Patriot League Championship Preview

It's 6:30 pm on a Friday and in theory, I should be holding a beer, preparing myself to watch the Houston Rockets play the Brooklyn Nets.

But duty calls.

I won't make this preview as extensive as some of the other articles that you've seen on the site for the past few days, but I like to think that there is plenty to talk about within the Patriot League.

So with that, let's dive in.

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Men's Preview

The men's race is going to be an exciting battle between the academies of Navy and Army. So far this season, these two squads have faced off three separate times. Army got the better of the Midshipmen back in September at Beantown (where Army finished 2nd only to Syracuse), but the men from Annapolis, Maryland have bounced back since then.

At Paul Short, Navy edged out the Black Knights by 30 points in a crowded race that theoretically should have favored the depth of the Army men. That, however, was not the case as the 1-2 scoring punch from Brophy (2nd) and Murray (4th) was enough to outweigh their far-off #5 runner who finished 165th overall.

In that same race, Army lacked the necessary scoring potency to stay competitive. Even though their top five didn't have a scoring outlier like Navy, the Black Knights just didn't have anyone step up to give their team an edge. Ben Petrella finished 30th overall, but their final four scorers didn't do enough to cover the firepower from the Midshipmen, placing 42-47-86-95 in the team scoring.

Fast forward to their next meet, and we got to see an entirely matchup between Army and Navy in what was essentially a duel meet. After struggling in such a large invite, one would think that the Black Knights could pull out the win in what was essentially a one vs one battle.

However, Navy proved that they were simply the better squad, finishing 1-2-5-8-11 to narrowly edge Army by two points, 27 to 29.

It's clear that the Navy men have Army's number this season, but the Patriot League Championships may be an excellent opportunity for redemption. The field, in terms of relative talent, is arguably more similar to what we saw at Beantown where Army had their best race of the season.

Navy has bettered Army in both larger and smaller fields. Will a medium sized raced make any difference?

Let's talk about a few other teams. On paper, Boston U. is the third best team in this conference, but they have severely underwhelmed in a handful of meets this year. Luevano has been super inconsistent, Foster Malleck hasn't been the star freshman we thought he could be (at least not in his first year), and the rest of their lineup hasn't offered much support.

However, the same can be said for the Bucknell Bison who haven't been able to find a spark despite returning numerous men from last year's 3rd place Patriot League lineup. There isn't necessarily one runner in particular who has caused issues, so this might simply be a matter of peaking at the right time - something that Bucknell has been able to do at the conference meet over the past few years. Even so, it will be tough to look at their regular season results in a positive light.

Then we have Lehigh who, much like Boston U., has a ton of respectable talent on paper. Seth Slavin and Bradford DeMassa have been really solid front-runners for this team, but the backend hasn't quite found their groove. Kirshenbaum hasn't been the low-stick they need him to be and freshman Connor Melko hasn't had the immediate impact we expected him to have. There are a few respectable talents scattered throughout this roster, but whether or not that all comes together this weekend is the big question.

Due to personal bias, I'll refrain from making predictions.

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Women's Preview

On paper, the favorite for the women's race should be the Terriers of Boston U.

When you look at their Beantown performance, that statement may seem a bit odd considering that they lost to both Navy and Army, finishing 16th overall. However, since then, the BU women have rallied to close a few gaps...except one. Their top four at Paul Short finished 44-45-74-85 (in the team scoring), but their #5 runner scored a total of 224 points.

Clearly, that was a major area of emphasis for the Terriers and a big reason why they didn't finish any higher.

However, by the time they got to the Princeton Cross Country Invitational, their scoring woes had been remedied (well, not entirely, but by a good amount). The Terriers ended up taking the overall win and scored only 53 points with finishes of 3-5-9-10-26.

In other words, the Boston U. women are gaining momentum and doing so at the right time. Although there is reasonable concern surrounding their #5 scorer, the size of this field should make them the ideal title contenders for the conference title on Saturday.

Battling behind the Boston U. women will likely be the Bucknell Bison who enter the Patriot League Championships with a unique lineup dynamic.

The women from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania are still trying to find an identity after losing four All-League runners from last year's championship lineup. This season, they have had a few different #1 runners lead their team in major invitationals (albeit, with some lineups being stronger than others) between Nora Bennett, Ashlyn Ramos, and Emily Deschler. Those three, along with Ashley Blair and Olivia Dyer, could put together a formidable varsity group.

It's hard to get a gauge of just how good this team is, but we can expect to see all of the pieces of their lineup come together this weekend. The Bison have a ton of scoring options, but we don't entirely know what they will look like when everyone is running to their full potential.

We'll wrap up this preview by talking about the Lehigh and Army women. Both teams have similar lineups with no singular standout scorer, but instead, a handful of respectable talents capable of giving their team a thorough and complete scoring five. This was evident at Paul Short as neither team had a top 100 finisher, but Army had six runners in the top 150 while Lehigh had five runners inside the top 180.

We saw a similar string of results from the Mountainhawks at the Penn State National Open a few weeks later where they earned finishes of 43-45-46-62-65 to finish 12 points behind conference rival Bucknell.

Neither Army nor Lehigh are that far off from the Bison women. Neither of those teams have much scoring potency, but they are steady and consistent. That may not be a flashy or exciting racing style, but it may still be enough to snag runner-up honors this weekend.

Due to personal bias, I'll refrain from making predictions.