Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 20, 2004 21:30:28 GMT -5
The men's team in the NCAA meet in Indiana on Monday will most likely be the following runners:
Rod Koborsi Chris Lukezic Fleet Hower Steve Meinelt Chris Esselborn Brian Dalpiaz Dan Nunn
Both Rod and Chris have a chance to run a top 15 time. However, the field, as usual, is stacked. Wisconsin is the favorite, and they may place three runners in the top 10; Arkansas is always tough, and they have a Kenyan, who could win it all; Stanford won last year by an overwhelming margin, but lost six of seven on that team, but have the top guy back (2nd last year); Colorado ran very well in the Mountain Regional. Those four are pretty solid, and I would be surprised if we beat any of those teams. Notre Dame is ranked 5th, but I think we can beat them, as we seem to be peaking at the right time. But other teams to watch out for are Cal Poly SLO, Arizona State, and Michigan.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 22, 2004 13:13:20 GMT -5
Bad news from Indiana. I expected the Hoyas, ranked 6th in the nation in the last XC poll, might have a top five finish. The results are so topsy turvy. The Hoyas finished 15th. I could not believe it. Wisconsin, which was an odds-on favorite to win the whole thing, finished 2nd to Colorado, which won the women's race as well. The times were slow, so it might have been a quagmire there. I have not read any commentary, so I don't know why the results were so messed up. I guess that is why they have the races. The good news is that Rod Koborsi made All-American, finishing 8th. On the women's side Nicole Lee also made All-American (top 25) by finishing 19th. The men: 8. Rod Koborsi 31:07 43. Chris Lukezic 32:08 50. Fleet Hower 32:17 138. Steve Meinelt 33:23 161. Brian Dalpiaz 33:39 177. Chris Esselborn 34:11 186. Dan Nunn 34:38 The spread from 1-5 was 2:32, which is pretty poor. The women: 19. Nicole Lee 20:53.1 105. Maggie Infeld 21:59.4
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Post by reformation on Nov 22, 2004 16:29:53 GMT -5
Slight correction Nevada, Koborsi was 10th(the other men's placement's were off too--the men's placings you posted only runners scoring for teams).
Unfortunately a very disappointing result for the men/women, except for R. Koborsi. Would have thought that Lukezic would have been closer to RK, also the runners beyond the first three did not seem to post competitive times at all
Looks like we will need a really big time recruiting effort to stay at the elite level for next couple of yrs.
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Post by reformation on Nov 22, 2004 16:32:40 GMT -5
Nevada, I wonder if the team peaked too soon--they seemed to do really well at the pre NCAA meet, but seemed to run poorly as a group at the NCAA(Except for RK, who did not run the whole season and I guess was peaking at the right time--just a speculation
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 22, 2004 18:04:44 GMT -5
Reformation, yes the first place I got the results had only team scores, so I copied those down, only to find later that they were corrected for runners running individually. So you are absolutely correct on Rod's placing, but he still remains AA.
Funny you mentioned peaking too soon. On some of the running talk boards, they suggested that the Hoyas should be in the midst of it, because they were peaking at the right time. Rod AND Chris did not run the first couple of meets, although I think Rod was held out longer than Chris. Steve Meinelt did not run the first few meets. Fleet Hower had some disappointing meets this year, and he seemed to run well today. Dan Nunn was probably injured recently (he missed a couple of meets), so I don't know how much he was disabilitated. But the times in general were pretty poor. And a lot of the teams that had done well had a bad day today. Notre Dame, ranked fifth, and supposed to be 5th today, finished 11th; Michigan finished 22nd, if I remember correctly. On the other hand teams that had not shown too much this year finished better than expected, e.g., BYU at 5th. Maybe the day was made for mudders (I still don't know the conditions).
As for the recruiting, the Hoyas have not signed anybody in the early signing period yet that I know of. They will lose Rod next year and probably Esselborn, but I think the men have most of the other runners back. I am still wondering about Matt Debole.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 22, 2004 20:52:52 GMT -5
Just as I had suspected, they had pretty bad conditions today: Forecast for today. Raining on course at the moment. Course is wet with some standing water. Very spongy and muddy. It has rain heavily for the past two weeks. Not like two years ago when it was dry, cold and firm.
The Hoyas were running in 9th place at the 5K mark, so they lost six places in the second half of the race. The strongest team (altitude trained) won today, Colorado. I guess this day was made for the strength runners to succeed.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 23, 2004 20:47:11 GMT -5
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CO_Hoya
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Post by CO_Hoya on Nov 23, 2004 22:58:40 GMT -5
Just giving a shout out to my Buffs, who swept both men's and women's titles, and to coach Mark Wetmore for coach of the year (women's). 'Bout time we had some good news around here.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 24, 2004 19:23:03 GMT -5
Congratulations CO_Hoya. Sometimes Wetmore gets a bad rap, but he really had them prepared this year (both men and women). I know the mother of one of the women runners (injured this year unfortunately), and she is on cloud nine.
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Post by Guest on Nov 25, 2004 14:36:15 GMT -5
Is georgetown track going the way of georgetown basketball?
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GUHoya07
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Post by GUHoya07 on Nov 25, 2004 18:13:59 GMT -5
I'm assuming you mean up, right? One bad finish doesn't mean the program is in trouble. And the basketball program is on its way back up with JT III at the helm.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 25, 2004 18:49:11 GMT -5
That's what I think, 2007; a bad race and still #15 in the country is still pretty good. They were ranked 6 or 7 for most of the year, and did not have a good race (at least four of the runners), probably due to the sloppy conditions. Stanford had their lowest showing in ten years. That being said it must be hard to recruit the top runners without a track. The amazing thing is that we have recruited so well in recent years without the facilities.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 25, 2004 19:19:15 GMT -5
Interesting statistics from the NCAA meet. As the race progressed the Hoyas got worse. Conversely, Colorado being altitude trained got stronger as the race wore on:
Place at 5k Team Points 1 Wisconsin 75.5 2 Arkansas 157.5 3 Colorado 224.5 4 Butler 248.5 5 Iona 257 6 Brigham Young 278 7 Notre Dame 307 8 Stanford 327 9 Georgetown 344.5 10 New Mexico 359.5 11 Arizona State 361 12 Texas 361 13 Florida State 374.5 14 North Carolina State 412.5 15 Air Force 416 16 Cal Poly 419 17 American 439 18 Providence 455 19 Georgia 457 20 Iowa 477.5 21 Michigan 486.5 22 Minnesota 515 23 Ohio State 522 24 Florida 526 25 Central Michigan 529.5 26 Indiana 544.5 27 Northern Arizona 555 28 Colorado State 556.5 29 Oklahoma State 626 30 Michigan State 629
Place at 8k Team Points 1 Wisconsin 83 2 Colorado 119 3 Arkansas 186 4 Butler 251.5 5 Iona 279 6 Brigham Young 297 7 Stanford 300 8 Notre Dame 337.5 9 Arizona State 341 10 Cal Poly 349.5 11 New Mexico 362 12 Air Force 376.5 13 Texas 379.5 14 Georgetown 391.5 15 North Carolina State 408 16 Iowa 410.5 17 Florida State 427.5 18 Indiana 456 19 Providence 456.5 20 American 457.5 21 Minnesota 478 22 Northern Arizona 500.5 23 Ohio State 514.5 24 Georgia 520.5 25 Central Michigan 521.5 26 Michigan 542 27 Florida 553 28 Michigan State 570.5 29 Colorado State 584.5 30 Oklahoma State 597.5
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 26, 2004 13:46:45 GMT -5
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 26, 2004 14:06:34 GMT -5
You can analyze the results of the meet to death (at least I can), but when we got our third guy over the line, we were tied for 6th (our ranking). Unfortunately, for the Hoyas we have to have five to score.
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Post by reformation on Nov 28, 2004 12:25:55 GMT -5
Nevada, I looked at a track website and noticed as you mentioned previously that Gtwn has no early signees--is this an ominous sign or do most of the track recruits sign in april--Duke, ND, stanfoed all had a bunch of early signees, but they did not look like the real superstars.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 28, 2004 16:47:26 GMT -5
Reformation, I don't know what to think of this. Usually, GU has some signees by this time, but as you mentioned no real superstars have signed (I think this class, as far as distance people, is a little thin, except for that guy from Tennessee). I know early admissions in general were abruptly down last year, and although they are up this year, they are not up by much. Maybe that translates into athletic signings too. With XC they have the national team championship this year, so maybe some are concentrating on that instead of the recruiting wars. The GU coaches must work very hard to continue to convince the track people to come to a place without a track. Maybe we will continue to get our distance and middle distance people, but it is getting harder to get a balanced track team with no permanent facilities.
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Post by Bardo Rodeo on Nov 30, 2004 10:22:29 GMT -5
Usually recruiting picks up after the holidays and we get our share of good runners.
I question the administration's commitment to the track program. No track, I don't like the Duke Ellington option at all, perhaps it's better than taking vans over to Washington and Lee, but a proposal was on the table to build a facility on campus and I don't know where that went.
Coach Helmer is a great coach, but with lack of facilities, our chances of winning a Big East Championship in track again for either gender is going to be quite a challenge. It's unfortunate because we were on such a great run through most of the 90's. We're still going to have our strengths in the middle distance and distance events, but having a balanced team that can challenge for the Big East Title, I'm afraid that's a thing of the past.
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Post by reformation on Nov 30, 2004 11:27:44 GMT -5
Agree re: the track facility, I was pitched the idea several years ago, thought it was a geat idea and never heard from the univ again. The track team has been a source of excellence for GU for many years, it seems silly not to send resources its way and instead allocate money to mediocre programs.
Re: winning team champ's, I'm not sure that's going to happen soon, though I don't think that thats such a big deal, since I think that having runners compete at the NCAA level and on the US team are more impt goals,
Re: recruitng; I'm a bit more concerned because a lot of our peer schools now have much improved track programs that did not in the past, i.e., Duke, ND, a couple of Ivy's and of course Stanford---its no longer just Villanova.
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Post by Bardo Rodeo on Nov 30, 2004 19:12:18 GMT -5
Reformation I agree with you but I just want to add my .02.
10 years ago we were doing both....winning championships and sending athletes to the Championship Meet and the Olympic Trials.
The program had great athletes on the top-but a lot of great depth to go to a BE and win. Towards the end of the 90's the coaches were told the program was too big and they were spending too much money (traveling anywhere and everywhere). Since Gag retired it appears that the Athletic Administration is getting it's way-we've had great XC and good individual efforts.
As you say, it's a shame that we choose to keep throwing money at mediocre programs at the expense of a program that's been so good over the last 15 years.
Over the last 10 years, Stanford has seemingly gotten anyone they've wanted, we've lost many head-to-head battles with them on the recruiting front. In the last 5 years it seems like Duke and UNC have really upped their recruiting--academically we're right there, but facilities-wise we're hurting.
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