Oct. 6, 2005 -- As we reach
the midway point of the season it's perhaps a good time to do a
quick update on the progress of the 2005 Cross Country season. As
we came into this fall it was with very high expectations. Returning
5 of our top 6 runners from the 2004 team that advanced to the NCAA
championships for the first time ever. The idea of returning to
the NCAA's and placing in the top 10 seemed to be realistic. We
have several runners with both national experience in cross country
and track and outstanding leaders on the 2005 team.
We have now
competed in 4 meets this fall. The first two found the Maroons undefeated
winning at the Elmhurst Invitational and the Luther College "All-American"
invite. Following the Luther meet our team reached an all time highest
NCAA ranking moving to #8 in the country.
Two weeks later
we competed at the Augustana invitational and were perhaps caught
a bit by surprise by the host team. Augustana was a squad we had
defeated at Luther College and with a much bigger meet coming up
the following week it seemed our team didn't come into Auggy as
mentally prepared as they needed to be. Augustana got out very aggressively
and at the midway point of the race was running away with the meet.
By the time our squad realized what had happened they perhaps got
frustrated and just didn't compete at the same level we have grown
accustomed to. In the process another regional team (Wheaton College)
slipped by us as well.
I think the
Auggy meet was a great experience for our team simply because it
gave them a bit of a wake up call. Not that our squad was overconfident
but learned we can not look beyond the competition at hand. This
was a nice chance for our team to re-establish a team concept to
racing and to look at what it was going to take to accomplish the
goals of being a top 10 team nationally.
The following
week we competed in one of the largest invitationals in the country,
"The Loyola Lakefront Invitational". This meet is hosted
by Loyola of Chicago but feels like a home meet for us. Run on the
shores of Lake Michigan and a meet that brought in about 60 schools
from all across the country and Canada. Our team was invited to
run in the Gold Division and we were the only NCAA 3 school (non
scholarship) school in that division. 28 teams competed in the Gold
Division and our men finished in 12th place. Overall a good day
but still not our best performance. This meet had a very similar
feeling to the NCAA's. The competition was very similar the size
pretty much the same and something that will really prepare us to
run in that field in November.
Still perhaps
looking for the perfect approach to racing our squad got out a little
aggressively at the Lakefront meet - completely the opposite approach
of Auggy. I was pleased with how well we hung on considering the
aggressive start and the fact that we were still within our toughest
training cycle. This showed me we have a great deal of fitness right
now and when we put everything together will really race well.
I believe we
have developed a group of 6 runners that have distinguished themselves
as people we can count on week in and week out to compete at a high
level. Senior Captains - Pat Hogan (Seattle, WA) and Teage O'Connor
(Thousand Oaks, CA), Juniors - Emil Bojanov (Sofia, Bulgaria) and
Brian Hague (Chicago, IL), Sophomore Ryan McCarl (Muskegon, MI)
and Freshman Jon Ascolese (Loveland, OH). These 6 runners have been
in our top 6 in a different order every race they have competed
in so far this season. At the Augustana meet only 28 seconds separated
that group and with a pack running mentality we will be very difficult
to contend with in the championship portion of our season. With
the exception of Jon everyone of these runners has met or gone to
the NCAA's in track and cross country.
I also feel
there is a number of additional runners in this program that will
fill the role of the 7th runner it's just a matter of who that person
will be. This is clearly the deepest team I've had an opportunity
to coach at Chicago and am really looking forward to the upcoming
weeks.
Our next meet
with our full squad will be on October 15th at UW-Parkside. This
meet will give us an opportunity to race against the #2 ranked team
in the country in North Central College along with a few other nationally
ranked teams from the NCAA 3. This will also be the meet that determines
our conference squad. The men will be ready for the challenge as
a final tune-up to the championship portion of the season.
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