Atantic Region XC - D3

Take this into persepective.

Daniel Walker was talked about so much on here as being a long course, and a slow muddy rainy course...WELL WHY DID EVERYONE RUN SLOWER 3 WEEKS LATER IN THE SEASON ON ONE OF THE FASTEST COURSES IN THE NATION? JUST LOOK AT THE REGIONAL MEET THERE LAST YEAR.

Geneseo's pack spread out and was all mixed up with people averaging 20-30 seconds slower than at DW.

Borckport supposedly tempo'd 2 miles at DW and only ran an average of 15 seconds faster at DW.

UR- wow

RIT- only team to run reasonably better from the Atlantic Region, but still not up to expectations on that course.

All this talk about the Atlantic Region being strong and I just don't see it, Geneseo better watch out for Cortland and SLU if this is how they wanna race, and Rochester/Brockport may not even be top 10.

SUNYAC's should be blazing because Beaver Island is obviously short, all down hill, or the aforementioned teams like September better than November.

Geneseo women did not run all that impressive if it was an all out race because girls ran under 21 at the regional there last year, including the winner 50 seconds up on montgomery and griggs.

History says its a very fast course.

And whats up with SLU's meet this weekend. That was the fastest regional ever 2 years ago and now the winning times are 26:06 and 24:00, wierd weekend.

Some facts from one who was at Wilmington. The women's course last year was 125 meters short according to Ron Combs the Wilmington Coach. The weather last year was dry two weeks up to the meet and the course was hard as can be. This year, it rained every day all week long previous to the meet and was raining very hard all night and up to the race. Combs had to change the course prior to the meet because parts of it were unrunable. The adjustments added distance to the course. Ask anyone who ran and they'll tell you that the mile and two mile splits were way off because of the adjustment; they'll also tell you that it was pretty sloppy throughout the run.

You may make slight of Geneseo's double win if you like but at least they were there and beat a total of 5 ranked schools on the men's side and 3 on the women's side. Their men also had an off day but still won any way. RIT's men ran great and showed alot even though Burdick was way off where he normally runs. I think the AR showed up and acquitted the Region quite well.

The Daniel Walker course used to be long. It was changed, the course is on a fast surface resulting in the remarkable times. However the DW course has no right angle turns, which I would attribute most of the slowness of the Nats course to. Obviously all the teams will run faster on it come nationals, but there are quite a few nasty turns on that course.

I still feel that Geneseo is a strong team, and they represent the Atlantic Region very well. They ran in the same slow conditions as everyone else at PreNats, and still won by a large margin. Geneseo definetely deserves to be at nationals I don't think anyone can deny that.

On that note, if what you say is correct and Geneseo needs to watch out for SLU and Cortland, then that makes 3 teams that deserve to be at Nats all from Atlantic. Given NYU and CNJ's performances they look to be just as strong if not stronger than SLU, so those teams deserve to be at Nats as well.

Unless my fingers lie, thats 5 teams from Atlantic that deserve a Nats spot, hmmm thats the maximum allowed. How is the Atlantic Region weak?

Ill admit there is a bit of bias in this, but the fact that everyone believes Geneseo is a shoo-in for Nats, and there are 4-5 (drop RIT in there too) teams that are breathing down Geneseo's collar proves that the Atlantic Region is capable of dropping it like its hot.

Ok, time to end the talking out of your butt campaign.

Point #1 - Scott Austin was not suspended from Regionals for an internet conspiracy campaign. The details are not important, but are related to the NYSCTC championship.

Point #2 - The pre-Nats course is not difficult, however there were several things "wrong" with it. The course was at least 60 meters long (the head coach told us he had to add 30m onto the course in a section the men and women ran twice). After looking at the section he changed, I would say it is longer than 60m. The mile marks were all messed up, partly from the change. Will Leer "split" from the 4 mile mark to the finish was 4:14. That's a bit fast for 1554 meters to finish the 8k, unless your Mr. Bekele (then it's slow).

Point #3 - Although the course was not difficult, it was not overly fast either. It was wet and I'm sure that slowed it down some. The first mile was slower than normal as the pack had at least 30 guys in it and noone pushing hard (except Jesse Williamson who had a 15 meter lead 1200 meters into the race). When regionals were held there last year, it was under IDEAL conditions AND it was the 2nd most (or most for some) important race of the year. Cool temps, very dry course and the grass was shorter. These factors were told to me by both the head coach of Wilmington and another very reliable head coach who was there last year. Remember, this was PRE-nationals, not nationals.

Point #4 - The women's course last year was 100 meters SHORT! The course at pre-nats this year was at least 60 meters LONG! You do the math, but that is between 30 and 40 seconds difference, depending on how fast the girls are running. See point #3 about it being PRE-nationals.

So, the moral of the story is this: Next time anyone wants to go off on an internet message board, get all the facts straight first!

Arguing on the internet is like winning the special olympics...in the end you're still retarded.

I'm pretty interested to see what Cortland and TCNJ do this weekend at Paul Short. Cloke will be faster than C Fred was last year I'm betting. Nally could be anywhere. I'm also curious to see whos fastest between Henry, Little, and Greenlaw. It'll be nice to finaly figure out what TCNJ has to offer too. I think Paul Short is definitely the race of the weekend.

why do you think Cloke will run faster than CFred did? thats saying an awful lot, considering the year fred had last year. Cortlands other guys after their top two will have to deal with the big race pressure and large field size. Both teams will also have to deal with Haverford, that might say more about the Atlantic Region than anything. As for Pre-Nats, times are irrelevant for many reasons. To me it just didnt look like there were alot of high quality teams there. My guess is most people in the midwest have been there before or knew alot about the course and didnt feel the need to go there, especially on a friday. The Atlantic region will get 3 teams to NCAA's for sure, CNJ, Geneseo, and NYU (not in that order) good chance for a fourth, but odds on 5 will be slim, mostly because nobody leaves NY State toward the end of the season. If people were going to race on 11/4, it now makes much more sense to go to ecac's and beat some top teams from New England, than run the 'state' meet against all the schools you've been racing all season, and will see again in 7 days. I do love all the Geneseo hype, but I'll assume its all their own guys with to much free time.

Arent schools that are members of certain conferences like the NYSCTC required to go those meets or be removed from the conference?

Internet arguing wrote:

Arguing on the internet is like winning the special olympics...in the end you're still retarded.

::Yawnnn::

Time for new material.

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D3

All- time All STARS (no order)

1. Seamus Mcelligot

2. Karl Paranya

3. Tom Touri

4. David Morris

5. Kevin Sullivan

6. Dan Held

7. Jukka Tomisouo

It is good to see SLU getting some more respect...the so called "dark horse" as you say. Clearly French was just pulling down the program up there.

[quote

Combs had to change the course prior to the meet because parts of it were unrunable. The adjustments added distance to the course. Ask anyone who ran and they'll tell you that the mile and two mile splits were way off because of the adjustment; they'll also tell you that it was pretty sloppy throughout the run.[/quote]

That definitely explains a lot. I my splits for the first 3 miles were 5:27, 11:40, 16:23. I didn't hear the 4 mile split.

The new polls are out, and the Atlantic region is well represented:

Men

4. SUNY Geneseo

5. NYU

13. TCNJ

23. RIT

29. SUNY Cortland

Women

1. SUNY Geneseo

6. TCNJ

18. Ithaca

27. SLU

I'm a little surprised that RIT is ranked so high on the men's side. They had a pretty good race at Pre-Nats, but nothing spectacular. I think it was a case of other teams underperforming. They just don't seem like the 23rd best team in the nation.

OK, here is the way I look at region strength, and what I believe justification for the Atlantic Region having 5 spots to nationals.

Fistly, here is the ranking, I eliminated the school names and replaced them with the region the school is from, for simplicity sake. The scoring at the bottom is the XC scoring system we are all familiar with, to eliminate more INC teams, I only calculated out to 4 places.

Region Region Rank

1 Great Lakes (1)

2 Midwest (1)

3 Mideast (1)

4 Atlantic (1)

5 Atlantic (2)

6 Midwest (2)

7 Midwest (3)

8 Central (1)

9 Midwest (4)

10 Central (2)

11 Midwest (5)

12 Central (3)

13 Atlantic (3)

14 New England (1)

15 West (1)

16 Mideast (2)

17 Great Lakes (2)

18 Great Lakes (3)

19 Central (4)

20 New England (2)

21 Midwest (*)

22 Mideast (3)

23 Atlantic (4)

24 Great lakes (4)

25 New England (3)

26 Midwest (*)

27 Mideast (4)

28 West (2)

29 Atlantic (5)

30 New England (4)

31 Central (5)

32 Midwest (*)

33 West (3)

34 Central (*)

35 South (1)

Midwest 24 2 6 7 9 (11)

Atlantic 45 4 5 13 23 (29)

Central 49 8 10 12 19 (31)

Great lakes 60 1 17 18 24

Mideast 68 3 16 22 27

New England 89 14 20 25 30

West INC 15 28 33

South INC 35

* given the ranking positions, if these teams place as they are ranked in the regional meet, then they will have no chance of going to nationals, due to the 5 team cap.

OK, so basic math first: 32 spots to nationals, 8 regions, an average of 4 spots per region in a perfect world. 16 of those teams will go to nationals, via automatic qualifications. The other 16 will be distributed, (in perfect world) 2 per region.

However, the south only has 1 ranked team, and to give them an extra qualifier would be a waste of a spot since that team would at best be ranked a theoretical 37th. The West currently only has 3 ranked teams, and would realistically only send 1 extra team to nationals at best. These two regions will logically free up a minimum of 3 extra team spots to regionals. Its obvious that by the complete dominance of the Midwest they will get an extra spot, just short of Armegeddon, this will not change. But since each region not losing a spot would only be able to recieve one more spot to nationals, one more to the Midwest will cap them off. Which leaves 2 spots to be spread between 2 eligible regions, Atlantic (YAY!) and Central(Boo!). Since Atlantic, and Central are the only regions with 5 ranked teams, it only follows that they will recieve 5 spots each. Not giving Atlantic a 5th spot would ranking-wise not make any sense, being that at best a 36th ranked team would beat out a 29th or 31st ranked team to nationals.

Mr. Zulu flame shield up.

Not sure why you would want your flame shield up. The only thing I disagree with is that the West will get 3 teams. Even though they have 3 ranked teams, I would be suprised if they really get an at-large bid.

I also believe I posted something similar to this (twice maybe). But maybe you didn't read the previous 23 pages. haha

i would have to agree with your logic, and I also only see the south getting 2 teams and the west 3. thats 16 autos, and 1 at large, leaving 15 team bids for the other 6 regions. As you said 2 more per region so the other 6 regions have 4 each, plus one more for the midwest does leave us with 2 left, for 5 regions. So yes the atlantic region has a chance at 5. So i agree with you so far, now some things that throw a monkey whrench in your process.

Your looking at rankings on 9/27, alot can and will change by nov 11. The results from conference meets and regionals will hold more sway, than just the rankings. So if the south meet is really close between 3 teams, like the atlantic was last year, they could get a third team, based on the criteria set up. Also if the 5th place team is way back in the atlantic region, like the 4th was last year, it wont help them. Also how close cortland/geneseo/brockport/rit and St Law. are at sunayacs and state meet will help or hurt peoples cause. If NYU wins or is a close second at their conference meet, will go along way toward helping the region, since they would then have beaten teams from a number of other regions who have good shots at making ncaa's. CMU in the mideast, UC in the midwest, Wash U, Case in the central i think? Emory down south, and even brandeis who is ranked in NE, though will most likely not be a top 5 region team by the end of the season.

The system is in place to get a diverse geographic mix of schools to ncaa's, while getting most of the best teams, not all. This will help or hurt the atlantic region depending on the year, but in general will help more often since we will almost never be in a situation like like year with 3 good, even teams and one got left home, not to mention only sending 4 guys, 3 of whom were in the top 18 or something like that.

Why is RIT ranked so high? They came in third at the pre-national meet with one of their top 3 finishing last on the team. So even though they had an off day they still performed. Truthfully RIT should be higher as they beat Wheaton and were extremely close to North Central who both ran their entire teams.

RIT should not be ahead of cortland. They proved nothing at pre-nats except their number one runner is afraid of contact, thier number 2 man gave up and finished last on their team, and some other runner who i forgot his name ran poorly. Pre-nats was no indication of what is to come at nationals. Especially because RIT isn't going to make it to nationals. The atlantic will get 4 teams and maybe 5. But I see that 5th team as SLU. SLU ran by themslves last weekend at their home meet and should run alone at liberty leagues. When they head to albany and saratoga where they will face good schools (including RIT) we will see just how good they are. And the way donahue has been running for SLU, Lowe won't have to worry about getting bumped in any races by him, which is good news for lowe.

Am I missing something? I honestly don't see what everyone is ranking SLU so high for. I'm not trying to bash them, they're a strong team, but where is everyone getting that they're going to contend for nationals from? Donohoe and Gaudette are both running well, but where are the results that show that they are as good as everyone thinks they are? They had some pretty impressive times at Oswego- so did everyone else, so no huge surprise there. And at their own invite, they dominated against essentially nobody and their times (aside from Donohoe and Gaudette) weren't spectaclar by any means. Not to mention they do have 3 freshmen in their top 7- not necessarily a bad thing, just something to consider. Is there another race they have run that I'm not aware of? By my estimation, SLU has good depth, but its bottom heavy after their top 2. Those are the teams that don't do so hot in bigger races. Teams like Geneseo, with a tight front five or six, those are the teams that go places; even if their top runners aren't going to be winning races, they're not going to be getting huge blocks of points from their 4 and 5 guys. If there is something I'm missing, please tell me, I'm all ears.

And I agree, RIT shouldn't be ahead fo Cortland, but I highly doubt we will be by the end of the season(or even by the end of the week). Up to this point, what has Cortland done to show themselves to be better than RIT? They haven't run a full team yet. Once they do, I guarantee they'll move up.

I also agree with it seeming like a lot of teams underperformed at Pre-Nats. I was thinking the same thing when I heard the results. But that having been said, they underperformed at a big race that counts in the rankings. If they moved down and RIT moved up after that race, its because they didn't race well and RIT did(and to be fair, we didn't have a spectacular race either, but thats my opinion). They don't do the rankings based on "well, so-and-so had an off day" or "those guys didn't run some of their top guys", they base it off of results. Just beause most of us know where the teams in our region should be doesn't mean that the rankings are wrong. Just means that the people doing to voting are looking at the numbers on the paper, not the heresay on the message boards. I don't know if RIT is the #23 team in the nation right now, I don't know if Geneseo and NYU are top 5 teams right now, but it doesn't matter what you or I think, it matters what the teams run.

And why are you so down on RIT being ranked in the first place? I don't like the fact that we beat Wheaton and DePauw(pretty thoroughly, in DePauw's case) and they're still ranked ahead of us, but so what? If we're the better team, then hopefully we'll race them again at nationals and find out. I'm excited to see that the Atlantic region seems to be very strong this year, who cares what teams they are? Its not like we're knocking teams out of nationals contention just by being on the list.