First Thoughts: Silver State XC Challenge

We have written a few articles about winter cross country over the past month or so, but it doesn't get any less weird that we're talking about cross country in February, especially with 14 inches of snow currently piling up outside of my window.

Even so, we're happy to have the extra action and the extra content! The Silver State XC Challenge gave us a clash between powerhouse programs and a grand display of some impressive team depth.

Here are our major takeaways from the battle in the desert...

Click here to see results

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Men's Recap

BYU Takes Down Limited Northern Arizona Team

Did anyone else think that Monday's clash between BYU and Northern Arizona was incredibly reminiscent of the Oklahoma State Invitational from this past fall? In that race, Northern Arizona took down a BYU team that didn't have Clayson Shumway. It was a strong win, but not one that dramatically altered our perception of the NCAA hierarchy.

Now, as we look at the results from the Silver State XC Challenge, it's hard not think the same exact thing, although this time, the roles were reversed. The Cougars took home the win over the Lumberjacks, 49 points to 54 points, although NAU was without a handful of their top scorers such as Luis Grijalva, Drew Bosley and even Theo Quax. If one of those three men had run, then there is a very good chance that we're talking about Northern Arizona as the first-place team.

That, however, shouldn't take away from the incredible display of firepower that we saw from the BYU men. Conner Mantz continues to look like a title contender, Casey Clinger is just as good as we thought he was, Shumway earned a respectable 10th place finish and Brandon Garnica -- after struggling at the Oklahoma State Invitational -- rebounded in a huge way to finish 6th overall.

With four men in the top-10, the men from Provo, Utah have proven that they can at least be competitive with the Northern Arizona men when it matters the most. We still view a fully-stacked NAU lineup as the title favorites, but the possibility of another upset at the cross country national meet in March is still in play.

Although they didn't win, Northern Arizona should be happy about the encouraging performances that they had out of some of their key names. Nico Young, for instance, is as good as advertised, earning a runner-up finish to Conner Mantz. We knew he would be a great runner and an All-American caliber talent, but there's a reason why this current freshman was being called a "phenom" back in high school.

Abdi Nur got the job done with a strong, but unsurprising, 5th place finish while Blaise Ferro looks like he's in top form, finishing 7th in Monday's race.

Seeing Ferro race and earn a top finish is huge for Northern Arizona. When he's not dealing with ailments, he can be a top All-American talent and right now, it looks like he's healthy enough where he could potentially peak at Nationals.

Ryan Raff settled for a respectable 14th place to emerge as NAU's fourth scorer, a finish that seems to match his expected capability.

However, the one major weakness that we noticed in both BYU's and NAU's lineups were the gaps between their top four scorer and their final scorer. Shumway was BYU's fourth scorer in 10th place overall, but Elijah Armstrong finishing 28th nearly left the door open for Northern Arizona. Similarly, Ryan Raff was NAU's fourth scorer, but Cory Gorgas finishing 26th essentially gave the Cougars too much of a cushion to be beat.

The fifth and final scoring spots in each of these lineups could have dramatically altered the narrative surrounding each of these teams. If the Cougars had a far smaller gap between Shumway and Armstrong, then are we talking about BYU as a potential title favorite rather than just a realistic title contender?

And if Northern Arizona had a far smaller gap between Raff and Gorgas, effectively giving the Lumberjacks the win, then are we talking about NAU as the undeniable title favorites like we did last year?

Say what you will, but I'm not sure this race told us anything that we didn't already know.

Notre Dame Struggles, Huskies Edge Irish By Five Points

The top two spots in this race were clearly going to be between Northern Arizona and BYU, but 3rd place spot seemed to be heavily favored to go to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

That, however, didn't happen as the men from South Bend, Indiana just had too many scoring woes to fend off Washington. In the end, it was the Huskies from Seattle taking home a 3rd place finish with a score of 75 points while Notre Dame finished five points behind in 4th place.

We have to give Washington their credit, they looked like a much better team than what we saw from them back in 2019. Talon Hull's 3rd place finish was huge from a scoring perspective. He was one of the Huskies' top scoring options in 2018, but didn't seem to have the same scoring spark a year later. Now, he has seemingly returned to top form, simultaneously injecting crucial scoring potency back into this lineup, something that the Washington men desperately needed to stay competitive in these high-end fields.

Luke Houser had a nice race by finishing 13th overall, but that wasn't too surprising given how strong he was last winter. However, seeing Alex Slenning, Isaac Green and Joe Waskom finish 15-19-25 was super encouraging. With a handful of younger runners still being sidelined, it was important that these older runners (i.e. Slenning and Green) stepped up and offered some reliable scoring supporting -- and they did just that.

Here's a fun fact: Washington actually had their top five runners cross the line before BYU and Washington. The difference, of course, was firepower, something that Washington still needs to develop. Tibebu Proctor was a 2018 All-American in cross country, but much like 2019, he still doesn't seem like his old self, finishing 29th in this race.

So, given everything that we just talked about with Washington, how should we judge Notre Dame? Truthfully, I think we can just chalk up their Monday as a poor race and nothing more.

Nuguse (8th) wasn't in contention for a top finish like we he would be, Jacobs (23rd) just didn't have a great day and Methner (27th) may have had his inexperience get the best of him. Outside of Kilrea (9th), Renfree (16th) and maybe Alexander (24th), this team just didn't have a great day...and yet, that may actually be encouraging.

If Notre Dame was just five points off of a respectable Washington team despite not having their best race, then how good is this team when they are running all cylinders? If we believe that NC State -- a team that Notre Dame beat at the ACC Championships -- is better than Washington, then how should we gauge Monday's results?

We should be cautious about the Fighting Irish moving forward, but immediately panicking and declaring that their podium chances are gone after one not-so-great result would be a mistake.

Figuring Out Air Force, Weber State and Boise State

If you had asked me last summer which of these three teams I would rank as the "worst" (which admittedly seems harsh), I probably would have said Air Force. The results from Monday's race, however, would suggest otherwise.

The Falcons showed off some of the best team-centric running in the entire field. Led by Sam Gilman's 12th place finish, the Air Force men put together a 12-second time spread with finishes of 12-17-20-21-22. Just like Washington, they had all five of their scorers cross the line before BYU and Northern Arizona.

It's still a little early to make any major declarations about this Air Force team, but they ran very well and were 12 points off from the Notre Dame men. If the Falcons can replicate that scoring structure in larger fields, then they could make some serious noise.

And now for Weber State and Boise State. The Wildcats of Weber State were ranked at TSR #24 in our preseason winter cross country rankings while the Boise State men were a "Just Missed" team.

Although these two programs were facing top-level competition on Monday, I did think that they would at least fare better than they did. Weber State finished over 60 points away from Air Force while Boise State was over 20 points away from Weber State.

Overall, it just wasn't a great day for either team.

We weren't expecting Weber State or Boise State to pull off any major upsets, but we thought that they would at least stay competitive in this field or post a point total closer to what we saw from Air Force. Unfortunately for them, we didn't see that on Monday.

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Women's Recap

BYU Shows Off Depth With Victory Over Thin Field

For whatever reason, the women's "Yellow" race seemed to be far less competitive than the men in terms of the overall talent that was actually running. Numerous top scorers from multiple teams were absent from the entries and consequentially the results.

Despite not having Whittni Orton and maybe a few others, the BYU women still emerged victorious with many of the same runners who gave the Cougars a dominant win at the Oklahoma State Invitational in the fall.

The duo of Anna Camp and Aubrey Frentheway finished 2nd and 4th overall to give their team a key spark. Meanwhile, Halladay (freshman), Johnston (sophomore) and Martin (freshman) finished 10-13-17 to put away any potential threat that Boise State or Northern Arizona could have realistically given them.

With a score of 46 points, which was 15 points better than runner-up Boise State and 18 points better than Northern Arizona, the Cougars took down a pair of respectable teams despite leaning on younger and inexperienced depth. Not only did this team not have Whittni Orton, but they didn't have Sophie Lasswell or Sara Musselman, either.

There's not much more we can say about this team other than their depth is a little bit better than we initially thought it was.

Boise State Holds Off Northern Arizona In Excellent Battle

The Boise State women and Northern Arizona women were the two teams in this race that appeared to make some effort when it came fielding their better varsity lineups. Even so, the Lumberjacks were without Jessa Hanson while the Broncos were without both Maxine Paholek and Lara Hamilton.

Taryn O'Neill (NAU) was the overall winner of this race, validating early-season suspicions that she was going to be a true low-stick who could bring a major scoring spark to her team. However, Boise State countered with a breakout 3rd place performance from Tyler Beling, a recent roster addition from South Africa.

Northern Arizona had respectable scoring supporting in the middle and backend portions of their lineup thanks to Rasmussen (12th), Eitel (15th), Morley (16th) and Behunnin (20th). However, despite there being minimal gaps within the Lumberjacks' top-five, it was Olivia Johnson's 7th place finish which gave Boise State enough of a scoring cushion to outlast NAU's depth.

With Brock (14th), Borba (18th) and Parle (19th) closing out the scoring for Boise State women, the Broncos had done enough to get a three-point edge on the ladies from Flagstaff, Arizona.

But what would have happened if Jessa Hanson had run for Northern Arizona? After running 32:47 for 10,000 meters back in December, it would have been realistic for Hanson to have finished somewhere around 5th place today. If that had happened, then not only does NAU comfortably take down Boise State, but they would have come fairly close to taking down BYU as well.

Boise State was also without a couple of runners, but I'm not sure those two would have been able to have the same impact in the overall team score like we think Hanson could have.

Quick Notes on Washington, Weber State & Utah

I truthfully don't want to spend too much time on these teams as they were largely without their best runners. Don't read too much into these results, Washington and Utah are much better than what we saw on Monday.

Haley Herberg and Naomi Smith were strong for the Huskies with 5th and 6th place finishes, but the rest of their lineup just wasn't strong enough to have an impact in this race.

The same could be said about Poppy Tank (8th) and her Utah teammates. The Utes were missing (at least) three pivotal scorers from their varsity lineup and just didn't have enough reinforcements to remain competitive.

As for Weber State, they had nice races from Summer Allen (9th) and Billie Hatch (11th), but the gap between those two and the rest of their scorers wasn't enough to topple a very limited Washington team.