Here's the perspective of John Kellogg of the running website LetsRun.com. He sees the Villanova teams on the bubble in their quest to qualify for the NCAA cross country national meet. Each team is sitting at #3 in the region, with only the top two team finishers getting an automatic slot at Nationals.
2012 NCAA Regional Formchart – Mid-Atlantic Region
by John Kellogg
November 7, 2012
LetsRun.com Editor's note: LetsRun's coaching/stat guru John Kellogg has done what basically no one else in the world would have the expertise/patience to do – predict what his going to happen at Friday’s NCAA D1 cross country regionals. The top two teams in each region and top four individuals not on a team that qualifies will make it to NCAAs. Then 13 at large teams will be added in and two at large individuals. If someone wants to take the time to tell us who the at-large teams teams and individuals will be based on these previews, then please email us as we’d love to put that up later in the week. We imagine even the great John Kellogg is bound to have missed someone in these predictions, so if you have corrections, please email them to us.
Mr. Kellogg seemingly comes out of hibernation every few months to make predictions in the running world. He did Regional previews in 2011 and 2008 and in the spring of 2010, he said it wouldn’t surprise him if someone ran faster than 2:03:59 in Boston and then Geoffrey Mutai ran 2:03:02 and after the race everyone (except us) was saying the unthinkable had happened.
Mr. Kelllogg has scoured the season’s results – with the most weight given to recent (conference meet) performances – to take a guess at who should be the top 25 individuals and few teams in each of the nine regions. A lot of runners were considered for the top 25 and he’ll undoubtedly get quite a few wrong – someone just outside his top 25 has just as good a chance as someone who just made it – and there are always a couple of huge surprises. Team scores are generally based on the strengths of the top teams relative to each other (discounting many of the runners outside the top 25 or so from non-contending teams) and will probably end up being higher than he’s listed them due to displacement from those individuals. In short, this is a pretty good general idea of who should be in the hunt, but it’s still bound to get a bunch of it completely wrong. So basically this is all for S&Gs. We hop you enjoy them. For more on the logic behind the picks, please see last year’s instructions.
Mid-Atlantic
Blue And White Golf Course, University Park, Pennsylvania
Men
Individuals
Georgetown’s Mark Dennin finished 6th in this region a year ago and would be the top returner, but he hasn’t raced since winning at Paul Short over a month ago. Directly behind him in 7th at last year’s Regional was teammate Andrew Springer, who has run well of late and came in 6th at Big East to lead the Hoyas. He should be challenged by Princeton’s recently-crowned HEPS champion Chris Bendtsen. Bendtsen has been running second for Princeton throughout most of the season, but his last effort made him a conference champion, so he gets the top spot in the formchart. Tiger teammate Alejandro Arroyo-Yamin has actually had the best overall season of anyone in the field, including a 31st place at Wisconsin, best of the region’s runners in that massive race. Duquesne’s Jim Spisak was on fire until recently, with 3rd at Paul Short and 13th at Pre-Nationals, but then slipped back to 22nd at Atlantic 10. That conference meet was won by 8:36.10 steepler and 1st team All-American Travis Mahoney (Temple) ahead of LaSalle’s Alfredo Santana, who has put up some pretty impressive results of his own this fall. Santana was 14th in the region last year and is the 3rd returner (minus Dennin).
Chris Bendtsen (Princeton)
Andrew Springer (Georgetown)
Alejandro Arroyo-Yamin (Princeton)
Travis Mahoney (Temple)
Ben Furcht (Georgetown)
Tyler Udland (Princeton)
Alfredo Santana (LaSalle)
Darren Fahy (Georgetown)
Sam McEntee (Villanova)
Jim Spisak (Duquesne)
Jonathan Vitez (Princeton)
Mathew Mildenhall (Villanova)
Eddie Owens (Princeton)
Mark Allen (American)
Miles Schoedler (Georgetown)
Robert Denault (Villanova)
Logan Mohn (St. Joseph’s)
Tyler Mueller (Lehigh)
Matt McDonald (Princeton)
Jordy Williamsz (Villanova)
John Dugan (Bucknell)
Ryan Mahalsky (Lehigh)
Jonathan Mazzio (St. Joseph’s)
Robby Creese (Penn State)
John Murray (Georgetown)
Teams
Princeton, surprised big-time by a monster race from conference rivals Columbia at Wisconsin, went into the Ivy League meet as underdogs for the first time in a long time, but galloped to the top two individual spots and placed 4 in the top 7 on their home course to emerge with a convincing 26-58 victory over the Lions. Princeton also beat Georgetown head-to-head very early in the season. Though early September meets don’t matter in November, the 13th-ranked Tigers should still be the favorites here if they run on a par with their HEPS race. Villanova got the best of Georgetown at Pre-Nationals by a scant 13 points and one team spot, but the Wildcats were relegated to 5th at Big East, where the Hoyas came up for second. Ergo, the pre-meet edge goes to Georgetown for the 2nd auto spot.
Princeton
Georgetown
Villanova
Women
Individuals
Big East champ Emily Lipari (Villanova) gets the nod as the favorite in the region, also having the most impressive regular season result of any of the field’s runners – a 7th place at Pre-Nationals. Meghan McGlinchey of LaSalle raced to 33rd at Wisconsin and a runner-up finish at Atlantic 10. Assuming she runs up to expectations here, there’s a small chance she could be the only individual NCAA qualifier to finish in the top 10 in the meet. Most of the other top spots stand to be occupied by runners from the four currently ranked or formerly ranked teams in the region. One spot behind McGlinchey at Wisco was Penn State’s Rebekka Simko, who continued her strong running with 5th place at Big Ten. West Virginia has been without injured XC All-American Kaitlyn Gillespie all season, but the Mountaineers regained 2011 10k All-American Sarah-Anne Brault just in time for the Big 12 meet. Brault is actually the top returner in the region (not counting Gillespie) and raced to 10th at Big 12 – perhaps not strong enough to win the Regional but an impressive rust buster nonetheless, with the likes of Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Texas in the conference.
Emily Lipari (Villanova)
Meghan McGlinchey (LaSalle)
Rebekka Simko (Penn State)
Nicky Akande (Villanova)
Madeline Chambers (Georgetown)
Katrina Coogan (Georgetown)
Sarah-Anne Brault (West Virginia)
Tori Perri (Penn State)
Annamarie Maag (Georgetown)
Brooklyne Ridder (Penn State)
Summer Cook (Villanova)
Greta Feldman (Princeton)
Kelly Williams (West Virginia)
Samantha Nadel (Georgetown)
Kirsten Kasper (Georgetown)
Annie-Norah Beveridge (Navy)
Emily Jones (Georgetown)
Sarah Martinelli (West Virginia)
Rachael Schneider (Georgetown)
Abby Levene (Princeton)
Jordan Hamric (West Virginia)
Jackie Nicholas (Princeton)
Brigid Byrne (Navy)
Megan Venables (Villanova)
Natalie Bower (Penn State)
Teams
Last fall, Georgetown pulled off a minor upset over a few teams to win the national championship, with Villanova in 3rd, West Virginia 8th and Penn State 13th. This made the Mid-Atlantic, geographically the smallest region, the strongest one in the country on race day. It’s a competitive region for sure. G’Town is currently ranked 9th in the coaches poll and, having won their conference, the Hoyas do look to be the top team in the region, but winning it won’t be a gimme. Villanova is extremely good at 1 & 2 and still quite formidable through 3, but lack of depth prevented the Wildcats from rising higher than 4th at Big East, and they may face the same scenario here. Penn State and West Virginia may be behind ‘Nova after four runners are scored but have a chance to make up the gap by the time all five come in. The qualifying scenario is too complicated to figure until results from all the regions are in, but Villanova and West Virginia had better be aiming for top two. PSU almost certainly makes Nationals with a 3rd place team result, but there’s a chance they don’t if they’re any lower in the standings.
Georgetown
Penn State
Villanova
West Virginia
Princeton
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