Year affected by Indoor Track NC same weekend as Xcountry NC

Indoor finished Saturday in Fayetteville, Arkansas where Oregon men and Arkansas women won, so many traditional XCountry teams didn't go the NCs. Oregon didn't send either it's men or women's team to XCountry as both teams ran the DMR (which ND men and Oregon women were defending champs) as well as had runners in the 800k, mile, 3k, and 5k. They ended up winning 4 of those distance championships (including replacing ND as DMR champ with a new meet record) as well as placed and got lots of points in those distance events. Those runners would have run cross country last fall, but missed the meet. I am sure they were not the only school who had to make a tough call.

Obviously ND chose not to defend it's DMR and those runners helped us get 2nd place. It didn't shock me given the focus. By the way ND women had 13 points and men 5 in the indoor chmapionship so did send some athletes. I watched the replay of the indoors on ESPN app and plan to watch the xcrountry when I get a chance. Great result for ND.