NCAA Championships: Unfortunately, the Irish men ...
by Rocksteady74 (2021-11-20 11:53:06)
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... underachieved relative to expectations. Dylan Jacobs finished 10th but Yared faded badly in the second half of the race. I think he ended up finishing in about 155th place.

Irish women finished fifth, which I think is a positive result for them. Maddy finished ninth and Olivia eleventh.

Didn't have the horses to beat NAU/ISU/OkSt in the team race
by Domerduck  (2021-11-20 15:55:39)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

so the strategy was to start strong and stay together which they couldn't do. The men's team really overachieved in the spring to get 2nd for the 2020 championship. I am actually very impressed with the women's results at 5 overall. Given the altitude schools advantages (BYU, CU, NAU, & New Mexico), it's great to see ND is becoming again an alternative for an academic minded runner vs Stanford who always does well. It's important for both men & women's team to both be competitive to bring in the runners year after year. This year six teams had top 10 results in both men & women: BYU 2/7, CU 4/8, Stanford 6/5, Arkansas 8/4, ISU 9/2, and ND with a 5 & 9 finish respectively. Ok State just missed making that group at 11/3. Hopefully ND can keep up with the other 6 to stay competitve in the coming years.

Matt Sparks was promoted to director T/F & Xcountry in 2018 and Carlson was promoted XCountry HC in 2019. They have brought ND back as a destination for long distance runners. We are now getting men and women team success to follow up with the recent individual champions we've had with Molly Huddle, Molly Seidel, & Yared Nuguse. The last time both the ND men and women were top 10 in the NCAAs was 2005 when they went 7th women and 3rd men. The other top 10 double finishers back then were prerennials Stanford (1, 6), CU (2,5), & Ok State (8, 10). Stephanie Madia, Molly Huddle, and Kurt Benninger were All Americans back then. Between 1987 and 2005 ND men and women had 14 top 10 finishes in NCAA xcountry championships. ND didn't make another top 10 in men or women until the women got 8th in 2015 when Molly Seidel was Xcountry NC. Sparks came in 2014 and developed Seidel's success focusing on women distance runners. They also got an 8th overall in 2018. Carlson took over the men distance coaching in 2016 and got the men to 14th in 2018 and top 10 finishes the last 3 years. Hopefully we can keep up the success and have it carry over the distance success in the T&F indoor and outdoor seasons.

Congrats to the Irish XCountry team and their coaches.