NCAA XC & 1st INdoor Results

This has been a kick-ass 24 hours for lovers of our varied sport!
Besides today's NCAA Cross Country Championships (held in Louisville KY), I've got a couple of interesting marks from the JDL All Comers T&F meet, also held today!
Plus--I have a new National Record to report--from OUTdoors!!
But the T&F stuff will have to wait.
Because that Collegiate XC finale gave us some fascinating data to mine for future relevancy.

The Women's race led things off.
They even livestreamed it!
Well, they SAID they'd livestream it!

We wound up seeing MAYBE 2 whole minutes of the Women's race.
That's about 10% of it.
Apparently their wireless connection fizzled out!

But we did see Molly Seidel cross the finish line first, hands risen in the classic victory pump, about 30 meters ahead of the top Freshman, Allie Ostrander, from Alaska and Boise State.

The women were all one pack for the first 2K or so--hard to tell from the WORST "coverage" of a Championship XC race--EVER!!
Then it came down to the expected Big Three--Seidel, Ostrander, and Arkansas's Dominique Scott, with a few others not too far behind--including a group from New Mexico!
Again, hard to know EXACTLY where Seidel started to break away, but I'm guessing it wasn't until around 5000 meters in.
When they rounded the final turn, with about 300 meters to go, Seidel led Ostrander by just 10 meters, and expanded it all the way in, finally beating her tiny rival, 19:28.6 to 19:33.6.
Scott held 3rd in 19:40.9.

The rest of the Top Ten were:
4th---Courtney Frerichs (19:48)
5th---Alice Wright (19:53)
6th---Anna Rohrer (19:59) (2nd Frosh)
7th---Allina (?) Buchalski (20:02)
8th---Maddie Meyers (20:03)
9th---Brenna Peloquin (20:04) (3rd Frosh, and teammate of Ostrander!)
10th--Sharon Lokedi (20:04) (4th Frosh!)

Here's several others I see as notable:

11th---Erin Clark (20:05)
12th---Ednah Kurgat (20:06) (NOT Edna Kiplagat!  LOL)
14th---Chelsea Blaase (20:07)
19th---Erin Finn (She lost BOTH shoes just after 2K!!  Ran in socks rest of the way!!!)
20th---Sarah Collins
27th---Waverly Neer
38th---Tessa Barrett
50th---Rhianwedd Price
89th---Claudia Saunders
106th--Audrey Belf
108th--Ryen Frazier (Still going DOWN after a HOT start to season!!)
117th--Aisling Cuffe  (Said she just had a bad day, but also still recovering from injuries!)
166th--Sarah Feeny

New Mexico KICKED ASS!!!
They scored 49 points, the best (lowest) score since---1982!!
And their 80 point victory margin was the 3rd largest in history!  (90 is the highest!)

Colorado scored 129 in 2nd, with Oregon 3rd with 214.

The Freshman Women also kicked some ass---the Men's Frosh runners!!
The Women, as noted, had 4 Frosh in the Top 10, while the first First Year scorer for the Men finished 11th!!

And speaking of the Men, Edward Cheserek regained his "King Ches" moniker with a SPRINTaway victory over wannabe-King, Patrick Tiernan.

Gotta hand it to Tiernan--he took the game to Ches, saying "Come and get me, Dude!".
That lasted until about 9K, when Ches moved.
Slowly at first--gaining 5 meters--then in a tsunamic flash flood of tough running, finally winning by over 25 seconds, 28:45.8 to 29:11.1.
If Ches ever decides to RACE a track 10K against the WORLD's best, I'm predicting he has a sub-27:00 in him--right now!!!
His final 300 meters were classic-Prefontaine icon-entertainer, as he raised his fingers a few times in "I'm Da MAN!"-fashion, practically stopping to acknowledge the crowd's cheers, then continuing his sprint to the line!
He added at least 5 seconds to his time!
(I dare him to try that in a track race against Mo Farah or Hagos Gebrhiwet!!)

Anyway, here's the rest of the Top Ten, plus several other notables.

3rd---Pierce Murphy (29:37.0)
4th---Justyn Knight (29:46.1)
5th---Jonathan Green (29:49.5)
6th---Jim Rosa (29:52.7)
7th---Sean McGorty (29:53.4) (Cardinal teammates Rosa & McGorty have finished back to back a few times this season!!)
8th---Colin Bennie
9th---Martin Hehie (??) (29:59.5)
10th--Marc Scott (30:02.6)

11th---Jonah Koech (30:04) (Top Frosh!)
15th---Anthony Rotich (30:06)
17th---Grant Fisher (30:07) (2nd Frosh, and first former HS sub-4:00 Miler!)
22nd---Thomas Curtin
26th---John Dressel (3rd Frosh)
31st---Ben Saarel
67th---Mason Ferlic
70th---Elijah Armstrong
85th---Matthew Maton (2nd former HS sub-4:00 Miler!)
97th--Joe Rosa (And I thought twins ALWAYS finish together!!  LOL)
116th--Chad Noelle
125th--Cerake Geberkidane

While the team race wasn't a blow-out, like the Women's was, it WAS a shocker of sorts!
Favorite going in, Colorado's Men LOST--to Syracuse!
It was 82 to 91, with Stanford well back in 3rd with 151 points.
(It was their 4th and 5th runners, as their first 3 actually finished 2nd to Syracuse's 1st three, and ahead of Colorado's!!)

Sticking to non-T&F activity for a minute longer, today's Philadelphia 8K Road Race was won by Kenyan Eliud Ngetich in 23:15, with the Women's race going to American Marielle Hall in 26:03!
Good times!
(If anything of note happens in tomorrow's Philly Half and Full Marathons, I'll report it in my next post!!)

Now on to Track and Field!!

And we'll begin with a new OUTdoor National Record for New Zealander Eliza McCartney!
She Vaulted 14-9, breaking her own mark of 14-7.25.
She won't be 19 until December 11th, but she's 3.25 inches shy of Angelica Bengtsson's Age 18 record, and even further off from Australian Nina Kennedy's Age 17 record of 15-0.75 from earlier this year!

Trumpets & Drum Roll, please!
The first significant (should put that word in quotes!!) INdoor mark of the 2015-2016 season comes AGAIN from the JDL All Comers meet.

Last year, it was on November 22nd, but the calendar change brought it to us one day earlier!
And this time, it wasn't Ms Frazier who did the honors!
(Especially not with the way she ran in the NCAA XC race today!  See above!)

But a Frazier DID play a "supporting actress" role!

In the 1 Mile race on their 200 meter track, Nevada Mareno ALMOST got a PR, winning the race in 4:43.49, about 0.7 faster than Ryen's opener last year, but 0.26 shy of her PR, run earlier this year--in the 2015 portion of the 2014-2015 season!
So Mareno remains 12th A-T HS!

And what about that "other" Frazier?
Well, I'm sad to report that the decline of Ryen's older sister Wesley continues.
Whether due to injuries or illness, or the switch back from Duke to NC State, or to her training mainly with Ryen, and NOT the rest of their teammates (See Let's Run's Forum for a lengthy discussion about that!), I have no idea!

But 11th Grader Mareno finished about 6 seconds in front of College Junior (or is she still a Soph, because of redshirting & her transfer??) Frazier, with Wesley running just 4:49.52.

Don't get me wrong--I WANT Wesley to succeed, to return to her brilliant form of 2013--but to see such a massively talented woman running like a HS Freshman is just---sad!
But maybe she'll surprise us, and show everybody what's what later this season!
I really do hope she does!

Well, that's it!
What's next?

Next post (in 1 day, or 2 or 3?) will be my Age Records Preview for the INdoor season.
(See last year's posts!)
Then I'll do my core group (World, US, Collegiate, HS) predictions for which records might be broken this season.
Finally---among my INdoor Preview posts!--will come my chart of what quality marks are needed to make it onto my Top 24 INdoor Performers lists---my DDD's!

That last will probably be at either the end of November, or the first week of December.

Along the way, if ANYthing happens in our favorite sport, I'll let you know!
Right now, I have NO information on who's running where, or which records they'll be trying to break--other than what I've already related in earlier posts.

See you soon!