First Thoughts: Villanova Handles The BIG East, BYU Men Flex Depth & Lipscomb Earns ASUN Title Win

Welcome back for Part Two!

There were a handful of notable conference results that we didn't discuss yesterday, but that's what today is all about. Admittedly, we can't cover every single conference meet, so we'll largely be focusing on the teams and performances that have some kind of impact on the overall NCAA landscape.

And yes, with many / most of these meets being far less deep than those in the Power Five, our analysis today isn't going to be quite as long as the novel that I wrote yesterday.

So with that, let's begin...

CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE

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Men's Analysis

Villanova Puts Five Men In Top-10 To Win BIG East Title, Providence Friars Emerge With Runner-Up Result

Coming into Saturday, the Villanova men were the clear and obvious favorites to win the BIG East title. While certain programs like Georgetown, Providence and Butler had shown flashes of promise, no team in the conference had the complete top-five or the firepower that the Wildcats had shown this season.

In fact, the Villanova men even proved to have a lineup that was six-men deep at Nuttycombe after veteran Josh Phillips had an "off" day and rookie Marco Langon stepped up.

But on Saturday, the Wildcats didn't need any reinforcements.

The combination of Haftu Strintzos, Liam Murphy, Charlie O'Donovan, Jack Jennings and Josh Phillips went 2-3-5-7-10, respectively, in the overall results to post a total of just 27 points and easily win the BIG East title.

In fact, they also had freshman Marco Langon finish 13th overall for good measure.

I absolutely love what we've seen from the Wildcats this fall. They have been so much more consistent than last year, younger talents like Jack Jennings and Liam Murphy are offering even greater scoring value compared to last fall and having a sixth runner emerge as a legitimate contributor is massively important.

Villanova has all of the momentum in the world right now and I just love every aspect of their lineup. Not only that, but they seem like they are primed to have major success in the future with so many young contributors already emerging in this lineup.

As for the rest of these results, I think most people would agree that Providence, Georgetown and Butler could have finished in any order. However, having Providence finish runner-up, Georgetown place 3rd and Butler settle for 4th was probably the order that I thought was the least likely to happen.

The Providence men may have just saved their season. With Syracuse and Harvard headlining the Northeast region, the Friars might have to rely on qualifying for the national meet via Kolas points if they don't get an automatic qualifying spot in their region (top-two).

There is absolutely no guarantee that Butler or Georgetown will qualify for the national meet. There's also no guarantee that they'll be selected for the national meet soon enough in the Kolas projections for Providence to leverage their two new (potential) Kolas points.

But at the very least, Providence now has a shot, even if it's a small one.

On Saturday, the Friars were led by Marcelo Rocha in 6th place, a somewhat unexpected result. However, the real hero of the day was Stanford graduate transfer, DJ Principe, recording a huge 8th place finish.

With teammates Patrick Thygesen, Liam Back and Shane Coffey going 12-14-15 in the overall results, the Friars were able to put together a complete top-five that had zero scoring deficiencies. They were able to match the firepower of both Georgetown and Butler while also being able to close-out their scoring faster than either of those teams.

Seeing Georgetown place 3rd is hardly a surprise. They're a good team this fall, but they're not necessarily amazing, either.

Parker Stokes (4th) was great this weekend and Sean Laidlaw (9th) is proving to be much better than some people realize. However, with the rest of this varsity group finishing 17-18-20-21-22-23 in the overall results, there just wasn't enough scoring value to topple to the Friars who were 13 points ahead.

The good news for the Hoyas is that they defeated the Butler Bulldogs, a team that has a few realistic national qualifying scenarios. And if the Bulldogs do advance to the national meet, then the Georgetown men likely just scored a highly valuable Kolas point.

That, however, brings me to the final team.

Butler just didn't have a great day. They've got a few sneaky-good talents in their lineup, but there have also been scoring gaps in their top-five throughout this season, something that we fully anticipated could happen.

Barry Keane (1st) is still elite and Matthew Forrester (11th) is coming along nicely. However, with significant inconsistency plaguing the rest of this lineup, and their fifth scorer falling to 30th place, there just wasn't enough depth for the Bulldogs to topple Providence or Georgetown.

The good news is that between those three teams, the Butler men were probably the team that needed Kolas points the least. That's not to say that they wouldn't have benefitted from another point or two, but this result doesn't exactly end their season, either.

It does, however, make upcoming Kolas scenarios a little more interesting...

Princeton Narrowly Edges Harvard By Three Points

At the beginning of the season, the Princeton men and Harvard men toed the line against each other at the HYP Invite, a meet that was only 6000 meters long and therefore didn't have any Kolas implications.

But in that race, we saw the Tigers post a victory over Harvard by a narrow two-point margin. And while that field was not at all an accurate indication of what either team should expect in the future, it did act as a precursor for what we would see on Friday.

As expected, the Harvard men flexed the greater firepower. Acer Iverson and Graham Blanks went 1-2 in the overall, giving the Crimson a clear low-stick scoring edge that we fully expected them to have.

However, we also knew that the Princeton men sported a greater collective scoring pack, putting Anthony Monte (3rd), Connor Nisbet (4th), Daniel O'Brien (8th) and Duncan Miller (9th) across the line before Harvard's third and fourth scorers, David Melville (11th) and Viven Henz (12th).

But in truth, Melville and Henz probably had their best races of the season this past Friday. They offered far greater scoring support than we had previously seen from them in larger fields. In fact, we fully expected Princeton to have all five of their runners across the line before Harvard even had four.

However, with Princeton's Jarrett Kirk placing 14th and Harvard's Ben Rosa placing 15th, the Tigers' supporting cast had done just enough to counter the incredible scoring potency of Iverson and Blanks.

And in the end, Princeton rallied to win the Ivy League title, scoring 38 points to Harvard's 41 points.

If I'm Harvard, I'm thrilled with this result. I got the best two possible finishes that I could get out of my low-sticks and my depth had never looked better. For a team that really needs to beat a rising Providence squad to earn an automatic qualifying spot, that's super important.

At the same time, if I'm Princeton, I'm also really happy with this result.

Relative to expectations, a lot went right for the Harvard men, but the Tigers still got a three-point edge over them. And despite certain members of Princeton's lineup likely leaving room for improvement, the Ivy League champions still took home the crown.

The only question with Princeton now is...are they better than Georgetown?

No one in the Mid-Atlantic region is beating Villanova this year, leaving only one automatic qualifying spot left. We think Princeton is going to get that second spot, but...what happens if the Hoyas take it instead?

Just some food for thought...

Air Force Cruises To Mountain West Title, Colorado State Defeats Utah State For Runner-Up

When it comes to Air Force, there isn't really a whole lot to talk about. We knew they were then preseason favorites to win the conference crown and they only strengthened that position with a huge 4th place finish at Nuttycombe.

The combination of Sean Maison, Scott Maison, Ethan Marshall, Sam Gilman and Bryce Lentz went 1-2-3-6-8, respectively, in the overall results, offering scoring that far exceeded whatever the Colorado State or Utah State men could offer.

For reference, no other team in this field had more than two men in the top-10 of these results.

The only main takeaway when it comes to Air Force is that they seemingly opted to hold out a few names, specifically Ryan Johnson and Luke Combs. We have also not yet seen Nick Scheller, a guy who was a top-20 finisher at Nuttycombe in 2021.

The idea that Scheller could return at the regional or national meets seems somewhat unlikely, but his potential reintroduction to this team could make them stronger contenders for the podium than they already were.

As for Colorado State and Utah State, if you were to ask me which team was going to place runner-up in this field, I probably would have said the latter.

The Aggies were the (slightly) better team at Nuttycombe. They have also shown a lot of promising scoring via Camren Todd. Not only that, but Darren Harman and Yonas Mogos have also emerged as really talented middle-lineup scorers this fall.

But on Friday, it was Colorado State flexing great firepower (which was surprising) and noticeably better depth.

The Rams had Thomas Chaston finish 4th overall while teammate Mason Brown placed 7th. And with their final three scorers placing 11th, 12th and 13th, the CSU men were just flat-out better than a Utah State team who went 9-10-16-18-21 in the overall results.

While I do believe that this was just a flat-out bad day for Utah State, I also believe that this was a tremendous performance for Colorado State, arguably their best of their season. Not only did they showcase legitimate firepower for the first time this season, but their supporting cast stayed much closer than I expected them to.

From a Kolas scenario, this is a massive runner-up result for the Colorado State men.

BYU Overwhelms WCC Field With Elite Depth, Gonzaga Defeats Portland With The Return of James Mwaura

The BYU men continued to show off their historically incredible depth at the West Coast Conference XC Championships on Friday, putting together a string of finishes where they went 1-2-4-5-6-7-9-12 in the overall results...but honestly, that was pretty on-par with our expectations.

Christian Allen (9th) didn't even have his best day and after seeing the Cougars' Nuttycombe performance where five men finished in the top-21, having them put seven men in the top-12 this weekend is almost exactly what I was expecting.

But just because we shouldn't be surprised by this result doesn't mean that we shouldn't be impressed. Depending on how you feel about certain men in Oklahoma State's lineup, I don't think there is any team in the NCAA right now that can challenge Stanford for the national meet other than BYU.

As for the rest of this field, seeing Gonzaga get a 10-point edge over Portland is huge, at least from a Kolas qualifying scenario.

The Bulldogs were probably safe bets to advance to the national meet regardless of what happened on Friday, but another projected Kolas point couldn't hurt.

However, there were more positives than just Gonzaga potentially earning a Kolas point.

Wil Smith (3rd) had a huge performance, breaking up BYU's scoring pack and adding far more consistency to his resume that we didn't quite see last year.

Superstar low-stick James Mwaura has also returned to this lineup, although he was a bit further back in 17th place. It's a similar story for 13:45 (5k) runner Evan Bates who made his long-awaited return, although he admittedly struggled on Friday.

When it comes to Portland, I'm not going to look too closely into this result. In the past, Coach Rob Conner hasn't always put the same emphasis on the WCC XC Championships that BYU and Gonzaga have.

Plus, the Pilots lineup structure was VERY similar to the Bulldogs, except the only difference is that Gonzaga had a true low-stick performance and Portland didn't.

Also, I know the results say that BYU's Casey Clinger won this 8000 meter race in 21:59, but even if this course is ultra-fast, I have a hard time believing that the course isn't short. Sub-22 in rainy conditions seems...unlikely. But until there is evidence to suggest that it truly is short (which I just haven't found yet), then that can only be one man's opinion.

Still a heck of a run by Clinger, though!

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Women's Analysis

Georgetown Wins BIG East Title, Providence Keeps Things Somewhat Interesting With Runner-Up Result

Just like the Villanova men, seeing the Georgetown women win the BIG East title on Saturday was not at all a surprise.

By simply having the most firepower, the most lineup options (many of whom are interchangeable) and better-than-expected depth, the Hoyas were able to score just 29 points and comfortably take home the conference title.

Maggie Donahue (2nd) is still an elite-caliber talent, Grace Jensen (3rd) continues to get better with each passing week, Katy-Ann McDonald (5th) had one of the best cross country races of her career, Sami Corman (9th) is showing better consistency and Chloe Gonzalez (10th) offered promising scoring support just like she did at Nuttycombe.

Not only that, but half-mile specialist Melissa Riggins showed progress by placing 12th while Chloe Scrimgeour made her return to this lineup (after missing Nuttycombe) by placing 14th.

Seeing Scrimgeour falter a bit in this race was admittedly not ideal, especially after missing such an important race earlier this month. Even so, the fact that she's even back in the results is great to see. If the Georgetown women want to be a top-10 team at the national meet, then they'll need her in their varsity group (and preferably racing at her best).

However, we also need to talk about the Providence women, a team that finished runner-up with a sneaky-good total of 40 points.

Admittedly, the Lady Friars were the obvious the choice to finish 2nd overall in this field. However, their lineup structure looked far more potent on Saturday than it had been all season, especially with breakout star Jane Buckley securing a huge individual victory.

That scoring potency, paired with the excellent performances of Shannon Flockhart (4th) and Lily Tuck (6th), gave Providence a scoring trio that was only a singular point behind the Hoyas.

The final four runners in the Friars lineup, however, did see a drop-off, going 13-16-17-18.

Even so, we knew that the Providence women had the potential to be even better than what they showed us at Nuttycombe. We knew that Lily Tuck would throw down a relatively better result (she did) and I feel like we're still waiting for Laura Mooney (16th) to deliver on her full potential as well.

Either way, the Providence women are a bit better than some people may realize.

New Mexico Cruises to Mountain West Title, Colorado State Soundly Defeats Utah State For Runner-up

Do we really need to talk about New Mexico?

They went 1-3-4-6-10-12-14-17-22-42. Honestly, I'm not surprised they allowed for that many cracks in their lineup. I thought they would be a little more compact and a little more dominant, but they didn't even run Dishon.

But that's just me being picky. They were incredible as expected.

Anyways, let's move on...

The Colorado State women came into Saturday tasked with taking down the Utah State women. However, unlike the men's race, the Rams were actually favored over the Aggies -- and they easily delivered on their expectations.

The Rams performed almost exactly like we thought they would. Their top scoring trio of Lily Tomsula-Martin, Annabel Stafford and Sarah Carter went 8-9-11, respectively, in the overall results, giving the CSU women a legitimate scoring identity in this upper-portion of these results.

And with their final two scorers, Ashlyn Hillyard (16th) and Emily Chaston (18th), each finishing in the top-20, the Colorado State women simply had a far more complete lineup in comparison to Utah State. In fact, one could argue that a few of their backend runners had the potential to be even better in this race.

Trying to beat Colorado State was going to be a really tricky task for Utah State. In this scenario, the Aggies would have had to rally around multiple low-stick performances (which they haven't had this season) or have greater compact scoring between CSU's top-five (which was already super tight).

Ana Weaver (13th) and Micaela Rivera (15th) were solid. Abby Jensen (20th) was respectable and Emma Thornley (24th) got the jobn done. But with their final scorer finishing outside of the top-30, the Aggies weren't going to come close to CSU.

There's admittedly not a whole to talk about here. These results were fairly on-par with our expectations, although Colorado State looks like they are really beginning to find some momentum as we enter the postseason.

Lipscomb Takes Down Liberty To Win ASUN Title

Coming into this season, the Liberty women were a team that was absolutely on our radar despite not being ranked in our preseason top-25. On paper, they had two top-50 talents and a much better supporting cast than they have gotten credit for.

And after a promising 6th place finish at Joe Piane (where they finished ahead of Toledo), the Flames looked like a potential national qualifying squad, even with Adelyn Ackley-Fairley not racing.

However, the Lipscomb women have been slowly putting together solid result after solid result. The Buffaloes quietly finished runner-up at the Gans Creek Classic, beating Northwestern by two points. And at the Arturo Barrios Invitational, they once against finished runner-up behind a very solid Ohio State team.

The Lipscomb women had shown promise going into this weekend, but they weren't exactly racing against the most competitive fields and the teams that they did beat weren't necessarily better than Liberty.

But on Saturday, the Buffaloes came through with a huge performance, tallying 35 points to convincingly take down a Liberty team that was 10 points behind.

Lydia Miller (2nd) and Colbi Borland (3rd) came through in a big way to counter the low-stick scoring of Liberty's Calli Doan who was the individual champion.

And while the Flames did have Ava Gordon (7th) and Kayla Werner (8th) offer great lineup support, the smaller field allowed Lipscomb to immediately crowd the rest of the top-11 as Liza Corso, Ally Suyak and Mackenzie Barnett went 9-10-11 to close out their scoring.

With Liberty's final two scorers finishing 12th and 17th, it was clear that the Lipscomb women had done enough to win the ASUN title.

Things are now getting really interesting for the Lipscomb women. They were the last women's team who we projected to qualify for the national meet in our latest Kolas calculations. And now, with a key win over Liberty, the Buffaloes likely have a tie-breaking edge that they could utilize in their upcoming effort to advance to the national meet.

As for Liberty, this race doesn't necessarily erase their chances of qualifying for the national meet, but it does make things slightly harder if there is a tie-breaker scenario in the Kolas calculations which also involve Lipscomb.

California Baptist Defeats Utah Valley For WAC Title

The California Baptist women came into the WAC XC Championships viewed as the favorites for the conference title. On paper, they had the firepower and the depth to outlast the sneaky-good talents that Utah Valley boasted.

And when you step back and look at the results, almost nothing that we saw surprised us.

Utah Valley's Everlyn Kemboi was fantastic, taking home the individual win, but CBU's Yasna Petrova and Greta Karinauskaite effectively countered her low-stick scoring potency with 2nd and 3rd place finishes, respectively.

And with the rest of the Lancers' scorers (Carlota Rodes, Maelle Porcher and Anna Mate) all finishing in the top-10, it would have taken a beyond-heroic effort for the Wolverines to upset the CBU women.

And in fairness to the UVU women, they still had Hannah Branch (7th) and Madison Flippance (9th) run really well! But with their final two scorers placing 15th and 17th overall, the CBU women were just the better team.

I think we know who California Baptist is this season (they have been so much fun to watch), but the Utah Valley women have left us scratching our heads at times. They were phenomenal at the Cowboy Jamboree, but there's been some inconsistency since then.

I'll be fascinated to see what the UVU women do at the Mountain Regional XC Championships.

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Other Results Of Note

• No surprise at all for the BYU women as they easily cruised to the WCC title with a total score of 30 points. Frentheway was the individual champion while everyone else ran up to our expectations.

• The Harvard women took home the Ivy League title with a score of 53 points, beating the Princeton women by a total nine points, a margin that was roughly in line with our expectations. Outside of Maia Ramsden, I feel like I can't ever predict what this Harvard lineup is going to look like, they got the job done and I'm not going to argue with gold. As for Princeton, they had a legitimate shot at this title, but they do need to clean up the backend of their lineup a little bit. However, they still had three women in the top-10.

• The Cal Poly men and women look great, each winning the BIG West titles. The men in particular really impressed me. Sure, they were expected to win, but they dominated and took the top-three spots. William Fallini-Harris was also much better than expected. He seems to be peaking perfectly right now.

• The NAU men and women easily cruised to BIG Sky titles, each scoring under 25 points. I admittedly thought that Montana State would put a bit more of a fight on the men's side, but scoring 41 points and putting three men in the top-eight is still pretty darn solid for a runner-up finish.