NCAA DI XC Championships: Two Dark Horses to Watch in the Men’s Team Race

NEW ORLEANS – Looking for a dark horse in the team race for the NCAA Men’s Cross Country Championships title and/or podium?

Look no farther than Terre Haute, Indiana, circa October 15.

After initially being declared the victor at the Pre-National Invitational, then-No. 5 Arkansas’ celebration was short-lived. Partway through the next race, it was announced that a timing error had omitted a scoring runner for then-No. 4 Oregon and that the Ducks were, in fact, the victors at Pre-Nats.

From there, the Razorbacks’ and Ducks’ paths diverged, bringing them back to Terre Haute as underdogs for very different reasons.

And, yes, before you ask, the teams with the most and fourth-most team titles in NCAA Championships history, respectively, can be considered underdogs.

While Arkansas has held steady in the polls, coming in at No. 6, Oregon has stumbled through its postseason slate, finishing fourth at both the Pac-12 Championships and the West Regional. Consequently, the Ducks arrive in Indiana at No. 13 in the national poll – a far cry from the No. 3 billing they received in mid-October.

Perhaps the key difference that led to the two teams’ very different post-Pre-Nats paths? Who they faced the next two meets.

Arkansas enters this Saturday relatively untested, having only faced – and beaten – No. 2 Colorado from among the current top-10 teams. The Hogs’ toughest postseason test came in the form of No. 11 Ole Miss, whom they handled with relative ease at the SEC Championships.

Even the Colorado win might be deceiving, as the Buffaloes seem to have transformed for the postseason as the went on to crush not only Oregon at the Pac-12 Championships two weeks later, but also current No. 3 Stanford and No. 8 UCLA.

Arkansas has two returning All-Americans in Jack Bruce and Frankline Tonui, the latter of whom has really broken through in 2016 with runner-up finishes in the NCAA Outdoor steeplechase final and the Pre-National Invitational. Alex George has made a name for himself this fall in a big way with three wins – including an SEC title – and NJCAA transfer Andrew Ronoh has developed into a potential All-American coming off a runner-up finish in the South Central Regional.

In short, the Hogs are untested, relatively speaking, but have the depth and firepower to make a lot of noise in Terre Haute.

Meanwhile, Oregon has been through the ringer since Pre-Nats, squaring off with Colorado, Stanford, Portland and UCLA at least once each between the Pac-12 and West Region championships. Ultimately, they were unable to get head-to-head wins over any of them.

The Ducks could potentially have the most top-end firepower of any team in the field with three-time national champ Edward Cheserek and Pre-Nats third-place finisher/West Region runner-up Matthew Maton. Key words are “potentially” and “could”, since Maton also turned in a less-than-impressive 28th-place finish at the Pac-12 Championships.

Potential is a word that can also be ascribed to the rest of Oregon’s scoring lineup, which has plenty of it but has been inconsistent in demonstrating it this fall. Will the Ducks get the near-All-American Travis Neuman from the 2015 NCAA Championships and 13th at Pac-12s? Or the Travis Neuman who finished 50th in the West Region? Same goes for Jake Leingang, who was 50th at NCAAs last year but 46th at Regionals.

If everything clicks behind Edward Cheserek – i.e. Maton runs well; Leingang and Neuman run up to their potential; and younger runners like Tanner Anderson and Levi Thomet perform well – then the Ducks are certainly a team that can challenge for the podium.