First Thoughts: The "Track Meet"

In what may have been one of the most exciting meets of the entire year, the "Track Meet" gave us a handful of thrilling races and numerous jaw-dropping results. While we certainly can't mention everyone (no matter how much we want to), there are still plenty of headlines and major takeaways that we wanted to discuss...

I'll be honest. The fact that Grijalva and Teare ran 13:16 and 13:17, respectively, doesn't exactly surprise me. If you had told me that those two would run that fast prior to this weekend, I wouldn't have argued.

Is that easier to say in retrospect? Yes.

Are those marks still wildly impressive? Also yes.

After seeing these two men have such dominant indoor track seasons last winter and recently throw down ultra-fast marks in the 3000 meters, running under 13:20 for 5000 meters on an outdoor track seemed reasonable.

It feels like this pair of times officially puts both Grijalva and Teare into an all-time great tier, at least for this era of distance runners. Admittedly, the lack of national titles and the limited All-American honors (specifically for Grijalva) makes it difficult to gauge where these two currently stand among the best of the best.

Regardless, both of these men could have won national titles either last winter, last spring or this past fall had the NCAA Championships not been cancelled. It wouldn't be fair to criticize their national title count in a time where a pandemic has made competitive opportunities borderline nonexistent.

All that we can measure right now is times, and based on just that, both of these men have proven to be among some of the NCAA's greatest distance talents.

And who knows? As these two men attempt to secure as many NCAA gold medals as they can before their time in college ends, this may have been the start of a Grijalva vs Teare rivalry which is only in the embryonic stages.

The women's 10k was loaded with a handful of top talents. Between Elly Henes, Katie Izzo, Fiona O'Keeffe and numerous others, fans of the NCAA were surely in store for an established collegiate star to drop a wicked-fast time.

However, the top woman who walked away with the fastest collegiate 10k time of the weekend wasn't Henes, Izzo or O'Keeffe. Instead, it was Maria Mettler. The Air Force ace dropped a time of 32:09 for 10,000 meters to emerge as the fastest collegiate of the entire meet, winning the slower section of the women's 10k.

Mettler has been a highly accomplished collegiate distance runner who has secured an All-American finish in cross country and who qualified for the NCAA Championships last winter. However, running a time as fast as 32:09 tell us two things.

The first thing it tells us is that Mettler has been able to sustain her success from last year and has carried over her momentum into this year despite most competitive opportunities being cancelled over the past nine months.

The second thing her performance tells us is that Mettler has now risen to a new tier in the NCAA where she is truly one of the nation's best individuals, not just a talented All-American who is a great front-runner for her team.

For perspective, Mettler's 10k time would have put her just 0.27 seconds behind Weini Kelati at NCAA #4 in the TFRRS descending order list during the 2019 spring track season. In fact, over the last three full outdoor track seasons (2017, 2018, 2019), only six women have run faster than Mettler did this past weekend. That includes results from regional and national meets which aren't shown in TFRRS seasonal rankings.

A ton of underrated women such Jeralyn Poe (Northern Arizona) and Devin Clark (Arkansas) also ran some very impressive times this past weekend. However, Mettler was able to elevate herself into the NCAA's upper-echelon of 10k greats with her performance.

We knew coming into this weekend that Cooper Teare and Luis Grijalva were talented and that they were going to run something fast. That wasn't a secret.

However, rumors that 19-year old Cole Hocker and veteran Charlie Hunter had run 7:45 and 7:50 (respectively) during a 3k time trial in November was what really peaked our interest coming into this meet. Would they be able to validate their supposed newfound fitness at a nationally competitive invitational?

Generally speaking, yes, they would.

In what may have been the most impressive performance of the entire weekend (relatively speaking), Oregon sophomore Cole Hocker dropped a huge time of 13:32 for 5000 meters, barely losing to Olympic champion Matt Centrowitz by 0.03 seconds. Charlie Hunter, meanwhile, posted a respectable time of his own, running a personal best of 13:57.

For Oregon, the emergence of Cole Hocker as a true collegiate star, along with the extremely encouraging progress of Charlie Hunter, should make Ducks fans extremely excited about what's to come.

With Cincinnati ace Aaron Bienenfeld set to join this program in the fall of 2021 and many of these Oregon athletes expected to return next year, the men from Eugene are poised to become a serious problem for many of the NCAA's best varsity squads.

The Washington women were a top-ranked team during the 2019 cross country season. The Huskies had an impressive regular season and were picked by many of TSR's contributors to earn a podium spot at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute.

Unfortunately for the Washington women, that didn't happen.

Fast forward to this summer and the Huskies were still expected to be a highly-competitive, nationally-ranked team (if a normal cross country season were to happen). However, the most glaring aspect of their projected 2020 cross country lineup was that they no longer had Katie Rainsberger, one of their top All-American veterans who has since run out of XC eligibility.

Who was going to replace Rainsberger's scoring potency? Who was going to flank star youngster Melany Smart at the top of this lineup?

The answer to those questions may be Allie Schadler who has been on absolute fire over the last month. The Washington veteran recently ran a mile PR of 4:33 in a time trial back in November before toeing the line in California this past weekend for the 5000 meters. In the second-fastest women's heat, Schadler took home the overall victory with an outstanding time of 15:33.

Schadler was a name who was listed in our "Just Missed" category this past summer as we were crafting our preseason individual cross country rankings. However, it seems fair to say that Schadler has made a massive improvement in her overall fitness since then.

With teammate Haley Herberg also beginning to find her groove (running a 5k PR of 15:40 this past weekend) and a plethora of other talents posting some fast marks as well, the Washington women may actually be better than they were last year.

After failing to get on the podium last fall, the Huskies may have a chance redeem themselves and battle for a top-four spot at the NCAA XC Championships in March (if a winter cross country season actually happens).

When glancing through the results, it may be easy to overlook how much success the Wisconsin men had this past weekend. Jackson Sharp was able to win his 5k heat with a time of 13:44 while teammate Jack Meijer also ran a time of 13:44 in the next-fastest heat.

Not only that, but Shuaib Aljabaly ended up running 29:06 in the men's 10,000 meters the night after Sharp and Meijer toed the line.

That is a very impressive trio of performances which suggests that the Badgers will have plenty of firepower at the top of their cross country lineup whenever they return to competition. This also a program that often produces impressive depth and it doesn't hurt that they brought in one of the best distance recruiting classes in the country this past year.

Despite losing NCAA superstars Morgan McDonald and Oliver Hoare in back-to-back years (along with Ben Eidenschink, one of their top 2019 scorers), the Wisconsin men don't appear to look that much weaker than they were last year, at least not after seeing their performances from this past weekend.

We still need to see the Badgers translate their success from the track to the grass and produce those kind of results on a consistent basis. Still, this was a very encouraging weekend for the men from Madison, Wisconsin.

Mick Byrne continues to display (and sustain) his coaching excellence.

The Flanagan sisters, Eilish and Roisin, were the only collegiates who could be found in the fastest heat of the women's 5000 meters on Friday. While they may not have ended the weekend as the fastest collegiate women, they still posted some extremely impressive times.

The Adams State veterans went on to post marks of 15:38 (Roisin) and 15:40 (Eilish), times that easily surpass the previous Northern Island 5k national record. It's been a while since we've seen either of these women race, but the results were worth the wait. Although neither of these women have any cross country eligibility remaining, these two will surely compete for national titles in the spring if an outdoor track season happens.

As for the men, Carson Bix (Adams State) and Charlie Sweeney (Western Colorado) showed up and showed out, fending off a couple of top D1 talents such as Washington State's Paul Ryan and Michigan's Devin Meyer.

After a quiet 2020 cross country season where he only recorded a 5th place finish at the Colorado Mesa Maverick Invitational, Bix came out swinging this past weekend. The Adams State ace dropped a clutch time of 13:44, reemerging as the top talent we expected him to be coming into this academic year.

Not far behind Bix was Charlie Sweeney who ran a big personal best of 13:45. The time, while certainly impressive, wasn't as impressive as him taking down Devin Meyrer, the 16th place finisher from the 2019 NCAA XC Championships who ran 13:48 this past weekend.

Although it is far from a perfect science, the performances that we saw from both Bix and Sweeney this past weekend should put into perspective just how good some of the top names in D2 are compared to D1.

The hottest heat of the men's 10,000 meters featured three highly accomplished collegiate distance runners: Wesley Kiptoo (Iowa State), Robert Brandt (Georgetown) and Alex Masai (Hofstra). With the field headlined by top-level professionals such as Eric Jenkins, Pat Tiernan and Edward Cheserek (among others), the pace was surely going to be quick.

Sure enough, the times we saw were incredibly fast, but all three collegiates in this race held their own and stayed competitive with a very talented group of professional standouts.

Just as we expected, the aggressive pace benefitted an all-out runner like Wesley Kiptoo who has been no stranger to running fast times as of late. The Iowa State Cyclone ran a jaw-dropping time of 27:37 which now ranks at NCAA #10 all-time according to USTFCCCA.

However, one could argue that Robert Brandt walked away as the true winner of this race. The Georgetown grad transfer is a great tactician who has amassed numerous All-American honors during his time with UCLA. The former Bruin and current Hoya previously owned a personal best of 28:22.99 from earlier this year at a separate meet where he ran unattached.

That personal best, however, is now long gone after Brandt ran a massive new PR of 27:39. This is a huge development for the distance veteran who now owns a mark which suggests that he could eventually contend for a national title.

With his mix of experience, tactical prowess and his newfound fitness, one could argue that Brandt will be a potential favorite for the 10k national title in the spring. After all, the NCAA Championships are typically far more tactical than what we saw this past weekend.

As for Alex Masai, he ran well, securing a new PR of 28:11. That's truthfully not a super surprising result for a guy who is seemingly at his best when the pace is hot.

Although he wasn't in the fastest heat of the men's 10,000 meters, I think we also need to give some credit to Abdi Nur, the rising Northern Arizona star. He ran 28:12 this past weekend to win his heat.

How often can someone run 28:12 for 10,000 meters and not be considered the top talent on their team? Between Grijalva, Nur, freshman Nico Young running 13:44, Taryn O'Neill running 15:49 and graduate transfer Jeralyn Poe running a 10k PR of 32:38, both the men and women of Northern Arizona had to walk away from this past weekend feeling very good about where they are at as a program.