Before we get too far, let’s just say we’re not really counting Michigan State’s Bill Dellinger Invitational win over a short-handed Oregon squad from early September. The Ducks’ lineup looks totally different and how much would we be able to glean from a race that took place two months ago, anyway?

The aforementioned three teams may not have faced MSU yet during the countable season (September 26th and later) but they have faced one another – with a catch. Georgetown won the Pre-National Invitational over Oregon (and then-No. 1 Michigan), 110-139, behind third-place finisher Katrina Coogan, but both teams were holding out key runners.

Georgetown – which has not yet been beaten by another current top-10 team this year – was running without Samantha Nadel, the top runner (47th) from its fifth-place NCAAs team a year. She has since returned, posting a fourth-place finish at Big Easts in her season debut. Oregon had yet to debut transfer Waverly Neer, who was 40th at NCAAs during her freshman year in 2011. She has since run to a 10th-place showing at the Pac-12 Championships

These two teams’ wild-card status extends beyond the mere fact that they haven’t squared off with Michigan State yet this year (when it matters, in Oregon’s case). Unlike many other top-ranked teams around the country, neither of these two have yet to settle into a steady scoring lineup. Take a look at how their top sevens have turned out in each of their races from September 26th on:

Both teams have a pack-running mentality, but it is yet to be seen how that will translate against a Michigan State team that both frontruns and pack-runs.

The Podium Challengers

The teams in this group will be simultaneously chasing Michigan State and looking to usurp the aforementioned wild card teams Georgetown and Oregon for top-four podium positioning.

Next up in the rankings after those top three are the No. 4 Razorbacks of Arkansas. Led by SEC champ Dominique Scott, Arkansas has only really faced top-level competition once, that coming in a runner-up finish at Wisconsin. Scott and Grace Heymsfield combine for a potent 1-2 punch with eighth- and tenth-place finishes at Wisconsin, and the Razorbacks were one of only two teams (Michigan State being the other) to get four runners across the line among the top 60 finishers.

Arkansas will be looking to exorcise the demon of their 2013 NCAAs performance: after entering the meet No. 3 in the country and a trendy pick to win the national title, the Razorbacks’ middle-distance-oriented squad disappointed on the sloppy Terre Haute course with a 15th-place showing.

Though they’ve lost to Michigan State twice already this season, perhaps another team that could be included in the "wild card" category is No. 5 Iowa State. The Cyclones were third overall at Wisconsin, despite running without returning All-American Bethanie Brown. Brown, who last ran at Roy Griak in the Cyclones’ runner-up finish there, has been dealing with a foot injury throughout most of the season but was included on Iowa State’s postseason roster prior to regionals. She didn’t run in the Midwest meet, but if she runs Saturday alongside or just behind top-10 contenders Crystal Nelson and Katy Moen, that would be a significant boost.

The rest of the roster has been surging at the right time, as well. Margaret Connelly went from 26th at Wisconsin – certainly a respectable result considering the field, to fourth at the Big 12 meet – just behind Pre-Nationals winner Rachel Johnson – while frosh Erin Hooker went from 107th at Wisconsin to eighth in the Big 12. ISU No. 5 Perez Rotich went from 83rd at Wisco to 13th just behind Jillian Forsey, No. 7 West Virginia’s top runner at Wisconsin (11th).

 Speaking of Wisconsin, the host Badgers are No. 6 in the country. Led by Sarah Disanza (who, Wisconsin director of track & field and XC Mick Byrne told us, was nearly held out with illness) in 12th-place, the Badgers put three in the top 31 at their home meet. Two weeks later, Disanza proved she could be the low stick Wisconsin needed with a close runner-up finish at the Big Ten Championships to MSU’s O’Connor. The Badgers finished runner-up in that meet.

 Another team on the upswing is No. 7 West Virginia. The Mountaineers were just 18 points shy of fourth-place Wisconsin at the adidas Invitational, led by Forsey in 11th. Forsey had an off day at Big 12s (offset by Katie Gillespie‘s fifth-place effort) but the duo went 2-3 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional in a close race with No. 2 Georgetown (who was likely conserving energy for an NCAA run).

Other teams in position for a run at the podium include No. 8 Colorado and No. 9 New Mexico, as well as No. 10 Stanford.

Additional Notes

Several teams enter the NCAA Championships ranked equal to or higher than their previous best finishes in program history. Michigan State is the obvious one, ranked No. 1 with their best finish a fourth-place effort in 1981.

Iona was 20th in its lone other NCAA team appearance, but enter ranked No. 16 as the Northeast champion. Plus, likely single-digit points – perhaps just one – from their No. 1 Kate Avery is sure to help.

A pair of Ohio schools are also in position for best-ever performances. No. 21 Toledo enters with a rank equal to its all-time best team showing from 2011, while No. 22 Ohio State is projected well ahead of its 29th-place showing from its only other NCAA appearance in 2009.

Plus, whatever No. 11 Boise State does is a program-best: this is the Broncos’ first appearance at the big dance.

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