Pre-Nationals XC Meet

[Nevada Hoya]

The pre-national meet will take place at Indiana State this Saturday. The Hoyas were to have a complete team for the first time this year with Fleet Hower and Tommy Manning using this as their opener to the season and Bumbi using this as his college opener. However, if the rumors on some of the running boards are right, Bumbi may not be running on Saturday. No mention of an injury, just that he may not be running. I have no indication that the other two will be running. I think just about every top college will be there except Wisconsin and Arkansas, the two top teams.

In the women's race the Hoyas are represented by all but Natasha. She must be injured, as she missed the last race.

[Nevada Hoya]

At pre-nats there are two major races (because there are so many teams and XC courses are not conducive to that many runners). GU is entered in the blue race:

Men's Blue Race (11:00am): Butler, BYU, Cal Poly-SLO, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Dartmouth, Florida State, Georgetown, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Loyola, Miami (Ohio), Northern Arizona, North Carlina State, Oakland University, Ohio University, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Ohio State, Purdue, Rice, Stanford, TCU, Tennessee, Texas Pan-America, UCLA, UC-Santa Barbara, Villanova, Virgina, Wake Forest, and Weber State.

BYU and Cal Poly should be the favorites in this race; look for the Hoyas to shoot for a top five performance (depending upon Bumbi's entrance).

[Nevada Hoya]

Women in the blue race too:

Women's Blue Race (12:20pm): Arizona, Belmont, Butler, BYU, Charlotte, Columbia, Florida, Georgetown, Georgia, Harvard, Idaho, Indiana, Indiana State, Iowa, Kent State, Long Beach State, Liberty, Loyola, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Northern Arizona, Notre Dame, Purdue, Rice, Samford, SMU, Stanford, UCLA, Villanova, Virginia, Washington State, Weber State, Wisconsin, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Yale.

[Nevada Hoya]

The proverbial good news/bad news scenario today in Indiana. Bad news first: the women only finished 19 in their race of 35. Since they were ranked 19th in the country before the race, and there were two races equally divided, the women will surely drop (maybe out of the rankings) next week. The good news is that the men finished 3rd in their race, beating teams ranked above them. All of this without Tommy Manning and Andrew Bumbalough (Bumbi). The Hoyas finished 3rd of 33.

[Nevada Hoya]

The men's finishers:

7. Fleet Hower (running his first race of the year) 23:56
30. Matt Debole 24:19
44. Charlie Millioen 24:30
64. Dan Nunn 24:45
77. Brian Dalpiaz 24:52
93. Mike Krisch 25:01 (Mike is a freshman; good race for him)
102. Andre Laboy 25:05

GU scored 222 points to finish 3rd. Stanford won this race. GU averaged 24:29 per man for the first five.

[Nevada Hoya]

The women's team:

35. Elizabeth Maloy 21:04
42. Maggie Infeld 21:13
88. Erin Henry 21:52
128. Kim Malcolm 22:20
153. Avril Ogrodnick 22:35
161. Lise Ogrodnick 22:45
167. Sabine Knothe 22:49

[Nevada Hoya]

The men beat head-to-head Cal Poly SLO today, and Cal Poly was ranked 10th before the meet. In the other race Iona finished 9th, and GU would have surely beaten them, if they were in that race. Iona was ranked 8th. Florida, which was ranked right behind GU at 13th, finished 3rd in their race, but their average times were a bit better than the Hoyas. So GU should move up to at least 11th next week.

[Nevada Hoya]

Somebody did a calculation of a combined race:

Colorado 152
Stanford 162
Notre Dame 205
BYU 313
Florida 330
Georgetown 413
Kansas 425
Iowa 425
Dartmouth 427
Virginia 460
William & Mary 465
Portland 470
Michigan 472

[reformation]

Looks like the men are exceeding expectations by quite a bit--wonder though if Bumbi is being redshirted.

The women look like they only have 2 or 3(labeaud, if not injured) runners who are competitive at an elite level.. The canadian twins do not seem to be adjusting well to elite college running. I think the women will need another big recruiting year to try to get back to a nationally competitive program.

[Nevada Hoya]

The rumor is that Bumbi will run at Big East. He had a slight injury this summer, which contributed to his late start in training for the XC season. I think the coaches kept him out at the pre-nats as a precaution. Another rumor had him doing a 24:33 (8K) workout after going out in an "easy" 5:05 first mile, perhaps on the Short course at Lehigh. I had thought Tommy Manning would have run by now, so I hope he does not have an injury - I believe this is his last season of eligibility (no indoor or outdoor eligibility left). He was hoping to peak for the nationals.

From dyestat:

After straining a hip flexor in June, he did not start running until mid-August...he's had some minor pains since then but is running well right now and would be a top 2 or 3 guy for them if he ran pre-nat's. that being said, he probably won't be running just to make sure he doesn't re-aggravate an injury. look for him to possibly open up at conference. he's just now getting his mileage up and is ready to roll...
__________________

[Nevada Hoya]

I don't know what to expect of the women. They had been progressing, so I thought they had an outside chance of making the nationals again. As it stands, it looks as if they will have to finish second at region to make it. This really hurt any at-large bids for them. I was surprised that the Ogrodnicks didn't do better. Might have just been an off day (or sickness).

[Nevada Hoya]

Tommy Manning did, indeed, run, but ran in the individual race and finished 8th in a time of 24:58.6, which would have finished 6th for the team. Also, running in the individual race were Rasheed Thompson, finishing 22nd in 25:25.8, Alex Mason, 37th in 25:44.9, and Shane Young in 53rd place in 25:59.8.

[Nevada Hoya]

The women also had entries in the individual race, but they had five runners, so they counted as a team, finishing 9th in this race. Our entries:
41. Nana Hanson-Hall 22:47.6
71. Joanna Rodgers 23:19.8
83. Kailin Collins 23:37.2
98. Meghan O'Neil 23:58.6
117. Christine Whalen 24:31.3

[hoya]

Tommy Manning only has a season of cross-country left, I wonder why he didn't race last weekend?
Rod Kaborsi has another season of track left.

[hoya]

Nevermind- just saw the post that he raced individually. Terre Haute is supposed to be a very difficult course.

and what happened to Melissa Grelli? She's a sophomore now- raced pretty well last year, I think.

[Nevada Hoya]

Tommy said the team is so deep that he didn't know what race he would be doing until Saturday. He was encouraged that the Hoyas have eight guys, who can go under 25 minutes for 8k on the hard course. He was so encouraged that he gave me this quote, referring to the Big East meet at Van Courtland Park on Oct. 28: "We're looking to take down the golden dome like the Trojans did this weekend." (Notre Dame is ranked 7th, the Hoyas 12th, as of last week).

[Nevada Hoya]

It seems as if Melissa must have been sick or hurt. She would have run, if she were fit.

[Nevada Hoya]

The Georgetown Voice's take on the pre-nationals meet:

www.georgetownvoice.com/media/paper246/news/2005/10/20/Sports/Men-Breeze.Past.Competition.Women.Not.Far.Behind-1027273.shtml?mkey=950571

[Nevada Hoya]

The GU athletic site has Natasha redshirting now.