Where We Were Right & Where We Were Wrong: Raleigh Relays Reactions (Day Two)

I enjoyed writing yesterday's article, so we're going to do the same thing on this beautiful Saturday. Below, I evaluated the Friday results (and some Saturday results) from the Raleigh Relays and compared those performances to some of the statements and predictions made in our meet preview.

If you want to read yesterday's article, click here.

NOTE: We will cover the men's and women's 800 meters in tomorrow's article.

Alright, here we go...

If you look at our meet preview, you'll find that the top of my predictions were pretty solid.

I correctly predicted the top-four collegiates (albeit, in a different order), I correctly predicted Barnett to place 4th amongst collegiates and you'll see that I had Appleton placing 5th amongst collegiates, just one spot ahead of where she actually finished.

I want to take a lot of pride in my predictions, but honestly, many of these were givens.

If I had correctly predicted the actual order of the top-three, then that would be another thing. But when you look on paper, you could see pretty clearly which women were the most established and which ones had the most momentum from the indoor track season.

After that, it was a bit more up in the air, and I think the results reflected that.

Coming into this race, I found myself struggling who I wanted to chose for the win.

Katelyn Tuohy obviously emerged as the true collegiate superstar that we all knew she could be this past winter. Her two runner-up performances at the indoor national meet just a few weeks ago reflected that.

However, Tuohy was dropping down in distance to the 1500 meters on Friday whereas Leather was basically staying at her ideal racing distance. With Leather coming off of an incredible mile performance en route to a bronze medal at the national meet, I thought the 1500 meter distance suited her a bit more than Tuohy.

For that reason, I picked Leather.

I stand by my logic and I don't think it was a ridiculous assertion. That, however, doesn't make me any less wrong. Tuohy still came out on top with a very impressive win in a time of 4:12. Washington's Anna Gibson was close behind in 4:13.

And Leather? Well, she hung tough and still ran a very strong mark of 4:14.

In my defense, I did say in our meet preview that Tuohy, "may be flat-out too good to lose right now" and that "I feel like I'm disrespecting" her by not picking her for the win.

Well, those suspicions turned out to be true and I was wrong as result.

Before I go any deeper into this section, I just want to say that I am THRILLED for Starliper. After battling injuries for two years, the former high school megastar has finally returned to competition. She made her collegiate debut on Friday night by running 4:23 for 1500 meters.

Considering that this was her first official race in two years, this was a really encouraging result. That's a solid and respectable time that she can absolutely build off of going forward.

At the same time, I think some of us can agree that her entry in the fastest 1500 meter heat was maybe a bit ambitious. I even said in our preview that it was a "bold jump" to be in that heat.

Considering that she finished last in her heat, I don't think my hunch was totally incorrect.

Regardless, the bigger takeaway is that Starliper is back and healthy enough to not only be racing, but to also post a fairly respectable time. Kudos to her on her return.

I was convinced that Harvard's Anna Juul had been robbed of a spot in the fastest 1500 meter heat. She was excellent during the tail-end of the indoor track season and recently posted a mile mark of 4:36. When comparing her resume to a few others, Juul seemed like she should have been in the fast heat.

Well, unfortunately, her result on Friday didn't necessarily reflect that. Juul ran a time of 4:23 in the second-fastest heat which would have just barely put her ahead of Starliper.

Now, that said, I stand by what I wrote in the preview.

Based on her resume, Juul absolutely deserved a spot in the fastest heat, regardless of how she actually ended up running. Still, it's harder to make that argument now given her latest performance...

Instead, it was Harvard teammate Maia Ramsden and Furman's Megan Marvin who proved that they deserved more respect than we have currently given them. These two women ran phenomenal races in the second-fastest heat. Marvin ran 4:17 to win the heat while Ramsden ran 4:18 to finish runner-up in that section.

Marvin is really beginning to pick up momentum. She ran 2:04 for 800 meters last spring, but has since moved up in distance, running 4:39 in the mile this past winter and now winning her 1500 meter heat in a personal best of 4:17.

Marvin is clearly trending upwards and she seems to be getting better each and every time she toes the line. If this Furman ace can continue to build upon her fitness throughout the spring season, then she'll be a problem for her opponents in May and possibly June.

I like to think that I previewed this race as best as I could. I said that although Olivere was the clear favorite amongst collegiates, she would still have her hands full with a variety of women.

Well, based on the results, that seemed to be somewhat true as Olivere finished as the top collegiate with Villanova teammate Anna Helwigh finishing behind her.

The next-best collegiate finishers in this field were UConn's Mia Nahom, Georgetown's Kiera Bothwell and Eastern Kentucky's Laura Taborda. They were all women who I said could be possible challengers to Olivere.

With the meet replay only starting at the men's steeplechase, I can't say for sure how much of a role some of those women had in this race (if any at all). Even so, they were in the upper portion of the results, so I think I was pretty spot-on about the athletes who I was expecting to be in the mix.

Not only that, but I also predicted that Olivere's time would be 10:02 to 10:03.

Her actual winning time was 10:01.

Not too shabby of a prediction if I do say so myself.

My three sleeper picks coming into this race were Janette Schraft (Iowa State), Alexa Leppelmeier (Walsh) and Aziza Chigatayeva (Binghamton). I thought Chigatayeva would be able to scare her personal best in this field and I thought this would be a great opportunity for a breakout race from Schraft and Leppelmeier.

Welp, that wasn't entirely the case. None of those three women ran faster than 10:20 and they were a few seconds out from their personal bests.

To be clear, they didn't have bad races, but these weren't their best efforts, either.

Instead, if was Michigan State's Katelyn Stewart-Barnett who broke out in a major way. The Spartan rookie from Canada had a decent indoor season where she ran 2:08 for 800 meters, but after running 10:11 on Friday, it seems like the steeplechase will be her marquee event.

Given her past experience in the 2000 meter steeplechase (prior to her joining the NCAA), it probably shouldn't be a total surprise that Stewart-Barnett held her own in this race.

Coming into this race, I said that the winning time would be somewhere in the "high-8:30s or the low-8:40s" range.

With the actual winning time being 8:39, I do get to say that I was right, but giving a range for a winning time on the track is like saying, "I think the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to score between 0 points and 100 points on Sunday."
 

Admittedly, I didn't gamble too much with that prediction.

My official time that I predicted was 8:37, so I was still fairly close to what the actual winning time ended up being. If Minnesota's Matthew Wilkinson (the winner) didn't fall in this race, he may have run a second or two faster.

I was pretty convinced that Minnesota's Alec Basten was going to win this race. He was simply the best steeplechase talent in this field and frankly, he probably had the best overall resume as well.

For a while, it looked like Basten was going to win this race, although I was incredibly impressed with how teammate Matthew Wilkinson was sticking around. In the final stretch, with the Golden Gopher teammates running side by side, it was Wilkinson who cleared the final hurdle with far more power and conviction. He charged down the final straightaway and displayed an impressive level of strength.

So much so that I thought, "This guy looks like he could be an All-American."

In the end, I think I was right to say that Basten was the clear and obvious favorite on the men's side. However, Wilkinson played spoiler and he did so after falling early-on in the race.

The Golden Gophers likely have the best 1-2 steeplechase punch in the NCAA right now, although Washington may disagree. Basten is already a star talent and Wilkinson looks like he's approaching an elite steeplechase tier after that win.

The biggest question now is whether one of these two guys can win a national title...

When asked who I was the most "unsure" about in this steeplechase field, I felt pretty confident in my pick of Gavin Jenkins. The Virginia Military Institute runner held a personal best of 8:44, but historically, he hasn't always run at that high of a level.

Ultimately, the VMI steeplechaser ended up finishing second-to-last in the fast heat with a time 9:13.

However, don't let that one performance move you off of Jenkins for the rest of this season. We saw last spring that once he catches fire, he'll chop off time each and every week. That's ultimately what I'm expecting from him this season.

I wasn't expecting Jenkins to run anything crazy quick, but that's mainly because he just needed a rust-buster and needed to build momentum throughout the next few months.

But even then, none of that is a guarantee to happen, which is why after Friday's performances, I'm still not totally sure what to expect from Jenkins moving forward.

When talking about the men who could potentially threaten Basten for the win, I suggested names like Kosgei, Hubaker and Waskom, each of whom finished in the top-eight of their heat just like I said in my predictions.

In fact, if you look closer at my predictions, you'll find that I correctly listed seven of the top-eight men (albeit, in a different order) in the fastest heat. The only athlete who I didn't correctly predict was Penn's Michael Keehan who placed 4th overall. Instead of Keehan, I initially had Michigan's Austin Remick placing 8th, instead.

In a race as variable as the steeplechase, I gotta give myself some credit for getting seven of the top-eight names correct in the heat.

Did I get any of their placements exactly right? No.

Did I correctly predict the 8:46 mark from Ben Drezek (UMass Lowell) in heat three or the 8:49 from Sam Affolder (Washington) in heat two? Also no.

But work with me here, I thought I did pretty well.

Either way, the names I listed to potentially take down Basten weren't necessarily bad options. However, two Pennsylvania-based steeplechasers, plus Wilkinson, were the ones who ended up being ones towards the top of the results.

Pittsburgh's Josh Higgins is a long-time established steeplechaser who is getting better and better with each passing year. Seeing him run 8:44 this weekend was huge as it validates his ability to be a nationally competitive name. I sincerely see him as someone who can be an All-American in this event.

Keehan, meanwhile, just ran a fairly solid PR. He ran 4:02 in the mile this past winter and was hitting personal bests on the indoor oval. It makes sense that he would be able to translate that improvement to his ideal event, the steeplechase.

Also, shoutout to UMass Lowell's Ben Drezek. I have no idea where that 8:46 came from.

Yes, he was a very talented steeplechaser coming into this race, owning a prior personal best of 8:53, but dropping nine seconds off of his personal best in his season debut and winning his heat by winning five seconds is VERY hard to do.

For the most part, I was pretty proud of our predictions. Overall, I went six for eight in terms of the top-eight collegiate finishers in this race. The only two I didn't get right were Bethany Graham (who was a DNF) and Nicole Fegans (who didn't even toe the line).

So in terms of everyone who actually raced, I was actually six for six. Not too bad...

But much like the women's 1500 meters, the top portion of this field seemed fairly predictable. Many of these women were either established long distance talents or rising elites. There was a pretty clear cut-off point after that top-six and that was even reflected in the results when looking at where Steelman and Chepkemei finished.

Either way, the point that I'm trying to make is that the best women in this field delivered great results and they clearly showed us why they are amongst the best in the NCAA. For the most part, there weren't that many surprises, at least not at the top of this race.

Coming into this race, I was very high on Wake Forest's Mackenna Curtis-Collins. I loved the progression that she made during the winter months. Not only that, but I thought that her consistency in the 3k this past winter was impressive and that it was signaling a potential breakout for her.

That's why I predicted the Wake Forest runner to run 15:52 on Friday night.

That, however, didn't happen. Curtis-Collins still ran a very solid and very impressive time of 16:11 (a personal best), so it's not like she ran poorly. However, I thought she would run much faster and take advantage of a 5k heat that was fast, but not overly so.

Again, Curtis-Collins didn't have a poor race. She actually ran fairly well. I just think she has more in the tank and her recent personal best seemingly signals that I'm right. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

In our meet preview, Ben Weisel asked which NC State runner would come out on top in this 5k race. I thought the answer was easily Samantha Bush, but when I did a deeper dive, I realized that this was a more challenging question than I had initially expected.

Steelman was coming back from an injury and we had no idea what to expect from her. She is, however, the most established 5k runner on NC State's roster (and it's not even close).

Shaw, meanwhile, owns a 5k personal best of 15:40 and was running very well on the indoor oval. She's been healthier than Steelman as of late and is more proven than Bush in the 5k.

As for Bush, she was easily the least established of this trio when it came to the 5k. However, her recent rise as a multi-season All-American star made her a candidate to post something very quick in this race.

In the end, I chose Bush, and she ended up being the top NC State runner in this race as I expected. She finished 2nd place amongst collegiates with a strong and respectable time of 15:45.

Shaw ran 15:47 while Steelman ran 15:51.

While this may have seemed like an easy prediction to make, I don't think it was a given at all.

I thought the 5k times were going to be SO much faster. I thought we were going to see numerous collegiates in the 15:30s, athletes from the second-fastest heat hitting times in the 15:40s and a mass number of runners in the 15:50s.

However, in the end, only one collegiate ran under 15:40 (Kayley DeLay), only four additional runners ran under 15:50 (Bush, Shaw, Seymour, Hertenstein) and only five additional women ran under 16:00 (Steelman, Chepkemei, Pendergast, Schmitt, Engel).

In total, only 10 women ran under 16:00.

I thought that number would've been 20.

Whoops.

I think I need to group these two sections together because of how intertwined they are.

Coming into this 10k race, I said that nine men would run under 29:00. That seemed like a reasonable number to me. After all, only five collegiates ran under 29:00 at this meet last year.

Last year was a historic year for the men's 10k in terms of depth and I figured that the mass improvement in personal bests that we saw this past winter had already started with this event last spring.

In other words, I didn't think we would see much deviation in terms of the 10k times that the Raleigh Relays usually produce.

That's what led to me being simultaneously right and wrong on Friday night.

In the preview, I said that Athanas Kioko (Campbell), Barry Keane (Butler), Brian Fay (Washington), Matt Young (Georgetown), Acer Iverson (Harvard), Nickolas Scudder (Charlotte), Tibebu Proctor (Washington), Isaac Harding (Grand Valley State) and Aaron Las Heras (Wake Forest) would all run under 29:00.

In the end, I got eight out of those nine names correct, with Proctor being the only one who didn't crack the 29:00 barrier.

However, the reason why I got almost all of those marks correct is because over half of the top heat earned a sub-29 mark!

If the 2021 Raleigh Relays was Oprah, then a sub-29 mark would be the brand new car that everyone in the audience gets.

For many of the guys who I mentioned in our meet preview, this wasn't a surprise. Most of these men were either a) too good not to run a sub-29 mark, b) had a recent surge in personal bests which suggested that they could run under 29 minutes c) had run sub-29 before or d) the 10k is their ideal distance and the indoor season didn't allow them to contest their ideal distance.

But 19 total collegiates running under 29 minutes? That's absurd.

Unlike Samantha Bush and the NC State women, this was actually a much easier prediction to make. No, I didn't necessarily expect Fay to run as fast as 28:22, but given what he did on the indoor oval, it was obvious that he was going to be the top Husky in this field.

Lumb was coming off of a season-long injury from the winter, Proctor has been up and down throughout the last few years and Hull was the least accomplished 10k runner of this group.

That said, Lumb was much faster and much closer to Fay than I thought he was going to be. He hadn't raced since January and I thought that not having time to build up his aerobic base again would be an issue.

Yes, he did enter this weekend with a personal best of 28:17 for the distance, but I thought there was a lot working against him in this race. However, his recent time of 28:25 suggests otherwise.

I did project Aaron Las Heras to run under 29:00, but I didn't at all expect this Wake Forest star to win the whole thing! With a time of 28:13, Las Heras secured the overall win and sent a major statement to the rest of the NCAA that he belongs in the All-American conversation for the 10,000 meters.

Oh, and this result came one day after running 3:41 for 1500 meters which was a personal best.

I liked Las Heras a lot before this race and I thought he was fairly underrated. However, I didn't think he was THIS underrated. This is a massive statement win.

In fact, it's such a big win that I almost need to see what else he can do this winter in an effort to validate this monstrous breakout performance.

As for the rest of the field? Well, there's too many of men to talk about individually, but let me just own how wrong I was about so many of these guys. Here are the men who I gave zero chance to run under 29:00 for 10,000 meters coming into this race...

Everyone else in the field had either proven that they were amongst the best of the best or that they at least had the capability of running under 29:00. While each of those names who I just listed have found national-caliber success to varying degrees, I just didn't think that their resumes showed sub-29 potential.

Of course, if you had told me before the race that we were going to see four times as many sub-29 marks at the Raleigh Relays this year compared to last year, then I would have likely included a couple of those names (such as Aho and Becker) in my list of 19 men who would run under 29 minutes.