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2009 NCAA XC Recap: By Bryan Green
By Bryan Green.
Once again the NCAA Cross Country Championships lived up to expectations and provided drama, intrigue, exceptional performances, and a few stinkers. The men's race was won by the favorites, but there were a few unexpected outcomes. The women's race was just plain crazy. I was a little bummed by how it was covered by the broadcasters, but on further review, how do you cover that madness in real time? It was just weird.
Rather than recap the action for you (I'm assuming most people saw it live, and if not, this thread at LetsRun does a better job than I could), I'm going to throw out my top 25 thoughts of the day.
My Favorite Part
I watched the race online and sent text messages with my buddy Mickey throughout the race. Mickey is an Illinois alum, and he was hoping for big things from Angela Bizzarri, their All-American star. I wanted big things for her because I've invested too much of my reputation in telling people she'll be the next runner to make the leap. She did me proud at the USA Nationals, where she took 3rd in the 5000m, and I was predicting a 3rd place finish in Terre Haute.
We both agreed that it would take a highly unlikely turn of events for Bizzarri to beat both Barringer and Kuijken, but Mickey never gave up hope. And as she passed Kuijken with Schaaf in tow, his text messages went to all caps: "YES GO ILLINI!" and "You gotta love the chief." Well, I gotta love Bizzarri running her optimal race, that's for sure.
Watching the NCAA Championships on my own would have been enjoyable. I'm a junkie that way. But watching it with someone, even someone 10 states away and communicating in 160 characters or less, made it all that much more fun.
Top Ten Performances of the Day
1. Sam Chelanga, 1st - It was simply the best performance by a collegiate cross country runner that I've ever seen. People will debate for days whether Rupp would have been able to handle Chelanga today (I think so) but there's no doubt about one thing: Chelanga is far superior to any athlete in the NCAA today. The only chance that anyone had was to do a Kuijken and try to hang there until the very end. Would the results have differed? Probably not. But nobody was running down Chelanga today.
2. Villanova Women, 1st - It's a shame Washington didn't bring their A game, because this race turned into a rout. They got a huge run out of Amanda Marino in 6th, and another solid performance by Sheila Reid in 13th. Where they really dominated was in their three through five runners, though. Villanova placed all five in the top 30, in front of UW's number three. They were so good that even if UW's top runner finished 100 places higher, they still would have lost. It's too bad, however, that their school website ranks their victory as the #2 Top Story behind the men's team's 11th place run...
3. Angela Bizzarri, 1st - What did Angela Bizzarri need to do to win an NCAA title? She needed to win the race within her race, and then hope for some good fortune in the other race ahead of her. She could have messed this up in so many ways. She could have gone with Barringer and Kuijken and tried to hang on. Or she could have made a bold move in the middle of the race to make up the difference on Kuijken. But she didn't. She ran aggressively enough to stay in reach of the lead, but conservatively enough not to get run out of the race by the hot early pace. She ran the best race she could have and amazingly, she's the new national champion.
4. Oregon Men, 2nd - As I jumped on the Stanford bandwagon (you know, the one last seen careening off a cliff at the 3k mark of today's race) I wrote that I wanted to see Stanford win because I "liked seeing Oregon taken down a notch." Well, wouldn't you know it, the Oregon men ran the best team race in the field. When the pressure was on, they rose to the challenge and were well within reach of stealing the title from an OSU team that was less than perfect. Luke Puskedra again led the team with a 21st place finish and they put four in the top 31. It's hard to fault their fifth man, Diego Mercado, as he ran about where many predicted many of them would finish.
5. Allie McLaughlin, 5th - I know there are people out there saying it was the top performance in the field and there's some merit to that, especially given that she held it together after watching her teammate Barringer falter ahead of her. But I just can't help but discount freshman performances on the women's side, since it's essentially the same distance as their high school cross country races. Sure she's still racing against much older and more experienced competition, but the adjustment required just isn't that steep.
6. Colby Lowe, 10th - The success or failure of Oklahoma State rested perhaps more on Colby Lowe than on any other member of the team. Add to that the fact that he was the least experienced, most questionable guy coming in and his 10th place finish is really remarkable. He handled the pressure, he rose to the occasion, and he guaranteed his team a victory by finishing within 2 seconds of team leader Ryan Vail. A fantastic performance.
7. Susan Kuijken, 3rd - In a way, Susan Kuijken proved that she was in a no-win position. Let Jenny Barringer go and she'll probably never catch her. Go out with her at her torrid initial pace and she probably won't be able to maintain it. But she did the only thing she could that would give her a chance at victory, and that was to be a bit reckless and go after Barringer from the gun. She suffered for it, but it was the only way anyone was beating Barringer, and only she could have done it. She ran the right race, just had the wrong day.
8. Dorian Ulrey, 6th - I have a problem with some runners where for some reason, I can't help but underestimate them. Surely my worst case of this is with Leonel Manzano, but Dorian Ulrey is probably in my top five (along with Jen Rhines, Christin Wurth-Thomas, and maybe Josh McAdams). I never thought Ulrey would be on the World Champs team, I never thought he'd advance once he got to Berlin, and I never thought he'd run well at NCAAs today. Well, 6th place convinces me that he's got more than just B+ ability. We could see really big things from him in the spring.
g.
9. Oklahoma State Men, 1st - If we ignore all the Stanford hype (that I helped perpetuate, I admit), there was really only one team that should have been considered the favorite, and that was OSU. And they did what they had to do. Outside of Lowe's 10th place finish, I didn't think anyone ran any better than where they should have been. Vail probably sacrificed a couple spots to ensure the team victory, and German and Chirchir ran pretty poorly. But they won. And that's all they needed to do.
10. David McNeill, 2nd - He started off the year a little slowly, but he sure came on strong at the end. His 2nd place finish showed that he is a clutch racer who runs well in the big meets. I kept waiting for Derrick to put in a big surge and shake him off, but then I realized that it was going to be Rupp-McDougall all over again, with Derrick getting outkicked at the end by the older, stronger, and more experienced McNeill.
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Top Five Stinkers
1. Stanford Men, 10th place - A team stinker will always outrank an individual stinker and the collective bomb that Stanford dropped makes one wonder if they were flown into Terre Haute on the Enola Gay. I hesitate to play favorites amongst the Stanford runners, but I thought the egg laid by Justin Marpole-Bird was particular sulfurous.
2. Jenny Barringer, 163rd - It's not often that one athlete's performance becomes a saga. Maybe in a basketball game or a football game where there is three hours to watch it unfold. But not in cross country, where there's about 20 minutes between the gun and the finish line. But watching Jenny stagger, and then slow, and then collapse, and then rise, and then trudge on, and then finally kick it in was really an amazing show within the show. Unfortunately, she was favored to win and finished 163rd, and that is still a huge stinker.
3. German Fernandez, 97th - In the interest of calling it straight, let's call German's performance what it was: a big fat stinker. Luckily for OSU, he didn't get any worse, or they would have lost the team title. I can't wait to read what all the posters have to say about him after this performance. Personally, I think it's amazingly coincidental that arguably his two worst races have both happened at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. The build-up for the 2010 NCAA's begins now!
4. Marco Anzures, 249th - (This is where I criticize one of my fellow Bruins, to convince you of my objectivity.) It's hard to show up at the NCAA Championships without your team. It's tough to run the same pace you've run all year and find yourself in the middle of the pack for the first time. It's tough to have your high hopes turn to cow turds early on and to deal with all the negativity and disappointment. But I've seen contestants on The Biggest Loser walk 2k faster than he finished. There's just one thing you can call it: a long slow stinker.
5. Tie: Mike Fout, 186th; Lee Emanuel, 115th; AJ Acosta, 106th - Fout because he beat Derrick, Fernandez, and Lowe at Foot Locker to win the title, and no Foot Locker champion should be lower than 100th. Acosta gets the nod for the same reason, though in his case it includes the fact that a healthy, dominant Acosta would have given the Ducks a victory. And Emanuel because a 3:37 1500m runner should be able to muster a little more than 115th. Might there be context to these performances that would change my mind, a metaphorical Febreze we could spray around these stinkers? Yes, but first impressions tend to linger, and I don't see these ever being confused for roses.
Three Uncomfortable Quotes During the Broadcast
1. Chris Derrick - Hands down my favorite. When asked how it went out there post-race, Derrick said (paraphrasing here): "I don't know what happened, but we bombed." The sideline reporter replied, "I wouldn't call third place a bomb." And Derrick, after sizing up the situation and realizing she was too far away to head butt her, replied coldly, "I was talking about the team." Bam. Loved it.
2. Lewis Johnson - He busted this out while discussing Kendra Schaaf of Washington wanting to be a sprinter when she was young, "You know why you run a mile? Because you can't SPRINT." Ironically, Angela Bizzarri outkicked Schaaf for the win, so Lewis Johnson gets a pass.
3. Sideline reporter - I have to paraphrase this question by the sideline reporter (whose name I don't remember), because I don't have the video in front of me, but it was a classic case of "I have no idea who I'm interviewing so let me just make this dramatic." After David McNeill finished 2nd ahead of "PRE-RACE FAVORITE" Chris Derrick, she asked him, "What made you believe you could be there to the end , that you could defeat the PRE-RACE FAVORITE Chris Derrick?"
I really wanted him to reply, "Well, maybe the fact that I crushed him at 5k last year?" and then just shake his head and walk away, but he has more class than that. He went with the old, "Gotta believe in yourself" line. Oh well.
Three Things I'd Like To See Changed For Next Year
1. Allow the broadcasters to discuss the team race - I know it's not their fault. I know Versus told Larry Rawson and Lewis Johnson that only individuals matter in cross country and they actively denied them the information they needed to have any informed commentary on the team races. I know that Larry Rawson threatened to quit after the race because he just couldn't thrive within the rigid restraints thrust upon him by "the man". And I realize that Jenny Barringer's saga was simply too mesmerizing to cut away from or stop discussing in the women's race. But please, next year, how about some discussion of the team races? How about final scores announced and not just the winners? Heck, even a mention of the fact that there is a team race during the women's competition would be a step up.
2. Have a sideline reporter who lives and breathes the sport - Today's sideline reporter had a lot of qualifications. She was cute. She was chipper. She was comfortable in front of a camera. She was standing where she needed to stand to interview people and not get head butted. But one thing was abundantly clear. She didn't know the sport. It showed in her questions, it showed in her color commentary, and it showed in the way athletes had to pause and try to figure out what she was talking about before answering. Next year, pick a coach, pick someone from Flotrack or LetsRun or RunnerSpace or (ahem) Runner's Tribe, or let fans audition for the role. Trust me, it WON'T hurt your ratings.
3. Women need to run at least 8k - I addressed this a bit in the part about Allie McLaughlin. Let me flesh it out. Personally, I think 6k gives middle distance oriented teams an advantage that the men don't have, and I think an extra 1k more than high school cross country keeps the field too level for the top incoming freshmen. Every year we see top women freshmen come in and finish in the top ten. It's time the women ran closer to 30 minutes than 20 minutes, like the men do. It should be 6k until the conference championships, and then 8k for Regionals and NCAAs. (Please don't go to 10k, though. Waiting for the last women to finish would be tortuous.)
Finally, Five Predictions That Will Haunt My Dreams
1. Stanford winning - I already used my Enola Gay joke. I don't know what else I can say. I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry! (On the plus side, now I have even more reasons to root against Stanford.)
2. Jenny Barringer breaking the record for largest gap at the half-way mark - All the credit here goes to Susan Kuijken, who not only hung onto Barringer, but ran both of them right out of the race as a result.
3. Not including Alabama in my top five teams - I thought about Alabama. I knew about Alabama. But when the time came I wrote Arkansas. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
4. German Fernandez in the top five - Okay, so I was 93 places off on my prediction. But let me explain myself. First, we know he was at least 95%. Dave Smith is a serial sandbagger in interviews and even he was saying he wouldn't be surprised if German finished top 10. That means Smith thought German could go top three. German had a terrible race, and that's that. It happens. I hope next year turns into an epic slamdown between German and Chris Derrick, though. You gotta believe both are pissed about this year, but German's probably a little more ups.
5. Tie: Portland for 3rd and Trevor Dunbar for top frosh - A Portland double-whammy. Portland handily beats Oregon at the Regionals, and then finishes 250 points behind them at NCAAs. They needed better from Betterbed and much much better from their 5th guy. As for Dunbar, he may have been the first 18-year old freshman, as Ahmed is Somalian/Canadian and probably 19-20, Mildenhall is from New Zealand and probably 19-20, and Solomon Haile is like 35. After that it was his teammate Joash Osoro, from Kenya, so I'm guessing 17-28.
So maybe my prediction wasn't that far off in spirit, after all. Boy, I think I'll sleep better, after all. Well, better than Stanford and Jenny Barringer, at least.
Once again the NCAA Cross Country Championships lived up to expectations and provided drama, intrigue, exceptional performances, and a few stinkers. The men's race was won by the favorites, but there were a few unexpected outcomes. The women's race was just plain crazy. I was a little bummed by how it was covered by the broadcasters, but on further review, how do you cover that madness in real time? It was just weird.
Rather than recap the action for you (I'm assuming most people saw it live, and if not, this thread at LetsRun does a better job than I could), I'm going to throw out my top 25 thoughts of the day.
My Favorite Part
I watched the race online and sent text messages with my buddy Mickey throughout the race. Mickey is an Illinois alum, and he was hoping for big things from Angela Bizzarri, their All-American star. I wanted big things for her because I've invested too much of my reputation in telling people she'll be the next runner to make the leap. She did me proud at the USA Nationals, where she took 3rd in the 5000m, and I was predicting a 3rd place finish in Terre Haute.
We both agreed that it would take a highly unlikely turn of events for Bizzarri to beat both Barringer and Kuijken, but Mickey never gave up hope. And as she passed Kuijken with Schaaf in tow, his text messages went to all caps: "YES GO ILLINI!" and "You gotta love the chief." Well, I gotta love Bizzarri running her optimal race, that's for sure.
Watching the NCAA Championships on my own would have been enjoyable. I'm a junkie that way. But watching it with someone, even someone 10 states away and communicating in 160 characters or less, made it all that much more fun.
Top Ten Performances of the Day
1. Sam Chelanga, 1st - It was simply the best performance by a collegiate cross country runner that I've ever seen. People will debate for days whether Rupp would have been able to handle Chelanga today (I think so) but there's no doubt about one thing: Chelanga is far superior to any athlete in the NCAA today. The only chance that anyone had was to do a Kuijken and try to hang there until the very end. Would the results have differed? Probably not. But nobody was running down Chelanga today.
2. Villanova Women, 1st - It's a shame Washington didn't bring their A game, because this race turned into a rout. They got a huge run out of Amanda Marino in 6th, and another solid performance by Sheila Reid in 13th. Where they really dominated was in their three through five runners, though. Villanova placed all five in the top 30, in front of UW's number three. They were so good that even if UW's top runner finished 100 places higher, they still would have lost. It's too bad, however, that their school website ranks their victory as the #2 Top Story behind the men's team's 11th place run...
3. Angela Bizzarri, 1st - What did Angela Bizzarri need to do to win an NCAA title? She needed to win the race within her race, and then hope for some good fortune in the other race ahead of her. She could have messed this up in so many ways. She could have gone with Barringer and Kuijken and tried to hang on. Or she could have made a bold move in the middle of the race to make up the difference on Kuijken. But she didn't. She ran aggressively enough to stay in reach of the lead, but conservatively enough not to get run out of the race by the hot early pace. She ran the best race she could have and amazingly, she's the new national champion.
4. Oregon Men, 2nd - As I jumped on the Stanford bandwagon (you know, the one last seen careening off a cliff at the 3k mark of today's race) I wrote that I wanted to see Stanford win because I "liked seeing Oregon taken down a notch." Well, wouldn't you know it, the Oregon men ran the best team race in the field. When the pressure was on, they rose to the challenge and were well within reach of stealing the title from an OSU team that was less than perfect. Luke Puskedra again led the team with a 21st place finish and they put four in the top 31. It's hard to fault their fifth man, Diego Mercado, as he ran about where many predicted many of them would finish.
5. Allie McLaughlin, 5th - I know there are people out there saying it was the top performance in the field and there's some merit to that, especially given that she held it together after watching her teammate Barringer falter ahead of her. But I just can't help but discount freshman performances on the women's side, since it's essentially the same distance as their high school cross country races. Sure she's still racing against much older and more experienced competition, but the adjustment required just isn't that steep.
6. Colby Lowe, 10th - The success or failure of Oklahoma State rested perhaps more on Colby Lowe than on any other member of the team. Add to that the fact that he was the least experienced, most questionable guy coming in and his 10th place finish is really remarkable. He handled the pressure, he rose to the occasion, and he guaranteed his team a victory by finishing within 2 seconds of team leader Ryan Vail. A fantastic performance.
7. Susan Kuijken, 3rd - In a way, Susan Kuijken proved that she was in a no-win position. Let Jenny Barringer go and she'll probably never catch her. Go out with her at her torrid initial pace and she probably won't be able to maintain it. But she did the only thing she could that would give her a chance at victory, and that was to be a bit reckless and go after Barringer from the gun. She suffered for it, but it was the only way anyone was beating Barringer, and only she could have done it. She ran the right race, just had the wrong day.
8. Dorian Ulrey, 6th - I have a problem with some runners where for some reason, I can't help but underestimate them. Surely my worst case of this is with Leonel Manzano, but Dorian Ulrey is probably in my top five (along with Jen Rhines, Christin Wurth-Thomas, and maybe Josh McAdams). I never thought Ulrey would be on the World Champs team, I never thought he'd advance once he got to Berlin, and I never thought he'd run well at NCAAs today. Well, 6th place convinces me that he's got more than just B+ ability. We could see really big things from him in the spring.
g.9. Oklahoma State Men, 1st - If we ignore all the Stanford hype (that I helped perpetuate, I admit), there was really only one team that should have been considered the favorite, and that was OSU. And they did what they had to do. Outside of Lowe's 10th place finish, I didn't think anyone ran any better than where they should have been. Vail probably sacrificed a couple spots to ensure the team victory, and German and Chirchir ran pretty poorly. But they won. And that's all they needed to do.
10. David McNeill, 2nd - He started off the year a little slowly, but he sure came on strong at the end. His 2nd place finish showed that he is a clutch racer who runs well in the big meets. I kept waiting for Derrick to put in a big surge and shake him off, but then I realized that it was going to be Rupp-McDougall all over again, with Derrick getting outkicked at the end by the older, stronger, and more experienced McNeill.
Top Five Stinkers
1. Stanford Men, 10th place - A team stinker will always outrank an individual stinker and the collective bomb that Stanford dropped makes one wonder if they were flown into Terre Haute on the Enola Gay. I hesitate to play favorites amongst the Stanford runners, but I thought the egg laid by Justin Marpole-Bird was particular sulfurous.
2. Jenny Barringer, 163rd - It's not often that one athlete's performance becomes a saga. Maybe in a basketball game or a football game where there is three hours to watch it unfold. But not in cross country, where there's about 20 minutes between the gun and the finish line. But watching Jenny stagger, and then slow, and then collapse, and then rise, and then trudge on, and then finally kick it in was really an amazing show within the show. Unfortunately, she was favored to win and finished 163rd, and that is still a huge stinker.
3. German Fernandez, 97th - In the interest of calling it straight, let's call German's performance what it was: a big fat stinker. Luckily for OSU, he didn't get any worse, or they would have lost the team title. I can't wait to read what all the posters have to say about him after this performance. Personally, I think it's amazingly coincidental that arguably his two worst races have both happened at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. The build-up for the 2010 NCAA's begins now!
4. Marco Anzures, 249th - (This is where I criticize one of my fellow Bruins, to convince you of my objectivity.) It's hard to show up at the NCAA Championships without your team. It's tough to run the same pace you've run all year and find yourself in the middle of the pack for the first time. It's tough to have your high hopes turn to cow turds early on and to deal with all the negativity and disappointment. But I've seen contestants on The Biggest Loser walk 2k faster than he finished. There's just one thing you can call it: a long slow stinker.
5. Tie: Mike Fout, 186th; Lee Emanuel, 115th; AJ Acosta, 106th - Fout because he beat Derrick, Fernandez, and Lowe at Foot Locker to win the title, and no Foot Locker champion should be lower than 100th. Acosta gets the nod for the same reason, though in his case it includes the fact that a healthy, dominant Acosta would have given the Ducks a victory. And Emanuel because a 3:37 1500m runner should be able to muster a little more than 115th. Might there be context to these performances that would change my mind, a metaphorical Febreze we could spray around these stinkers? Yes, but first impressions tend to linger, and I don't see these ever being confused for roses.
Three Uncomfortable Quotes During the Broadcast
1. Chris Derrick - Hands down my favorite. When asked how it went out there post-race, Derrick said (paraphrasing here): "I don't know what happened, but we bombed." The sideline reporter replied, "I wouldn't call third place a bomb." And Derrick, after sizing up the situation and realizing she was too far away to head butt her, replied coldly, "I was talking about the team." Bam. Loved it.
2. Lewis Johnson - He busted this out while discussing Kendra Schaaf of Washington wanting to be a sprinter when she was young, "You know why you run a mile? Because you can't SPRINT." Ironically, Angela Bizzarri outkicked Schaaf for the win, so Lewis Johnson gets a pass.
3. Sideline reporter - I have to paraphrase this question by the sideline reporter (whose name I don't remember), because I don't have the video in front of me, but it was a classic case of "I have no idea who I'm interviewing so let me just make this dramatic." After David McNeill finished 2nd ahead of "PRE-RACE FAVORITE" Chris Derrick, she asked him, "What made you believe you could be there to the end , that you could defeat the PRE-RACE FAVORITE Chris Derrick?"
I really wanted him to reply, "Well, maybe the fact that I crushed him at 5k last year?" and then just shake his head and walk away, but he has more class than that. He went with the old, "Gotta believe in yourself" line. Oh well.
Three Things I'd Like To See Changed For Next Year
1. Allow the broadcasters to discuss the team race - I know it's not their fault. I know Versus told Larry Rawson and Lewis Johnson that only individuals matter in cross country and they actively denied them the information they needed to have any informed commentary on the team races. I know that Larry Rawson threatened to quit after the race because he just couldn't thrive within the rigid restraints thrust upon him by "the man". And I realize that Jenny Barringer's saga was simply too mesmerizing to cut away from or stop discussing in the women's race. But please, next year, how about some discussion of the team races? How about final scores announced and not just the winners? Heck, even a mention of the fact that there is a team race during the women's competition would be a step up.
2. Have a sideline reporter who lives and breathes the sport - Today's sideline reporter had a lot of qualifications. She was cute. She was chipper. She was comfortable in front of a camera. She was standing where she needed to stand to interview people and not get head butted. But one thing was abundantly clear. She didn't know the sport. It showed in her questions, it showed in her color commentary, and it showed in the way athletes had to pause and try to figure out what she was talking about before answering. Next year, pick a coach, pick someone from Flotrack or LetsRun or RunnerSpace or (ahem) Runner's Tribe, or let fans audition for the role. Trust me, it WON'T hurt your ratings.
3. Women need to run at least 8k - I addressed this a bit in the part about Allie McLaughlin. Let me flesh it out. Personally, I think 6k gives middle distance oriented teams an advantage that the men don't have, and I think an extra 1k more than high school cross country keeps the field too level for the top incoming freshmen. Every year we see top women freshmen come in and finish in the top ten. It's time the women ran closer to 30 minutes than 20 minutes, like the men do. It should be 6k until the conference championships, and then 8k for Regionals and NCAAs. (Please don't go to 10k, though. Waiting for the last women to finish would be tortuous.)
Finally, Five Predictions That Will Haunt My Dreams
1. Stanford winning - I already used my Enola Gay joke. I don't know what else I can say. I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry! (On the plus side, now I have even more reasons to root against Stanford.)
2. Jenny Barringer breaking the record for largest gap at the half-way mark - All the credit here goes to Susan Kuijken, who not only hung onto Barringer, but ran both of them right out of the race as a result.
3. Not including Alabama in my top five teams - I thought about Alabama. I knew about Alabama. But when the time came I wrote Arkansas. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
4. German Fernandez in the top five - Okay, so I was 93 places off on my prediction. But let me explain myself. First, we know he was at least 95%. Dave Smith is a serial sandbagger in interviews and even he was saying he wouldn't be surprised if German finished top 10. That means Smith thought German could go top three. German had a terrible race, and that's that. It happens. I hope next year turns into an epic slamdown between German and Chris Derrick, though. You gotta believe both are pissed about this year, but German's probably a little more ups.
5. Tie: Portland for 3rd and Trevor Dunbar for top frosh - A Portland double-whammy. Portland handily beats Oregon at the Regionals, and then finishes 250 points behind them at NCAAs. They needed better from Betterbed and much much better from their 5th guy. As for Dunbar, he may have been the first 18-year old freshman, as Ahmed is Somalian/Canadian and probably 19-20, Mildenhall is from New Zealand and probably 19-20, and Solomon Haile is like 35. After that it was his teammate Joash Osoro, from Kenya, so I'm guessing 17-28.
So maybe my prediction wasn't that far off in spirit, after all. Boy, I think I'll sleep better, after all. Well, better than Stanford and Jenny Barringer, at least.
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2 comments to "2009 NCAA XC Recap: By Bryan Green"
The only other item that could be interesting to change would be to modify the scoring.... total team time of top 5 instead of placement of top 5. This would ensure that the runners push as hard as possible as every second counts; currently the winner only helps so much with a score of one - it doesn't mater if he/she wins by 1 second or 40 seconds - in the time-sensitive scoring format the 40 seconds would be a huge bonus to the team. The flip side of the argument is that the 6th / 7th runners become non-factors in the scoring whereas currently they can bump other teams' runners. This is ok since I simply see the last two runners as being insurance against one of their team's first five having a bad day.
Loved the commentary. Seriously, I kept thinking they should hire you to be the TV commentator. Or at least those guys should read your blog. Instead the broadcast turned out like, "OK, Chelanga is in the lead...he's still in the lead...he's going to win...done." I'm sure it's harder than it looks, but couldn't they know a little more of the side stories, especially related to teams. And yes, it was extremely disappointing that they didn't announce anything about the team scoring. Anyway, great coverage. If only people knew how exciting this sport truly is when you have people covering it who know what they're talking about.