First Thoughts: Battle Born XC Challenge

The Battle Born XC Challenge in Las Vegas gave us a ton to talk about with so many elite-level programs toeing the line on Friday. Here were our First Thoughts on all of the crazy cross country action that just went down...

It's truthfully not much of a surprise that the Northern Arizona men dominated their competition on Friday, clearing 2nd place Stanford by 28 points and 3rd place Colorado by 50 points.

On paper, the Lumberjacks had the better top-five and the better firepower coming into this race. Sure enough, that was evident in the results.

Abdi Nur was the surprise individual winner in this race, just edging teammate Nico Young. While most people (like myself) weren't necessarily expecting Nur to take home the overall win, it's not like he's a new name who just came out of nowhere. He ran 28:11 for 10,000 meters back in December and has been a name on the rise for the past few seasons.

Am I surprised that Nur won? Yes. Should we act like he wasn't a top low-stick scorer prior to this race? No, because he most certainly was.

Meanwhile, Luis Grijalva, in his first race back since December, settled for a 4th place finish. That was a fairly unexpected result as most knowledgable fans were probably expecting the NAU veteran to earn the top spot in this winter cross country battle. We're not looking too heavily into this result, but it has forced us to reevaluate who the individual national title favorite may be come March.

With Blaise Ferro (5th) continuing to put together the best regular season of cross country in his career and Brodey Hasty (8th) rebounding in a big way after a poor performance at the Silver State XC Challenge, the Lumberjacks simply overwhelmed the top of this race with raw talent that other teams just simply didn't have.

Now, we should note that Northern Arizona's sixth runner (Cade Burks) finished 24th overall while their seventh runner (Aldo Marquez) finished 35th overall. Those aren't bad performances by any means, but if one person in that top-five were to have a poor race, then NAU's team score would have been much closer with Stanford's.

In fairness to Northern Arizona, they didn't have Drew Bosley, Theo Quax or Corey Gorgas in this race. That contingent of runners should give the men from Flagstaff a little more scoring security when they return to this lineup...but when will that be?

There are plenty of weapons on this Northern Arizona roster, but in order to feel safe about their title chances against BYU, they need to start actually showing depth in the results.

I wish we could offer more analysis, but when we look at the results from the Stanford men and Colorado men, they largely matched what we expected out of them.

The Cardinal weren't able to match the elite scoring potency that NAU brought to this race, so they simply packed up and basically took most of the points following the Lumberjack's top five. Charles Hicks was Stanford's top runner with a 6th place result, but the rest of his teammates weren't all that far behind, finishing 9th (Sprout), 10th (Hart), 11th (Principe) and 12th (Parsons).

On paper, you have to be impressed by the Cardinal men. They weren't able to emulate the same lineup structure that we saw from them at the FSU Winter XC Classic a few weeks ago, so they simply packed together and didn't let any backend scorers from other teams infiltrate their varsity group.

In fact, the Stanford men actually had their entire top-seven across the line before NAU had their sixth runner cross the line. Those final two runners for Stanford included Michael Vernau and Callum Bolger.

That 2nd place finish may have been what we expected out of them, but the men from Palo Alto did show us that they could have success against top cross country teams in a variety of different ways. They likely have one of the deeper distance rosters in the NCAA.

As for Colorado, there's not a whole to say here. Eduardo Herrera was great (3rd) and Hornecker (7th) has continued to be that secondary low-stick for the Buffaloes.

However, without front-runner Kashon Harrison and Mississippi State graduate transfer Stephen Jones, the scoring drop-off between Colorado's top-two and bottom-three scorers has simply stalled their ability to compete with the Stanford's of the world.

Austin Vancil (16th), Hunter Appleton (17th) and Jace Aschbrenner (27th) weren't exactly bad, but their youth and inexperience in these top-heavy fields simply leaves the Buffaloes lacking backend scoring.

Colorado will remain competitive and have the potential to be better in the future, especially if Harrison returns. Still, we've been left wanting a little more from this team in their past two races.

We thought that the battle for 4th place had the potential to be tighter than it actually was. However, with the Washington State men opting not to run, this gave Southern Utah a greater chance to standout -- which is exactly what happened.

We knew that the Thunderbirds had a few respectable pieces that they could use to construct a competitive lineup. They were seemingly one or two scorers away from accomplishing that in 2019 and this winter, it looks they have all of the necessary runners to at least argue for a spot to the NCAA XC Championships in March.

When it comes to firepower, Southern Utah was simply not going to match the scoring that we saw out of Northern Arizona, Stanford and Colorado. They did, however, boast a lineup that was better than most of the teams in this field and that was obvious by their convincing 4th place finish.

We never really know what order Southern Utah's top-five will finish a race in as most of their scorers are interchangeable. This week, it was Stefen Rasmussen earning a 15th place finish to lead the team. Veterans Nate Osterstock (19th) and Aidan Reed (20th) rounded out the top-three.

Backend scorers Santiago Gaitan (26th) and Travis Feeny (32nd) saw some separation from that scoring trio, but not so much that it left the Thunderbirds vulnerable to an upset as the 5th place Boise State men finished 42 points behind.

Not only that, but Christian Ricketts finished 50th overall in this race. We think he can be much better than that as shown by his past results. Truthfully, it's nice to know that Southern Utah can still come out with a promising finish despite one of their veterans not having his best day.

The loss of superstar Weini Kelati from New Mexico's roster was obviously a big one, but I don't think people realize just how strong women like Hannah Nuttall and Ednah Kurgat were for this team during the 2019 cross country season.

At the 2019 NCAA XC Championships, the Kelati-Kurgat-Nuttall trio finished 1-9-35 in the overall results, meaning that the Lobos are now without three All-Americans from their podium lineup. And let's not forget, that New Mexico team wasn't exactly known for having great depth.

That's why it was entirely understandable if people had concerns and questions about how competitive this historically strong program was going to be this winter. Sure, they brought back Adva Cohen and added a handful of talented new names during the offseason, but to see this team come out and convincingly take home the team victory over Stanford was quite the surprise.

A 6th place finish from Adva Cohen and a (pleasantly surprising) 10th place finish from Gracelyn Larkin were encouraging results for New Mexico. However, compared to the 1-2 finish from Stanford or the 4-7 finish from Boise State, the Lobos didn't exactly have the firepower that a few other teams did.

That, of course, is what makes their team victory so unique.

Over the past few years, the New Mexico women have often relied on their low-sticks and key front-runners to get them past some of the top teams in the nation. And for the most part, it worked!

That, however, is not the same story during this winter cross country season. Instead, it was the Lobos' depth that crowded and overwhelmed the backend of multiple opposing lineups. The Lobos newest scoring weapons, Amelia Mazza-Downie (12th), Anna Kostarellis (15th) and Andrea Engesaeth (17th) gave New Mexico five women across the line before Stanford even had four.

Now, admittedly, there was a bit of a drop-off for New Mexico after that group of five. Still, this is an entirely new team than the one that we saw almost a year and a half ago. Cohen is translating her track success to the grass, Larkin is emerging as the top scorer that we knew she could be and the numerous new names in this lineup have given the Lobos some much needed depth.

Not only that, but we didn't even see Southern Methodist graduate transfer Hannah Miller toe the line. She's just one more piece who could have given this New Mexico team yet another scoring option during Friday's race.

Kudos to Coach Joe Franklin who has been relentless in his construction of podium contending (and title contending) lineups.

Truthfully, I thought Stanford's upset loss to the Colorado Buffaloes at the FSU Winter XC Classic was a fluke. A few of their top names didn't run well and they likely could have utilized a few other runners at the backend of their lineup. They had great firepower, but their depth was what ultimately left them vulnerable to that loss.

That, however, turned out to be no fluke. In fact, we saw almost the exact same thing happen this past in Las Vegas as we did in Tallahassee.

Ella Donaghu and freshman Zofia Dudek finished 1-2, during Friday's race, emerging as the superstars that we were expecting them to be. It also wasn't a surprise to see Julia Heymach finish 13th overall after finishing 10th in her last race.

Through three runners, things seemed to be largely the same for Stanford. That, however, wasn't necessarily a good thing. Jessica Lawson, who placed 32nd at the FSU Winter XC Classic, was slightly better in her second race of the season, but wasn't able to manage a result better than 21st place.

For someone who finished 11th at the NCAA XC Championships in 2019, this recent result wasn't a great sign. However, even if Lawson was at her best, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference in the order of the final results.

Freshman Lucy Jenks was the team's fifth scorer and finished 49th overall, leaving a massive gap within Stanford's scoring five, thus giving New Mexico their 28-point cushion.

At the end of the day, the Cardinal have enough firepower and All-American candidates to be in the title conversation. Even so, there are significant gaps at the backend of this lineup and that is causing Stanford's team score to inflate in these regular season meets.

The women from Palo Alto are a talented group, but they'll need a better race from Connolly, the return of Jordan Oakes, a reemergence from Aubrey Roberts or a national meet repeat from Abi Archer to keep Stanford in the national title conversation.

The 3rd place team (Northern Arizona), the 4th place team (Boise State) and the 5th place team (Colorado) finished with 100 points, 101 points and 102 points, respectively. Other than a tie-breaker, you can't get much closer than that.

Let's talk about Northern Arizona and Boise State before we get to the Buffaloes.

At the Silver State XC Challenge, the Broncos were able to get the best of the Lumberjacks by only three points in a much smaller and less top-heavy field. However, those roles were reversed on Friday despite both lineups looking largely the same as their last meet.

When comparing the first two scorers, Boise State got the edge with Tyler Beling continuing her grand introduction to the rest of the NCAA with a 4th place finish while teammate Olivia Johnson secured yet another 7th place result.

Northern Arizona's Taryn O'Neill (3rd) was the top finisher between these two teams, but with Jessa Hanson still not in the lineup, the Lumberjacks were left with Delaney Rasmussen (16th) as their secondary scorer.

The rest of Boise State's lineup finished 29-30-31 in the team scoring while the rest of Northern Arizona's lineup finished 22-27-32. Despite the Broncos having the better firepower, the Lumberjacks were able to make up enough ground at the backend of this lineup, owning the better first scorer, third scorer and fourth scorer.

The finish between these two teams could have gone either way. Boise State had a few women who probably could have posted better results and Northern Arizona was without Jessa Hanson who could give the women from Flagstaff a bit of a spark at the front of their lineup.

The Buffaloes were the talk of the NCAA a few weeks ago after they stunned Stanford with an impressive balance of front-running scoring and extensive depth. They were the most complete team at the FSU Winter XC Classic and we didn't have any reason to think that they wouldn't be able to accomplish that again.

Of course, life doesn't always go as planned.

The Buffaloes faltered to a shocking 5th place overall this past Friday, finishing just one point behind Boise State and just two points behind Northern Arizona.

Now, before everyone freaks out and tries to reevaluate Colorado's spot in the NCAA, we should probably preface his portion of the article with the fact that Rachel McArthur didn't race on Friday.

We're not sure why she was absent from this race, but she was a massive reason why the Buffaloes had so much success just a few weeks ago. If she had run in Las Vegas and replicated her 5th place finish from the FSU Winter XC Classic, then we would probably be talking about a Colorado team that took down Stanford for the second time this season.

Abby Nichols had a performance that was more indicative of her 41st place finish at the 2019 cross country national meet. The recent Ohio State graduate transfer finished 9th overall and was the team's top scorer.

Meanwhile, Madison Boreman placed 19th overall after coming off of a win in the "Gold" race at the FSU Winter XC Classic a few weeks back. Fellow teammates such as Elizabeth Constien (23rd), Micaela Degenero (24th), Emily Covert (28th), Annie Hill (33rd), Kaitlyn Barthell (37th) didn't exactly have bad races, but you could argue that they all had the potential to run better than they actually did.

It may be easy to panic after seeing the Colorado women finish 5th overall, but that's only necessary if McArthur doesn't return to this lineup in the postseason.

Personally, I was very high on the Washington women this year. I felt like they had a ton of experience, had numerous women stepping into low-stick roles, brought in a handful of accomplished distance talents and simply had the historical depth to be one of the better teams in this field.

However, that only matters if you actually enter most (or all) of your top talents, which wasn't the case for Washington during Friday's race. Despite being shown in the entries, we didn't see star low-stick Melany Smart toe the line. She was kept out of competition along with a handful of other key teammates such as Taylor Chiotti, Shona McCulloch and Kirstie Rae (which was expected).

For the most part, those absences would explain the drop-off that we saw in the second-half of the Huskies' varsity lineup during Friday's race.

Naomi Smith (14th), Allie Schadler (18th) and Haley Herberg (20th) kept the Washington women fairly competitive through three runners, but backend finishes of 39-41-46-63 caused their team score to balloon to 132 points, 30 points out from Colorado.

Yes, Washington could have been a much more competitive team if they actually fielded certain women, but I also thought that Smith, Schadler and Herberg could have been better as well. in theory, all three of those women should have been in the top-15 and based on her recent performances, Schadler was likely primed to finish in the top-10.

We do have to give the women from Seattle a little bit of slack considering how many key scorers they were without, but we did think that they could have been better even without a few of those names.