NCAA DI XC Championships: Keys To Victory For Men’s Title Contenders

NEW ORLEANS — With a unanimous favorite in search of its first-ever NCAA Division I Men’s Cross Country team title being chased by the two most recent programs with national titles and a pair of perennial national contenders, this Saturday in Terre Haute should be a barnburner.

Northern Arizona – decisive winners at deep Wisconsin and Mountain Region meets – enters NCAAs with momentum and motivation to win a title for departing head coach Eric Heins, but will have a major fight on its hands.

No. 2 Colorado – champions in 2013 and 2014 – and No. 4 BYU will look to get back at the Lumberjacks after some posturing at the Mountain Regional. West Region winner No. 3 Stanford will get another shot at NAU after finishing runner-up at Wisconsin, while No. 5 Syracuse won’t give up its national crown without a fight.

Other teams also lurk with title hopes – most notably SEC and South Central Region winner No. 6 Arkansas – but we’ll focus in today on the top five, who emerged as a cut above the rest in the eyes of the National Coaches’ Poll voters.

QUICK LINKS: National Championship Central | National Coaches’ Poll

What’s it going to take for Northern Arizona to clinch its first-ever national title?

What are the paths to victory for Colorado, Stanford, BYU and Syracuse?

Let’s look deeper at our “Keys to Victory” featuring the top-five teams in the Pre-Championship Poll.

No. 1 Northern Arizona

Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational Champion; Big Sky Champion; Mountain Region Champion

• With two-time top-five NCAA finisher Futsum Zienasellassie, the Lumberjacks arguably have the strongest low-stick of any team contending for the title. Especially against the likes of Stanford (Grant Fisher, Sean McGorty) and Syracuse (Justyn Knight), even getting a point or two ahead of their leaders could be crucial in a team race that could come down to razor-thin margins.

• Perhaps more than any other team on this list, the focus with NAU is often on its top runner. But the Lumberjacks have potentially three more runners who have proven themselves as top-20 contenders. Matthew Baxter finished eighth in a loaded Wisconsin race to cap the regular season, while Cory Glines and Tyler Day were sixth and seventh in the deep Mountain Region. NAU needs big days (i.e. top 20) from at least two of them to further solidify its title hopes.

• An X-Factor for NAU will be Nathan Weitz. The senior, who has been working his way back into the Lumberjacks scoring lineup all year long, was a scorer on NAU’s podium teams in 2012 and 2013. They’ll need his senior leadership to steady the younger runners toward the back of NAU’s pack.

No. 2 Colorado

Pre-Nationals Third-Place; Pac-12 Champion; Mountain Region Runner-Up

• Which Ben Saarel will we see? The performance of the Buffalo senior in his final NCAA Championships will go a long way in determining how Colorado finishes. If he shows the same form he demonstrated in back-to-back top-10 finishes in 2013 and 2014, then the Buffaloes are in great shape. If he ends up in the 20’s as he did a year ago, Colorado will have a tougher time keeping up with the leaders. He’s shown flashes of both this year, having finished 28th at Pre-Nationals and third at the Pac-12 Championships.

• How will freshman Joe Klecker handle the big dance? Colorado freshmen have done well of late, with Saarel finishing eighth as a frosh in 2013 and John Dressel taking 25th a year ago. Klecker, like Saarel, has had his fair share of highs and lows. He’s coming off a third-place overall finish in the Mountain Region, but was also the No. 5 Buffalo at the Pac-12 Championships in 19th.The closer he – and the similarly inexperienced sophomore Ryan Forsyth – stays to the front, the better off Colorado will be.

No. 3 Stanford

Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational Runner-Up; Pac-12 Runner-Up; West Region Champion

• The Big Two: Fisher and McGorty. Stanford is one of two teams on this list (Syracuse being the other) that returns a pair of top-20 finishers from a year ago, and it’ll be counting on both Grant Fisher and Sean McGorty to account for as few points as possible to make a title run. As the Pac-12 runner-up, Fisher seems to be on the verge of a top-10 showing after debuting in 17th a year ago. McGorty, eighth a year ago, has a few more small question marks after taking seventh at Pac-12s.

• How does Thomas Ratcliffe handle the pressure? The frosh was eighth at Pac-12s in his official Stanford debut and didn’t compete at the West Regionals – much like Fisher a year ago. That will make NCAAs his first 10K competition. A third finisher in the neighborhood of the top-20 would be a significant boon for Stanford’s title hopes.

• Which of Jack Keelan, Garrett Sweatt, and Sam Warton will round out the lineup? That leaves two spots in the scoring lineup that need to be accounted for. Keelan finished 10th between Fisher and McGorty at the West Region, Garrett Sweatt was 13th at the Pac-12 Championships and Wharton is a former All-American. But all three have had their inconsistencies in 2016, as well.

No. 4 BYU

Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational Third-Place; WCC Champion; Mountain Region Third-Place

• How tight can they keep their pack? The only team on this list without a superstar frontrunner, BYU is unique on this list in its dependency on strong pack running. The Cougars were one of only two teams at Wisconsin with six finishers in the top 60, but were also the top-five team with the highest total score through two runners.

• How low can Nicolas Montanez go? With a pack of runners that may not necessarily be pushing at the front of the pack, the role of year-long frontrunner Nicolas Montanez will be to garner as few points as possible. He was top-10 at Wisconsin and top-five in the Mountain Region, and has the potential for top-20 points.

• How will the Cougars’ penchant for late-race moves play in this field? Most of BYU’s wins this year – including an upset of Syracuse – came in late-race surges. The NCAA Championships have played out as both a sit-and-two-kilometer-kick and a footrace from the gun in the past two years. Perhaps the latter would be best for BYU, allowing the Cougars to pick off runners late as they fatigue from an early torrid pace.

No. 5 Syracuse

Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational Fourth-Place; ACC Champion; Northeast Region Champion

• Justyn Knight battles for low points. The junior had a breakthrough cross country season a year ago, finishing fourth overall at NCAAs to lead Syracuse to its first national title since the ‘50s. He looks to be on track to reprise or improve upon that effort in 2016, having seemingly put an emphasis this regular season on ripping off incredible late-race surges for victories. He’s been victorious at Virginia, Wisco, ACCs and the Northeast Region to emerge as a challenger to Edward Cheserek.

• How close can Colin Bennie come to his 2015 result? A large part of Syracuse’s win a year ago was putting three runners in the top ten. Two of them return in Knight and Colin Bennie, who was eighth. Bennie has been slow to round into that same form in 2016, with a 14th-place finish at Wisconsin and a fifth-place effort at ACCs. He seems to be coming around at just the right time, as he finished second behind Knight at the Northeast Regional.

• Who’s the hero of the 2016 season?­ While Knight, Bennie and Martin Hehir were top-10 at NCAAs last year, it was the late-race surge from Philo Germano that ultimately made the difference for the Orange. Germano is back this year, but All-America honors are once again expected of him. Who will be this year’s X-factor? It could be Lamar transfer Ilias Aouani, who has shown the ability to run nearby Bennie for long stretches of races and is coming off a seventh-place finish in the Northeast and a sixth-place effort at ACCs.