First Thoughts: OSU Winter Open

It's not often that we get cross country meets in the middle of the week, but that was the case earlier today (Tuesday) as we got to see a few top-level teams and individuals toe the line in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

With the Tulsa men and women going head-to-head with the Oklahoma State men and women, as well as a few men from Iowa State, we thought it would be appropriate to briefly go over the results and highlight some major takeaways, even if this wasn't a massive invitational.

So with that, let's jump in...

Results courtesy of Tulsa Track on Twitter

Oklahoma State Men Edge Tulsa Men By A Single Point

The Cowboys were the victors in this smaller field, scoring 28 points to Tulsa's 29 points in what was an incredibly tight matchup featuring various levels of firepower and depth from both teams.

The Cowboys were led by Isai Rodriguez who took home the individual win, but Tulsa's Patrick Dever, Scott Beattie and Peter Lynch were the next three runners to cross the line. In that instance, you would expect the Golden Hurricanes to run away with the win. However, that didn't happen, as the rest of Oklahoma State's lineup stepped up and simply overwhelmed the backend of Tulsa's top-five.

Oklahoma State's Alex Maier, Victor Shitsama and Kevin Mulcaire finished 5th, 6th and 7th, respectively, and were then followed by Tulsa's Isaac Akers in 8th place. Through four runners, Tulsa still had the edge, but the drop-off from their top-four to their final scorer was ultimately what gave the Pokes the win.

Malte Propp was Tulsa's fifth runner in 19th place, although when you exclude a bunch of unattached and non-scoring runners from the results, his scoring position was actually 12th place. Cameron Field, a very consistent scorer for Tulsa throughout the 2019 cross country season, had a surprising "off" day, faltering to 21st place overall.

There's so much that we can take away from this race, but let's first address Tulsa's depth.

This is something that we have been talking about since the fall of 2019. On paper, Tulsa has a complete top-five. The team that they have now is capable of getting on the podium and usually, those top-five scorers have very few flaws. They feature low-sticks, consistency and experience.

The problem, however, is that if just one person in that projected top-five has a bad race, then the scoring could get out of control for the Golden Hurricanes.

Now, if you're only looking at the team results, then that scoring drop-off may not look so bad. That, however, was simply because so many runners who finished ahead of Propp and Field weren't counted in the team scoring. If Field had run this poorly at the national meet, then Tulsa's team score would have likely ballooned to a point total that would have left them off the podium.

The Golden Hurricanes may need to reevaluate what the sixth and seventh positions of their lineup are going to look like at the national meet. They can still be a podium team and challenge some of the top programs in the nation, but everyone in their top-five will need to be at their best in order for that to happen.

The good news, however, is that Tulsa's Scott Beattie looks like he is the real deal. After a strong performance at the American Conference Championships a few weeks ago, he now seems like a legitimate All-American candidate following his 3rd place finish.

Between, Dever, Beattie and Lynch, it seems fair to say that Tulsa may have three All-Americans this winter. That is usually enough to get a spot on the podium, something that we already thought was possible for this Tulsa team before Beattie's breakout season.

As for Oklahoma State, they weren't able to match the firepower of Tulsa despite Rodriguez getting the win. That, however, wasn't really the important part of this race.

Ryan Smeeton faltering to 20th place overall wasn't great, but the difference is that Oklahoma State had enough guys step up and emerge as reliable scorers. Kevin Mulcaire, who finished 7th overall, was the true breakout performer in this race. He's been a respectable talent for a while now, but we weren't expecting him to run nearly as well as he did.

Seeing Mulcaire post a relatively strong finish should be an exciting development for Oklahoma State. Much like Tulsa, they seemed like a team that had a complete top-five this past fall thanks to the scoring services of Rodriguez, Maier, Shitsama, Smeeton and Schoppe. However, we weren't entirely confident about the sixth and seventh runners on their team, especially based on the results that we saw at the BIG 12 XC Championships.

If Mulciare can replicate that kind of performance on the national stage, then I would argue that Oklahoma State's chances of finishing on the podium just went up as they'll now have more scoring security than they did before.

Oklahoma State Women Soundly Defeat Strong Tulsa Team

There weren't as many podium implications in the women's race as there were the men's race, but we do have plenty to talk about.

The Cowgirls simply emerged as the better team on Tuesday, posting just 18 points against a Tulsa team that had just won the American Conference Championships a few weeks back. That wasn't exactly a surprise, but seeing Molly Born take home the individual victory was incredibly encouraging if you're an Oklahoma State fan.

After being absent throughout the entirety of last fall, we weren't sure how she was going to perform this winter. A 15th place finish at the FSU Winter XC Classic was promising, but a win over a field that features top-ranked teammates such as Taylor Roe and Gabby Hentemann feels like a statement performance.

At this point, one could argue that the Oklahoma State women have one of the best scoring trios in the entire NCAA when it comes to cross country. Their backend, however, is still far from figured out.

The freshman duo of Heidi Demeo and Sivan Auerbach finished 5th and 6th on Tuesday, just a few seconds behind 4th place finisher Taylor Roe, but it's hard to really put much weight into those results. There were only 17 women in this field and their results from the FSU Winter XC Classic are probably more indicative of Oklahoma State's backend scoring.

We should also note that we didn't see Taylor Somers in this race. She's been struggling since last fall and didn't have a great race at Florida State a few weeks ago. Her absence doesn't exactly change anything that we've already seen from the Cowgirls this season, but it is an interesting note.

As for Tulsa, they seem to have a talented, national-caliber front-runner in Caitlin Klopfer (who finished 3rd overall), but that wasn't necessarily a surprise to us. The rest of Tulsa's scorers finished behind Oklahoma State's fifth scorer, giving the Golden Hurricanes a score of 37 points.

With this result, I think we have a better idea of what kind of team Tulsa is. They have a few respectable talents, especially in Klopfer, but this kind of performance suggests that they probably aren't the national qualifying squad that they were in 2019. Having four scorers finish behind Oklahoma State's entire top-five isn't exactly ideal.

Briefly Evaluating the Iowa State Men

The Iowa State men did compete in Tuesday's race, but only fielded four runners from their varsity lineup. Mitchell Day (9th), Thomas Pollard (10th), Chad Johnson (13th) and Milo Greder (14th) were the four Cyclones who toed the line in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Why did Iowa State only have four men from their varsity lineup toe the line? Truthfully, I'm not sure. You could argue that they probably wanted their other runners to focus on the BIG 12 Indoor Championships, but why would Day, Pollard, Johnson and Greder not be racing at their indoor conference meet?

The only explanation that comes to my mind is that Iowa State wanted these guys to get one last cross country race under their belts and get some additional experience on the national championship course before March 15th.

And in terms of their actual performances, they were...well, not great. Wesley Kiptoo is the obvious star of this team and Festus Lagat has proven that he can be a great talent as well.

Neither of those men ran, but it was still surprising to not see any of Iowa State's supporting scorers finish inside the top-eight of this relatively small field. That isn't a great sign for a team that is supposed to be in the podium conversation.

Now, at the same time, let's not get carried away by these results. Pollard and Day had very strong performances at Florida State a few weeks ago, so I'm not sure that we should hold this race against them. There were a ton of talented individuals near the top of the results in a field that featured only 30 runners.