No Surprise, Buffs Once Again Among NCAA Cross Country Favorites
November 16, 2017 | Cross Country, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — There are perhaps a handful of college programs in the nation — in any sport — whose expectations are to finish among the top five in the nation every year.
The Colorado cross country teams, men's and women's, are among that group. In the last 20 years — 40 competitions — CU's cross country teams have accounted for 24 top-five NCAA finishes (15 men, nine women), with seven national titles in that stretch (five men, two women).
In other words, the Buffs have at least one top-five finish more often than not — and the expectation is that this year will be no different.
Come Saturday, when the Buffs line up at the NCAA Championships in Louisville, Ky., both CU teams will be among the contenders for podium (top four) finishes. The women enter the weekend as the No. 1 ranked team in the nation; the men are ranked fifth.
But rankings, however, are by no means a guaranteed indicator of finish. Many of the nation's top-ranked squads play an interesting game of cat-and-mouse at this point of the year, holding some competitors out of league and even NCAA regional competitions in order to keep them as fresh as possible for the meet that matters most.
But Saturday is when every team will play its best hand possible. If all goes perfectly — a rarity with so many variables — Colorado head coach Mark Wetmore believes his women could be in the running for a national title and the men in contention for a top-three performance.
"The women were very good last weekend, they did everything we needed them to do," Wetmore said of CU's win last weekend at the NCAA Mountain Region meet. "Everybody was dialing it back a little bit — just enough to do the job and advance, as was New Mexico. They held out the woman who won the regionals a year ago. They didn't play their whole hand; we didn't play our whole hand. I was happy with how they ran, we can be a little better."
Wetmore's ace in his hand is junior Dani Jones, who could figure in the top five individually in the 6K race. A middle-distance specialist on the track (she won an NCAA indoor title in the 3,000 last spring and was fifth in the NCAA outdoor 1,500), Jones has also become a standout cross country runner, and will be among the favorites, along with New Mexico's Ednah Kerghat, who is undefeated this year; Missouri's Karissa Schweizer, the defending national champion; and New Hampshire's Elinor Purrier, who beat Schweizer and Jones earlier this year at the Pre-National meet in Louisville.
"I think (a top-five finish) is most people's perception," Wetmore said of Jones. "There are four or five pretty formidable women. Dani at the end of last year would not have been on that form chart, but she's had a good year and I won't be surprised to see her in the top five."
But when it comes to team scoring at a big meet, it is oftentimes the fifth-place runner (the last runner to score) that makes the biggest difference in the team standings.
"Up in the rarified air of one through 10, it's only a point or two difference between your top runner and someone else's," Wetmore said. "But back in the belly of the beast, 10 seconds can be 20 spots or 25 spots — so a good fifth is more important than a good first."
Thus, Wetmore will also be looking for quality finishes from junior Makena Morley, sophomore Sage Hurta, senior Kaitlyn Benner, redshirt freshman Madie Boreman, sophomore Brianna Schwartz, sophomore Tabor Scholl and senior Melanie Nun.
"There are five really good teams," Wetmore said. "Colorado is good, Oregon has beaten us, Stanford tied Oregon at the conference meet and then beat them at the regionals. San Francisco won the Western region and New Mexico is very good — they've been cagey all year, never playing their full hand. Any one of those five teams could win and any one of those five teams could be fifth."
On the men's side, Northern Arizona and BYU — the two teams that beat CU in the NCAA region meet — are favored to battle it out for the title. After that, there are a handful of other teams that could end up in third and fourth.
The Buffs will be looking for a high finish from sophomore Joe Klecker, who won last week's 10K regional race.
"To get where we want to be, we can't have anybody stumble," Wetmore said. "Joe was good last week. We didn't need him to win the race, but I think everybody was running along pretty conservatively and he put his toe in the water and nobody went with him, so he said, 'Why not?'' He won the race and looked good, I think he was fresh when it was over."
After Klecker, the Buffs will be looking to Zach Perrin, Ryan Forsyth, Ethan Gonzales, Eduardo Herrera, Adam Peterman, Christian Martin and Reilly Friedman. All but Gonzales have NCAA meet experience.
"We need everybody's best race of the year, which you rarely get," Wetmore said. "BYU and NAU are a head above the rest of us, so we would need us to have a perfect day and one of those two teams to stumble to get above third. Syracuse is a strong third but not untouchable."
Another factor in the men's race is the 10K distance. After racing 8K for most of the year, the distance jumps up for the regional races, meaning runners will run two hard 10K races in the span of eight days — by no means a simple task.
"I would tell the general public to go out and run 6 miles down the road as hard as you can until you fall down and throw up," Wetmore said. "Then come back and do it again eight days later and you'll get it."
NUTS AND BOLTS
Where: The meet will be held Saturday at E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky.
When: The women's 6K race will begin at 8:45 a.m.; the men's 10K race at 9:45 a.m.
Broadcast: The meet will be broadcast by FloTrack, a video on-demand service that can be accessed at www.FloTrack.com. Former Colorado three-time NCAA champion and two-time Olympian Kara Goucher will serve as one of the commentators, along with Olympic marathoner Jared Ward. Cost of a FloTrack subscription is $19.99 for one month or an annual price of $150.
Results: Available at the NCAA's website here.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
Players Mentioned
