NCAA Mid Atlantic Regional XC Race

[Nevada Hoya]

This Sat. at Princeton will be the qualifier for the Hoyas for the NCAA XC race in Indiana. The Hoya men are favored to win and get the auto bid for Indiana. However, they may think about resting some of their top runners (the Hoya reported that Bumbi was nursing a sore hamstring during the BE race; also Krisch had been injured previously). The top two go, so obviously if they hope to make the auto qualifier they have to have a representative team. If they don't make the top two, they would have to wait for an at-large bid. They didn't go to pre-Nationals, because they were counting on coming in 1 or 2 at Princeton this week.

The overall goal of this season, as it is all seasons is to do well in the NCAA champs. So the regional race will be run to give the Hoyas the best team (rested/fit) for nationals. Some of the posters on the track boards have the Hoyas in the top 5. I think that is a bit optimistic, because as usual the field is stacked. But top 10 is well within the reach of the Hoyas.

The women will be in a struggle. The top two again go, but there are three teams (Princeton, Nova, WVA) ranked ahead of them. So the goal is to run a good race and hope to go as an at-large team. They should have enough points (mainly from their good showing at pre-Nats) to be picked.

[Nevada Hoya]

Here is the schedule for Saturday's races. If you are in the Princeton area on Sat., go out and support the Hoyas.

This Saturday, November 15th, the men's and women's cross country teams will compete at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships in Princeton, NJ for a berth at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. The women's 6k race will go off at 11 AM followed by the men's 10k race at noon.

[jgalt]

Hope the Hoyas showed up well. How did they do Nevada?

[Nevada Hoya]

The men DOMINATED!!! with a low score of 27 points. Penn State and Nova were a distant 2nd and 3rh with 73 and 84 points. So the men are auto qualifiers for NCAAs.

[Nevada Hoya]

The men's results look like a mathematical sequence: 1,3,5,7, and 11. If only Mike Banks picked it to finish 9th.

The individuals:

1. Andrew Bumbalough 31:36 (Bumbi adds the regional title to his BE win over 10k instead of 8K).
3. Levi Miller 31:38 (good run for Levi just two seconds behind Bumbi; Nova's Beamish was 2nd in 31:37, so it was a tight finish)
5. Ayalew Taye 31:51
7. Mike Krisch 32:08
11. Mike Banks 32:23
17. Justin Scheid 32:50
27. James Grimes 33:12

The spread forthe first five men was a small 47 s; good group running. The pace was not that fast - 5:06/mile for Bumbi, so either the course was hard, the weather bad, or the Hoyas were running just hard enough to win. Host Princeton was 4th with 145 points.

[Nevada Hoya]

The women did about as well as expected running against three of the top 10 teams in the nation. They finished 4th with 90 points. Princeton and West Virginia tied for 1st and Villanova was 3rd. Frances Koons, a returning cancer victim, won the race in 21:11. The Hoyas:

8. Liz Maloy 21:44
14. Emily Infeld 22:08
16. Natasha LaBeaud 22:09
25. Lise Ogrodnick 22:28
27. Katie McCafferty 22:38
28. Renee Tomlin 22:39
30. Lauren Gregory 22:43

Again, as with the men, very good pack running that included all seven runners. Katie had a bit of a down day, but was solid for a freshman. The women now will have to wait for the at-large bids. It comes down to how the teams that the Hoyas beat at Pre-Nationals did in their regionals. One team already Stony Brook did not finish in the top two in the Northeast; however, Provy, whom the Hoyas beat at BE, did, so they get a point for that. I have to check how Baylor did, whom the Hoyas beat at Pre-Nats.

[Nevada Hoya]

They just predicted that the women are in!

[Nevada Hoya]

The men, with a score of 27, won the Regional meet running against the field. That is, if Georgetown was one team (which they are) and the rest of the teams combined to form another team, Georgetown wins.

[jgalt]

Awesome, great to hear! I dont know much more than the basics of XC but this is great! Thanks for the update Nevada

[Nevada Hoya]

You're welcome, jgalt. I just spent 30 minutes watching the internet show that predicted the at-large teams. The official list will come out Monday or Tuesday, but the women seem a solid pick, based on four wins against auto qualifiers. The men were harder to figure out, as the system is quite convoluted with team's being pushed in by other teams depending on their regional finish. For example, the Univ of Portland, ranked 4th in the national finished 3rd in the west regional (to #1 Oregon and #3 Stanford), and for a while, it didn't look as if Portland would get in due to their not running enough big meets. They finally predicted UP in the field, and that led to a cascade of west region team, ultimately leading to seven teams from the west in the field of 31.

Georgetown is definitely shooting for a top 10 finish. Let's hope all the guys are healthy and suffer no injuries on the course this year.

EDIT: Just read that you had some surgery, jgalt. Hope you are ok and are well on the road to recovery.

[Nevada Hoya]

Apparently, the Princeton course was muddy and soggy.

[jgalt]

Nov 15, 2008 16:28:39 GMT -5 Nevada Hoya said:

EDIT: Just read that you had some surgery, jgalt. Hope you are ok and are well on the road to recovery.

Thank you, just my wisdom teeth. Nothing big, and i dont look like a chipmunk . It has given me time to spen pretty much all day on Hoyatalk, while i watch football and wait for the hockey game tonight. Pretty good week end.

Good luck to Men and women at the NCAA's.

[hsaxa2010]

Really awesome to hear that GTown dominated! When are the NCAA's??

[Nevada Hoya]

The NCAAs are Monday, Nov. 24 in Indiana. Next Saturday are the IC4As and ECACs in New York. The men's B team won the IC4As last year with Dan Nunn the individual winner. The B teams do not seem to be so deep this year, so I don't know it we will even have a full team on Sat.

[Nevada Hoya]

It is official: the women are in. So both the men and the women will line up in Indiana on Mon. Nov. 24 to compete with 30 other teams and a few at-large individual to contest the 2008 NCAA
XC championships.

[sleepyjackson21]

Congrats to both the men and the women. Job well done.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Congrats to the Cross country teams. Finally some good news after the W.Soccer team missed the NCAA's, The volleyball team just missed the BET and more likely than not the M. Soccer will miss the NCAA's. So far it's been a season of just falling short for most Georgetown teams.

What are the men's chances in the NCAA's? Any chance for a National title?

[TBird41]

Nov 16, 2008 23:55:06 GMT -5 Nevada Hoya said:

It is official: the women are in. So both the men and the women will line up in Indiana on Mon. Nov. 24 to compete with 30 other teams and a few at-large individual to contest the 2008 NCAA
XC championships.

Awesome! Congrats to both teams! How are our prospects at the NCAAs?

[Nevada Hoya]

The men are looking for a top 10 finish. I don't think they have much of a chance for a title, because Oregon and Okie State are too strong. The team we may match up against is the Univ of Portland (the women's soccer power). They have two very strong guys, a third guy, who is pretty good and the other four hoping to do some low scoring. We have one guy, who might finish in the top 10 individually. Bumbi has won all his races this year, so he may not have been tested; here comes the test. The supporting group - Miller, Taye, Krisch, Banks, Scheid, and Grimes - are dependable and run well in a pack. If they can run in a pack near the chase pack, we will do well. Taye has the ability to pop a big one, and Miller has been very consistent this year. I think it comes down to how Krisch, Banks, and Scheid do.

Last year we should have been in the top 10, probably around 7th, but two of our runners had medical problems on the course, and Taye was going to drop out, when it was figured out that he was the 5th man. So he finished the race in last place. We still finished 13th. He had been running about 100th in the race; if he had finished in that place, I think 7th was ours. So I am predicting anywhere from 5th to 13th.

The women will have a more difficult time. They don't have the dominant runner this year in Melissa Grelli, who will be running for Oregon in their attempt to derail Washington. Liz Maloy has been leading the team all year, and we have two great freshmen. Natasha LaBeaud has been running well, so she should help us. The fifth runner will be the difference. For the women a finish from 11th to 20th will be in order. They want to make up for their poor showing last year in 28th (even with Melissa finishing 9th).

[Nevada Hoya]

Some excepts from Coach Henner's notes on the Regionals:

With the muddy conditions and the narrow course I had the men get out and take control of the race from the start. Andrew set the pace early and dictated it for most of the race, waiting until the end to ! pull away from the field. Levi Miller and Ayalew Taye did a great job sticking right with Andrew and the other leaders while Michael Krisch ran relaxed at the back end of the lead pack. Levi and Ayalew hung close to Andrew the entire race and finished 3rd and 5th respectively. Krisch was able to run strong to finish 7th even after the lead pack pulled away some. Michael Banks ran a little more conservative from the start and hung back behind the chase pack. Banks used a very strong final 1000 meters to move up several spots to take 11th place overall. Justin Scheid did a good job regrouping in the middle of the race to capture 17th place after falling off from the quick early pace. I was also pleased with James Grimes' first ever 10k. He ran well coming up one place shy of earning All Region honors, finishing a solid 26th. All of the men did a great job of running tough through the poor conditions of the course. They put themselves in position to run well and each had a goo! d race, which they are all ready to do again at the NCAA Champ! ionships .