First Thoughts: Indiana Coaching Tree Invitational

The first major meet of the 2022 cross country season is now wrapped up! While there were a handful of notable results around the NCAA on Friday, we thought that the meet in Bloomington, Indiana was the main highlight of the day.

Below, we offered a few major takeaways from the Indiana Coaching Tree Invite.

Alright, let's get started...

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Limited North Carolina Men Take Down (Seemingly) Full Georgetown Lineup

The Tar Heel men didn't have their two best runners for Friday morning's race. In fact, they might not have even had their top-three men depending on who you ask.

That's because Parker Wolfe (TSR #21), Patrick Anderson and Ben Fleming did not run at yesterday's Indiana Coaching Tree Invite. Wolfe and Anderson were (probably) intentionally held out while graduate transfer Ben Fleming was out out the lineup following surgery on a "small inguinal hernia" earlier this month, according to his Instagram.

And yet, despite all of that, the North Carolina men still took home the win.

Although the Georgetown men fielded a lineup that is likely going to be their main varsity group going forward, it was the Tar Heels from Chapel Hill who flexed a complete top-five that was just simply better than what the Hoyas had.

Georgetown's Parker Stokes was the top scorer between these two teams in 4th place. Not only that, but the Hoyas also had Sean Laidlaw in 7th place overall, flexing very underrated value, while Quinn Nicholson held his own in 10th place.

Meanwhile, UNC had a solid top-three with Will Coogan, Marshall Williamson and John Tatter going 5-8-9 in the overall results.

Through three runners, it was actually Georgetown that had a one-point edge. However, with Michael Spragley (13th) and Crawford Hope (18th) closing out the scoring, the UNC men showcased greater backend support, forcing the Hoyas to settle with Lucas Guerra (15th) and Abel Teffra (22nd) as their final two scorers.

In the end, UNC scored 53 points while Georgetown scored 58 points.

This was a fantastic battle that lived up to the pre-meet hype that we had established in our preview. But even without Wolfe, Anderson and Fleming, the Tar Heels displayed depth that we knew could make them such a dangerous squad in 2022.

And that's important!

Throughout the 2021 cross country season, the Tar Heels had a ton of underrated scorers, but there were certain gaps in their lineup that certainly limited how far this team was able to go.

But after defeating a very solid Georgetown squad despite not having many of their best scorers, stock in the UNC men should be at an all-time high. Having so many reinforcements who could make up for most scoring deficiencies or "off" days this fall is a huge asset. And when paired with elite-level scorers like Wolfe and Anderson, this could make for a fascinating team.

Yes, the team scores were close, but if Wolfe was the overall winner of this race and if Anderson had placed 5th, then the Tar Heels would have scored 34 points and the Hoyas would have been pushed to 68 points, exactly double UNC's projected score.

And if Georgetown is the sorta-kinda-maybe top-25 team that we think they are, then this race should be considered a massively encouraging result for Coach Chris Miltenberg.

As for the DC-based men, there is likely no need for concern, although I'm sure there is some minor disappointment. Not beating a team that was without three of their projected upper-half scorers isn't ideal. And if at least four men from this UNC lineup end up running at the Southeast Regional XC Championships, then that probably means that the Georgetown men missed out on earning a Kolas point.

Of course, this was by no means an end-all-be-all result, but this was a winnable race for the Hoyas and I'm sure they probably know that.

Even so, Stokes looks like a true low-stick (we think) while Laidlaw and Nicholson look like very strong options at the middle portion of this lineup. The rest of this team is still fairly young and they'll need to make improvements throughout the rest of the season, but there is at least a solid core of men who could put together a nationally competitive lineup in the coming months.

North Carolina Women Defeat Georgetown By Virtue Of Having Greater Depth

Coming into this race, we said that the UNC women were going to be the clear favorites to take home the win and defeat Georgetown. And while the Hoyas were certainly not out of the conversation to take home gold, the Tar Heels proved that they were simply the better team.

With a seemingly full lineup, the combination of Brynn Brown (TSR #42), Kelsey Harrington, Sasha Neglia, Taryn Parks and Fatima Alanis went 1-4-7-12-13 overall results, a lineup that showed an almost-perfect balance of firepower and depth.

However, the Georgetown women were actually ahead of the Tar Heels through four runners!

Sami Corman's (TSR #38) 2nd place finish was a huge low-stick result while still-young teammate Chloe Scrimgeour continued her ascent from last fall, earning a monumental 3rd place finish.

With Maggie Donahue (TSR #20) placing 5th and Vanderbilt graduate transfer Grace Jensen placing 10th, the Hoyas simply had better firepower in comparison to UNC. In fact, they were four points up on the Tar Heels through four runners with scoring potency that simply couldn't be matched at the top portion of this lineup.

But with Georgetown's final scorer fading to 33rd place overall, the Hoyas saw their team score skyrocket to 53 points, a total of 18 points behind the Tar Heels.

For UNC, this is a very encouraging result. They were simply the most complete team in the field and effectively the deepest team in the field as well. The Hoyas were expected to have some of the best low-sticks in the country this fall, so for Brown to emerge with the overall victory while two others were in the top-seven was huge.

In a way, those top-three Tar Heel women essentially negated the front-running talent that the Georgetown women had -- and that's hard to do!

We'll need to see how this lineup performs in larger fields, and I'm not entirely sure how to feel about the rest of this varsity group, but this could be a really scary top-five, especially if they establish two legitimate All-Americans.

However, let's not act like this was Georgetown's full squad. It's important to remember that the Hoyas didn't have their two most recent graduate transfers, Andrea Claeson and Katy-Ann McDonald. Those are two legitimate, high-impact names who could have easily swung these results in a dramatic way.

I'm not saying that Claeson or McDonald were going to be (or needed to be) superstar scorers on Friday. But if either of those two women had closed out this top-five by placing no lower than 17th place, then the Hoyas would have beaten a completely stacked UNC lineup that is currently ranked at TSR #9.

So despite their loss, I think everyone should be buying stock in the Georgetown women this fall. This was a VERY encouraging result.

Northern Arizona Men Sweep Top-Three Spots Despite Not Fielding Varsity Lineup

The Lumberjacks didn't field Nico Young.

They didn't field Drew Bosley.

They didn't field Colin Sahlman.

They didn't field George Kusche.

They didn't field Brodey Hasty.

In fact, the Northern Arizona men didn't field a large handful of their best distance talents during Friday's race. Instead, they had only six men toe the line and five men actually finish the 8000 meter contest.

And yet, despite all of that, the men from Flagstaff, Arizona had Theo Quax, Santiago Prosser and Kang Nyoak go 1-2-3 in the overall results. They eventually settled for a 3rd place team finish as the rest of their lineup saw a fairly significant drop-off.

This was massive development for the Northern Arizona men. They were already the clear national title favorites for this fall, but their depth was maybe not as thorough as it was in past years...or so we thought.

Coming into this fall, it felt like everyone and their mother was high on Parker Stokes as a potential superstar low-stick -- and understandably so! After all, the Georgetown ace had run 8:18 in the steeplechase this past spring.

That's why it was so stunning to see the Quax-Prosser-Nyoak trio take down the Hoya superstar in convincing fashion.

Seeing Quax secure this win wasn't a total surprise. We suggested that he had the potential to this win this race in our meet preview, but seeing him do so convincingly caught me off guard.

Of course, for someone who had run 3:39 (1500) and 13:41 (5k) this past spring while having prior history as a scorer for Northern Arizona, seeing Quax thrive in a low-ish pressure setting makes sense.

But Prosser and Nyoak?

Well, I'll admit, I'm not sure I saw this coming.

Prosser had run 13:51 for 5000 meters this past spring while Nyoak ran 13:47 for 5000 meters (unattached) at the Portland Track Festival back in June.

Did those results indicate a clear improvement in their fitness?

Yes, absolutely.

Did those results suggest that they would beat Parker Stokes on the grass?

Honestly, no, I don't think they did.

Despite going 1-2-3, the NAU men had to settle for a 3rd place finish and a score of 60 points, somehow just two points behind Georgetown. And while these results probably don't mean a whole lot for the Lumberjacks in the grand scheme of things, can we just appreciate what we just saw?

There's a good chance that of the three men who just beat Parker Stokes, at least one (and likely two) of those guys are not going to be in NAU's varsity lineup this fall.

That's insane!

In fact, there's a realistic scenario where Quax isn't even a scorer for his team later this fall...although if he keeps running like he did on Friday, then that may change.

What Should We Think About The Villanova Women?

Coming into this race, the expectations for the Villanova women as a team were not high. That, however, is only because they didn't have Maggie Smith or Sadie Sigfstead in their lineup, two top-100 national meet finishers from last year's squad.

When paired with long-time veteran Lydia Olivere, those three women were one of the nation's better scoring trios throughout the 2021 cross country.

However, last fall also showed us that the Villanova women desperately needed greater depth. They were 27th at last year's national meet despite have three top-100 finishers and that scoring drop-off was something that ultimately plagued the team in most meets leading up to their season finale.

And on Friday, what we had hoped to see was Anna Helwigh and Penn graduate transfer Ariana Gardizy emerge as the final two pieces of the Wildcats' puzzle for the 2022 cross country season.

That, however, didn't exactly happen.

Gardizy placed 34th and Helwigh, who was a 9:58 steeplechaser this past spring, faded hard to 50th place overall, a finish that didn't even contribute to Villanova's scoring. Not only that, but Lydia Olivere, who was a top-30 All-American during the 2019 cross country season, settled for a 14th place finish.

I'll admit, I'm a little concerned about those results. On paper, it didn't look like a ton of women in this varsity lineup ran well / met expectations. And for a team that had seemingly addressed all of those 2021 scoring gaps via Gardizy and Helwigh, this was not what we were hoping to see on Friday.

Even so, I'm closer to calling this race a fluke more than anything else. When three of your most important lineup scorers all have not-so-great showings, I'm willing to brush that aside and say that this was a simple rust-buster.

Plus, I find it very hard to believe that a 9:58 steeplechaser, who was already a backend scorer for the Wildcats last fall, reached her full potential with a 50th place finish in this field. That just seems extremely unlikely.