With so many great individual performers, they were always close, but NC State or UVA was always in the way.
This team seems to be more of a well-rounded unit that just held off a number of squads, including Stanford and UNC.
Congrats.
I look forward to seeing how the do in the NCAA regional event to set expectations for the overall NCAA meet.
In the most recent pill (linked), ND was 5th; Wisconsin, 11th; Michigan St, 26th; and Toledo, 29th. The Great Lakes Region appears not to be as loaded as in some recent seasons.
Wisconsin finished 3rd at the B1G, and Sparty was 6th. (domerduck will love this: his Ducks absolutely poleaxed the 2nd-ranked, grad-transfer-pimping UW Huskies to win their inaugural B1G meet.)
On the back of all the conference championship meets, new regional and national polls will be released Mon and Tues, respectively.
Incidentally, preseason national #1 and three-time defending national champion NC State finished 5th in the ACC race. And, for a bit of amusement, the Dookies finished 18th (of 18).
51 points to runner up Wisconsin with 97. ND's first 5 runners all finished in the top 20. Very impressive.
(states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana) *and* as a separate Midwest region (states like Illinois and Iowa). It was staring me in the face but only realized it yesterday.
The Midwest covers a lot of states, west to North Dakota and south from there to Oklahoma.
In the last few years, the Great Lakes has been a more formidable region than the Midwest and has claimed quite a few at-large berths. This year, the gap between the Great Lakes and Midwest seems much more slender, but the GL overall still seems tougher.
Other than trying to balance the number of universities in regions and with tons of them in Illinois, I’m not sure how Illinois drew the seemingly fortunate outcome of being in the Midwest Region.
given the conference championships. In addition to the ACC, for both of us the Big 10 championship also did not go as form. My 17th ranked Ducks beat 2 higher ranked teams (#2 Washington & #11 Wisconsin) to win the B10 championship. Your daughter's team also did well getting 7th in the Big 10. Congrats to your daughter for helping your team get that result placing 3rd on her team. Hopefully they can do well in the regionals. And another bit of amusement in the Big 10 USC end 18 of 18.
Good luck to Maddy & her team. Glad she is running so well.
They’ve apparently been sand-bagging up until now, which is nice to be able to do. That was the first race this season for the Duck, Silan Ayyildiz, who won the B1G (five in the top 12, insane!). I expect the Ducks will be in the Top 5 nationally tomorrow. Possibly as high as second. Hard to specify exactly where.
Thanks for the note on my daughter. She’s certainly been working hard. Her 6k personal-best has come down 77+ seconds in a series of steps this season. Flat courses, like the one at Illinois that hosted the B1G meet, do help.
The team has work to do at the Midwest Regional in Peoria. OK State (4th at the Big 12, loaded at the top with BYU, WVU and Utah all in the national top six) is first in the region, Minnesota (5th at the B1G) is second. Our ladies are third — after being second, first and second in Sept and early Oct. We’ll need a very strong day to move into an AQ spot.
As for USC and their 18th finish, I suppose it’s possible to be competitive and finish in 18th. However, the Women of Troy were way, way, way, way back. They do have a formidable track program; all the focus seems to be on sprinting and relays.