First Thoughts: Conference XC Craziness & FSU Last Chance

The last weekend of winter cross country action is here! There are so many national qualifying implications that are currently leaving the postseason hopes of certain teams hanging in the balance. Naturally, we wanted to highlight a variety of performances from around the NCAA and analyze what some of these results could mean for the overall national qualifying picture.

Let's get started...

Let's start with the women's race as those results presented less national qualifying complications compared to the men's race.

The Michigan women dominated a fairly light field on Friday, taking the top seven spots and earning a perfect score. The Wolverines tallied a total of 15 points and easily cruised past the South Florida women. In total, Michigan had nine women in the top-10.

When it comes to the Wolverines' lineup structure, we were lucky enough to see Ericka VanderLende and Katelynne Hart toe the line, but the ongoing absences of Camille Davre and Anne Forsyth is a fairly significant development.

 Both Davre and Forsyth were All-American-caliber distance runners during the 2018 cross country season. However, they were largely non-factors (and even absent) during the fall of 2019. We were unsure if we would even see those two talents race this winter, so it's not a total shock that they didn't toe the line on Friday.

With those two women out of the equation, we're not entirely sure that the Michigan women are podium contenders like we thought they could be during the summers months. But let's forget about where the Michigan could finish at the national meet. When it comes to qualifying for the NCAA XC Championships, what is their argument?

The Michigan men and women were unable to race at the BIG 10 XC Championships due to more stringent COVID-19 protocols put in place by the University of Michigan. However, the BIG 10 did grant the Wolverines one more competitive opportunity this season, which they opted to take at the Florida State Winter XC Last Chance meet.

But with no other results to compare to, the Michigan women only have one dominant win over a fairly unexciting field this season. Surely the NCAA selection committee will realize that ladies from Ann Arbor are a national qualifying program and won't hold their lack of competition against them...right?

And the mens race? Well, that's even more complicated.

In what was one of the more surprising results of the entire season, the Syracuse men stepped up in a big way and took home an upset win over Michigan.

Joe Dragon had a huge day, earning a clutch 2nd place finish while teammate JP Trojan finally put together a top finish in a competitive field, placing 5th overall. However, the more important aspect of this Syracuse lineup was their backend. Their final few scorers haven't been super reliable this year, but they certainly were during Friday's race.

Silas Derfel (7th), Alex Comerford (8th) and Matthew Scrape (9th) quickly closed out the team scoring for the Orange. In fact, those three backend scorers all finished ahead of Michigan's three backend scorers.

In the end, Syracuse tallied a score of 31 points, beating the Michigan men who scored 42 points. Truthfully, the Wolverines didn't run poorly and they actually mimicked the lineup structure that we saw from the Orange in this race. The only difference is that each of Michigan's scorers were just one, two or three spots behind Syracuse's respective scorers.

Devin Meyrer, for instance, was Michigan's top scorer with a 3rd place finish, but was one spot behind Joe Dragon. Joost Plaetinck was Michigan's second scorer with a 6th place result, but was one spot behind JP Trojan.

Tom Brady (10th), Nick Foster (11th) and Jacob Lee (12th) didn't run poorly, but the aforementioned Syracuse trio of Derfel, Comerford and Scrape all finished ahead of that group.

In the end, when you compare each Syracuse scorer to each Michigan scorer, the Orange were simply better. There wasn't one portion of either lineup that dramatically swung the team results one way or the other.

As for Florida State, they held their own with Adriaan Wildschutt (1st) and Muhumed Ahmed (4th), but their backend scorers just weren't able to match the depth of Syracuse or Michigan as Holmes, Field and Stafford finished 13-15-16 in the overall results.

So what does this mean from a national qualifying perspective? Did Syracuse just save their postseason hopes? Is Michigan in jeopardy of not going to Stillwater for the NCAA XC Championships? Truthfully, it's tough to say.

Syracuse has been largely unimpressive in cross country, both in the fall and in the winter. They finished an unexciting 6th place at the ACC XC Championships and that's going to be the race that holds the most weight in the eyes of the NCAA selection committee. Syracuse also faltered at the FSU Winter XC Classic, falling to 8th place overall and finishing one spot behind an unexciting Florida State team.

Yes, the Orange did come away with a big win on Friday, but is beating Michigan really going to be enough? If I had to guess, I would say probably not, although the Orange did beat Southern Utah earlier this year and the Thunderbirds just took down a limited Northern Arizona team at the BIG Sky Championships. Maybe that will help Syracuse's national meet chances, although, if we're being honest, I doubt that it will.

As for Michigan, this was the only cross country race of the year for them, but they ended up losing to a Syracuse team that just hasn't been great in any of their cross country efforts.

Michigan only has one result this year and it was a loss to a team that hasn't been running well. As for Syracuse, they took home a clutch win, but with Michigan not having done anything else this winter, it's going to be hard for the NCAA selection committee to say that Syracuse's most recent win holds much weight.

My goodness was this women's race crazy. Coming into this season, we viewed Villanova and Butler as the two main teams to watch in this conference along. We viewed Georgetown as potential outside contenders.

However, the BIG East XC Championships forced us to completely reevaluate our the hierarchy of cross country teams in this conference.

Both the Villanova women and the Butler women struggled quite a bit during Friday's race. The Wildcats faltered to 5th place overall, fielding a lineup that was missing key scorer Maggie Smith from their 2019 national qualifying team. However, even if Smith was in that varsity group, Villanova still would have been too far back to contend for a top finish.
 

Similarly, Butler finished 4th overall. They also had plenty of their scorers from last year's lineup, but top scorer Emily Royston fell all the way back to 44th place on Friday. If the Bulldogs were going to have success on this stage, she needed to be at her best. Still, even if she came home with the individual title, Butler wasn't going to challenge Georgetown or UConn.

Providence held their own with a 3rd place finish, but that wasn't too surprising. They had a super young team last year and it was only natural that they would make improvements with a year and a half of training under their belts. They're still a year away from contending for a conference title, but this was a big step in the right direction.

And now for the top-two teams. Georgetown and UConn faced off earlier this season at the Spider Patriot XC Classic. In that race, the Hoyas and Huskies actually tied at 42 points, although the tie-breaker eventually gave Georgetown the win.

Truthfully, that regular season race was difficult to gauge. We knew that UConn had a respectable team, but we didn't expect them to contend for a BIG East title. We also had concerns about Georgetown after an unexciting 2019 cross country season, so we didn't put too much stock into that 42-point tie.

However, overlooking those two teams turned out to be a mistake. At the BIG East XC Championships, it was the Hoyas once again edging the Huskies, 46 points to 48 points.

Sami Corman (1st) and Maggie Donahue (2nd) gave Georgetown a lethal 1-2 punch, but Connecticut responded by placing their top four scorers in between Georgetown's top two and bottom three.

UConn's Randi Burr, Jenna Zydanowicz, Danielle Jordan and Mia Nahom finished 5-6-7-9, respectively. That pack running nearly gave the Huskies the edge, but their fifth scorer fell all the way back to 21st place. That allowed Georgetown to get their final three scorers across the line (13-14-16) which was just enough to win the BIG East title.

In theory, that victory should be enough to get Georgetown a spot to the NCAA XC Championships. The BIG East was far deeper than we expected it to be this year and the UConn women are much better than some people (including myself) originally thought.

While I would certainly love to see the UConn women going to Stillwater, I'm not sure they have enough notable wins for the NCAA selection committee to give them a bid.

The men's race at the BIG East XC Championships was truthfully not as tight as we were expecting it to be. You can thank the Butler men for that as they convincingly took home a win with a score of 35 points, validating suspicions that their offseason additions were going to be enough to give them the conference title.

Barry Keane and Simon Bedard finishing 2nd and 3rd, respectively, was truthfully not much of a surprise. If you've tracked their results over the past few seasons, then you'd know that they have been emerging as some of the better distance talents in the NCAA. We didn't have them listed in our Top 50 rankings, but that was more because we haven't seen them race on the grass in a very long time.

However, the true big-time performances came from Eastern Kentucky graduate transfer Remi Shyns (who finished 5th) and Simon Fraser transfer Pierre-Louis Detourbe (who finished 9th). Those two simply gave Butler too much scoring potency and depth. In fact, no other team in the field had more than two runners in the top-10 of this race.

Now, we should mention that Butler's fifth scorer did drop to 16th place overall. That's a potential vulnerability that we'll have to watch at the NCAA XC Championships as the Bulldogs' team score could see some unnecessary point accumulation at their backend of their lineup.

Georgetown finished 2nd overall, scoring 52 points, but their scoring potency was a bit limited. In a smaller field like this, their depth and pack running, which produced finishes of 6-10-11-12-13, just didn't give them a scoring spark to be competitive with Butler.

As for the Villanova men, they were a team that finished 3rd overall with 54 points, relying more on the scoring potency of their top two runners. Haftu Strintzos looked incredible, taking the overall win, while Josh Phillips posted a respectable 7th place finish. However, with their final three scorers finishing 14-15-17, that gap became too big to overcome.

I'd like to offer more analysis, but I'm not sure there is much more to say. Butler, Georgetown and Villanova were the three teams that we knew would be in the mix during this race and for the most part, we were right. Yes, the Bulldogs had a more convincing victory than we expected, we still weren't totally shocked by these results.

You didn't have to do much fancy analysis to know how this women's race was going to play out. New Mexico dominated with a team score of only 29 points while the Boise State women were a distant runner-up with 54 points.

The Lobos crowded the top-10 with all five of their scorers as Cohen (2nd), Mazza-Downie (4th), Larkin (6th), Engesaeth (7th) and Kostarellis (10th) simply overwhelmed the rest of the field.

Depth continues to be New Mexico's greatest strength this season, but I'm not sure this result told us anything that we didn't already know. The Lobos had their entire top-seven in the top-15 spots of this race and their backend runners were better than most supporting scorers from other teams.

As for Boise State, they soundly beat a respectable (and underrated) Colorado State team by 32 points. Tyler Beling (3rd) continues to be great and Olivia Johnston (5th) is emerging as a true low-stick rather than just a capable secondary scorer.

The rest of Boise State's scoring group (Borba, Geisler and Parle) finished 12-14-18. That gap between the Broncos' top-two and bottom-three scorers isn't ideal, but when you review their results from earlier in the season, that's basically what their lineup structure has looked like this winter.

Let's talk about the Air Force women. They faltered to 5th in the team standings despite Mahala Norris taking home the individual crown. What happened to this team? They lost one or two key scorers from last year's national qualifying squad, but their latest effort was just flat-out bad.

Mikayala Gallagher was a (deep) sleeper All-American pick coming into this school year, but she dropped all the way back to 77th place in this race. Teammate Jenna Kill seemed like a respectable talent during the 2019 season who was primed for a big improvement. However, she was only 46th during Friday's race.

And where was Maria Mettler this season? After an incredible 10k effort on the track this past December, she looked like one of the best distance runners in the NCAA. Instead, she has been absent from competition.

This may have been one of the best races of the entire weekend. The Air Force men took home a narrow win over a talented (and accomplished) Utah State team on Friday, scoring 29 points to the Aggies 34 points.

Utah State looked like they were going to be the victors after the first four men crossed the line. USU's Caleb Garnica took down Air Force's Sam Gilman in a thrilling finish while teammates Camren Todd and Haydon Cooper finished 3rd and 4th, respectively.

However, that firepower wasn't enough to hold off the Falcons. The Air Force men proceeded to take spots 5-6-7-9 while Utah State's last two runners finished 8th and 17th.

That final scorer for the Aggies is ultimately what gave Air Force enough of a cushion to take home the five-point victory. The Falcons simply had a more complete top-five and even had a better top-seven with their entire varsity group finishing inside the top-13.

This was a massive win for Air Force as it may have solidified their spot to the NCAA XC Championships. They had finished a very respectable 5th place at the Silver State XC Challenge earlier this winter, but they didn't beat any teams in that race that would have made the Falcons worthy of a national qualifying spot.

That's why it was so crucial that they left the Mountain West XC Championships with a win. The Utah State men have been incredibly strong this season. They beat Southern Utah early in the season (a team that just won the BIG Sky title over Northern Arizona) and took down some top-ranked teams at the FSU Winter XC Classic.

With Air Force earning a key win over the Aggies, it's hard to argue that the Falcons don't deserve to be in Stillwater.

Before we jump into this, I just want to briefly give a shoutout to fellow writer Sam Ivanecky. He predicted that the top five women's teams at the PAC-12 Championships were going to be Stanford-Colorado-Washington-Oregon State-Utah, in that order. Instead, the results read Stanford-Colorado-Washington-Oregon State-Washington State, with the Utah women just a single point behind the WSU women.

Ok, now for the actual race analysis.

This was a huge day for Stanford. They proved that their scoring potency could carry them to a major won and their depth looked MUCH better than it has been all season long. Donaghu, Dudek and Heymach were excellent, finishing 2-3-4 in the final results while Jessica Lawson continues to close the gap between her and that top-three, finishing 9th in Friday's race.

However, the biggest scoring hero for Stanford has to be Christina Aragon. She was the fifth runner to cross the line for the Cardinal, earning a super clutch 12th place finish which gave Stanford 30 points, the PAC-12 title and a 20-point margin of victory over Colorado.

Not only that, but freshman Lucy Jenks earned an incredibly clutch 17th place finish of her own. Even if Aragon wasn't available to race, Jenks still would have done enough to close out the scoring and give her team a comfortable win.

With so many backend issues plaguing the Stanford women this winter, they needed to make a crucial fix to keep them competitive and in the hunt for the national title. Sure enough, they found that fix in Aragon, the 2016 cross country All-American who hadn't run on the grass since the fall of 2019.

Aragon has battled injuries and inconsistencies throughout her entire career. She was racing on the indoor oval this season, but was pulled into this cross country lineup when she was needed the most.

If Aragon is going to run like that at the NCAA XC Championships, then Stanford's national title hopes seem to be more realistic than they were a few weeks ago.

Colorado ran well, but in this kind of field, they simply needed more firepower. McArthur, Nichols and Boreman finished 5-8-10 while Degenero and Covert rounded out the scoring with 11th and 16th place finishes.

Overall, the Buffaloes essentially ran exactly how we thought they would. They had a very strong and complete top-five, boasting extensive depth and not really showing any weaknesses.

However, their group as a whole just didn't have the firepower to match what we saw out of Stanford. In a larger field like the FSU Winter XC Classic, it made sense why Colorado was able to take advantage of Stanford's gaps and why the Buffaloes pulled off the upset. Of course, the PAC-12 Championships was a much more top-heavy field and that's likely why Colorado's depth didn't have as much of an impact.

Finally, let's talk about Washington. I can't believe I'm saying this but...should the Huskies be worried about not making it to the NCAA XC Championships this year? Haley Herberg took home a surprising upset win on the individual side of things, but Naomi Smith was the only other Washington runner to finish inside the top-20 of this race. As a result, the Washington women fell to 3rd place in the team standings.

Of course, if we knew about the absences of certain individuals, then we wouldn't have had such high expectations for the Huskies. We didn't see Chiotti, we didn't see Schadler, we didn't see Smart and we didn't see McCulloch. For whatever reason, it looks the Washington women simply didn't run their best lineup.

This is a bit of a surprise. Schadler is expected to make some serious noise on the indoor oval, but where is everyone else? Why was this Washington lineup so thin on scoring? Right now, the Huskies don't have any marquee wins over teams that will be going to the NCAA Championships.

In other words, there's a very real possibility that the women from Seattle will not be chosen by the NCAA selection committee to go to Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Well, it's basically official at this point. With Teare, Hocker and Hunter sitting on the sidelines for the PAC-12 XC Championships, the Ducks have put their entire focus on the indoor national meet. Without those scorers, the Oregon men finished 4th at the PAC-12 XC Championships.

While that result may not seem like a big deal, it actually has somewhat substantial repercussions for the Portland men.

The Pilots beat an Oregon "B" team earlier in the season. If the Oregon men had earned a top finish at the PAC-12 Championships and were eventually selected to go to Nationals, then the Pilots would have had an argument that they belong in Stillwater despite finishing 3rd at the West Coast Conference XC Championships behind BYU and Gonzaga.

Why? Because Portland could then argue that they beat the Ducks earlier in the season (albeit, against a handful of non-varsity runners). And since the NCAA selection committee isn't differentiating between "A" teams and "B" teams, Portland would have had a good point.

However, with a win over Oregon no longer holding much weight, it looks like the Pilots could actually be in jeopardy of not qualifying for the NCAA XC Championships this year.

But let's focus on the actual results of the PAC-12 Championships instead of national qualifying theoreticals.

To no one's surprise, the Stanford men were victorious in a dominant effort. The Cardinal were just flat-out better than their opponents, taking five of the top-nine spots and seven of the top-15. Charles Hicks continues to be a rising star with his 2nd place finish while Cole Sprout (4th) and Alek Parsons (5th) gave the Cardinal lethal firepower that couldn't be matched by any other program.

However, the real surprise was seeing Ky Robinson come out of nowhere for an 8th place finish while teammate Callum Bolger had one of the better races of his collegiate career by placing 9th. Together, Robinson and Bolger quickly closed out Stanford's scoring, giving their team a statement victory and the PAC-12 crown.

As for Colorado and Washington, the team scores were understandably tight, although the Buffaloes got the better of the Huskies, 60 points to 66 points.

Eduardo Herrera taking home the individual win was huge, but largely not surprising. He turned out to be the difference maker and the main reason why the Buffaloes edged the Huskies.

In fact, if you take the last four scorers for Colorado and the last four scorers for Washington, you'll find that each group of four scored exactly 59 points. The only difference is that Herrera was six spots ahead of Washington's top scorer Isaac Green (7th) and that's what gave Colorado the six-point gap.

Unlike their women's team, the Washington men still have a great argument that they deserve to go to the National Championships. They did, after all, beat ACC champions Notre Dame and Mountain West champions Air Force at the Silver State XC Challenge earlier this season.