I know you guys don't really ever talk sprints but I figured that with the attention the 400 has gotten this year, I might as well throw out my predictions across the sprints. I'm not going to do the 60 hurdles because literally no one cares and connor o'neill should win it and he's a tommie so screw him.
Anyways
60m
1. Manni Egbujor AUG
2. Undre Smith-Brewer AUG
3. Anthony Ekholm UST
I predict no surprises here with respect to seed times, 1,2,3 as predicted. The excitement actually comes from the fact that Manni was entered 60/200 rather than 200/400. He is slated to run 60 at Nationals, so it will be fun to watch this little tune-up. And by little I mean little because its a 7 second race and nothing exciting usually occurs because its just too dang short. Also speaking of short, kind of interesting that Manni and Undre are about 11 feet tall combined and are MIAC-elite short sprinters. Undre doesn't do very well in really anything longer than the 60, but Manni has insane talent over all of the sprints.
200m
1. Manni Egbujor AUG
2. Karl Olsen BU
3. Anthony Ekholm UST
4. Drew Schoenbauer SJU
5. Barinedum Kordah AUG
This was a tough one, had to look back on past years results to justify my prediction. Karl Olsen has run a disgusting 22.1 this year, which is crazy fast, especially for the MIAC. But, he ran it at Grinnell, a very nice 200m track against very good competition. If he runs a 22.1 at conference at UST he wins it, but running that fast around such a tight track is not likely. Egbujor's fastest is 22.4 this year, but he routinely ran 22.2/22.3 indoors last year. Honestly, between these two it is a toss up, however I would put my money on a bit more of a veteran in Egbujor. Lane assignment will be huge in this--Olsen should get 5 and Egbujor may be in 4 or 6, I'm not sure. I would look for a Manni win if he is placed in lane 4. Ekholm is very good outdoors but doesn't quite have the edge indoors, perhaps the tight turns are tough for him. Nevertheless, running at home should help. Drew Schoenbauer hasn't done anything really so far, but performed super well at indoor and outdoor MIACs last year, and is my sleeper pick to place fairly high. Could even snatch a top 3 on a good day. Finally, Barinedum, similar to Ekholm, is fast but doesn't handle the indoor curves as well as some of the shorter runners. I could see him rounding out the top five.
400m
1. Carl Klamm BU
2. David Supinski CM
3. Pat Klamm BU
4. [s]Brian Jarvey[/s] [s]Morris Dennis[/s] [s]Literally anyone else[/s] Adam Brandt???
This is as close to a locked top three as I can see. No one is going to touch Klamm for the 1 spot, and I don't think there is any way anyone will take the 2 spot away from Supinski. Pat Klamm is good but not great, the only way he could take down Supinski is with very, very good racing strategy--Supinski is notoriously slow out of the blocks and has a stellar top speed. If the Klamms can lead at the lane break and block Supinski's kick, theres a hope for a Klamm 1-2 combo. But seriously, this isn't gonna happen. It gets way less compelling after the top 3, Mueller likely slides in as 4th but honestly it drops off quick so its all up in the air at that point.
600m (kind of a sprint)
1. Klamm BU
2. Fredrickson GAC
3. Supinski CM
4. Krause HU
I'm not going to pretend to know much about this group so I'll be brief. Klamm is returning champion and has a kick makes opponents shudder (RIP Skrip 2016). From everything I hear about Fredrickson he's pretty GD good but also is from Gustavus so that remains to be seen. Supinski is big and strong and may surprise people--he should show off a pretty nasty kick of his own. Krause is a senior and has been there before, I would imagine he has a pretty good racing mentality but I really have no idea.
4x2
1. Bethel
2. UST
3. AUG
4. Carleton idk
Nobody really stacks their 4x2s and looking at Bethel's entries in the open events they likely won't stack theirs either. But if they do, its theirs for the taking. Note: they have the fastest 4x2 time in the country across all divisions. Not a joke. The rest is kind of random, UST is always stupid deep, AUG has the pieces for a good team (Egbujor, Kordah, Smith-Brewer) but seems like they always have a fourth runner that runs like a 26 and destroys their entire relay. Then I picked Carleton because they have run a decent time and I don't want to research this race further.
4x4
1. Bethel
2. UST
3. Carleton
4. GAC
5. STO
Yeah Bethel is going to win this. By a lot. They may have a chance for a national title, folks. Similar to the 4x4, UST is just deep, they can usually field a decent team (Mueller, Queenan, Prater, Skidmore +2 others all qualified for conference--the only other team to qualify 4+ runners in the 400 is Bethel) so they will likely run away with second fairly easily. Carleton has run a decent time and DCG will hopefuly anchor so we may see a pretty sick kick to pull them into the top 3. GAC comes in fourth riding on the magnificent freckled white shoulders of the ReMine twins. Oles round it out in fifth if their runners can survive the weekend.
To all who are competing: greatly looking forward to it! Best of luck. And to all you distance runners reading this, show this to your sprinters so they know that they can contribute on here too.