Pre-Nationals Re-Cap

The NCAA pre-national meet is always one of the most exciting meets of the year. There are approximately 85 teams split into two different races. You have the opportunity to watch some of the best athletes in the nation compete and you get a great idea of where your teams fits in on the national stage. Besides a few major hiccups, I thought we ran pretty well. I'll go through each race and each individual.

Women-
If you looked at the results, you would have two questions: What happened to Jayne? What happened to Olivia? We are still trying to figure that out. In a nutshell, our top runner dropped out of the race and our number 2 girl walked the last 400m. Your team score tends to suffer when this happens. If you would have taken the team scores at 4k, we would have placed 15th-17th. Jayne and Olivia were running right next to Laurie. We ended up placing 26th(which still isn't that bad). We looked great until around 5k, when things started to unravel. Neither girl had any sort of injury, my honest guess is that the pressure got to them. Both of them went into panic mode when they started getting passed. They began to hyperventilate and the body systems started to shut down. I had to carry Jayne off the course and into the medical tent. When I looked up after setting Jayne on the table, I saw two other trainers dragging Olivia into the tent. This was definitely a scary moment for a coach. For the most part, the other girls ran well. I think both Jayne and Olivia will bounce back from this episode. We'll make a few changes in race strategy for conference. Hopefully nothing like this ever happens again.

93 Laurie Dalrymple So. 21:46 (Great race for this young lady. I was impressed with her toughness. She normally isn't our number one, but she stepped up and did a great job).
113 Anna Weber Jr. 22:00 (Not a great race for her. I expected her to be 20-30 spots higher)
120 Amanda Beggs Jr. 22:06 (Solid race for her. I think she can run a little better, but she improved her placing from last year by 45 spots. I'll take that any day).
182 Maureen Keane So. 22:38 (Great race for this young lady. She had no idea she was our 4th runner).
211 Kate Horan Fr. 22:55 (Nice race for this freshmen. She is normally our 8th girl and today she was our 5th girl. She is tough when it counts).
272 Olivia Johnson So. 24:33 (She'll recover from this quickly).

Open Race-
Sarah Verdoliva Jr. 23:11 (Nice final race for this first-time XC runner. She'll come back next season much stronger and wiser).
Courtney Kelly Fr. 23:25 (Getting better each week. Still has more in the tank).
Dani Owen So. 23:43 (Ran about 40 seconds slower than last year. Disappointing season thus far).
Bekki Misanin Fr. 23:46 (Nice race for this freshmen).

Men-
Overall, I was pretty happy with the men's performance. We finished a little lower than we did last year, but we still ran strong considering how many injury/illness issues we have dealt with recently. The competition is so tough at this meet and I think our men responded well to the challenge. In general, times were 20-30 seconds slower than last year. I think the wind played a big part in slowing things down. Kyle Saginus has established himself as a serious threat to qualify individually for nationals.

63 Kyle Saginus Sr. 24:35 (Great race for Kyle. He ran a few seconds faster than he did last year in much slower conditions. He's running great right now!).
104 Brice Cleland So. 24:57 (Brice was disappointed with his time because its about the same time he ran last year, but once again, the conditions weren't nearly as favorable. He placed about 50 spots higher than last year).
171 Nick Szczech So. 25:28 (Still not quite where we want him, but at least he ran a better race. He's starting to look better in practice, hopefully that translates into the races).
203 Blake Johnson Fr. 25:44 (Nice race for this freshmen. I think he can still go much faster, but this was a much better effort than Notre Dame. He will be ready to PR at conference).
229 Drew Craig Sr. 26:04 (Not as good as Notre Dame, but still a solid race for him. He had the race of his life at Notre Dame, so thats hard to live up to).
247 Keith Schueller Fr. 26:15 (Very solid effort for this freshmen. He takes care of business).
259 Mark Kopecki Sr. 26:44 (Very disappointing effort for him. Things have not gone well this season. Hopefully he can turn it around at conference).

Open Race-
Dominick Rosario Fr. 26:25 (Great effort for this young man. He did a great job leading this pack).
Patrick Keeley Fr. 26:38 (Was hoping for a little more from him, but not a bad effort. He can go faster).
Steve Briggs Sr. 26:54 (Disappointing end to his season and career at Marquette. Unless someone in front of him gets hurt, he will not be going to conference).
Garrett McKnight Fr. 27:15 (Starting to run out of gas. He's more of a middle distance runner, but I have been happy with his season. He'll train through conference and then start focusing on track. He'll be an 800m/1500m specialist for us. Good season for this freshman).