CROSS COUNTRY: LOWERY PROVES HE'S ONE OF THE

[JackJD]

Senior Brad Lowery finished 9th at the U of Minnesota's Roy Griak Invitational Cross Country Meet in the Twin Cities today. The men's team finished 18th out of 27 teams in a race that featured 15 of the top 30 D-I Cross Country Teams in the country. Brigham Young won the men's team title, finishing ahead of possible national champion Wisconsin which didn't run a couple of its runners. Compare: NDSU finished 25th, edging Nebraska at 26th and Baylor in 27th.

Here are the top 10 individual place winners, led by defending national champ Simon Bairu of Wisconsin (distance 8,000 meters):

1 Simon Bairu, Wisconsin, 23:43
2 Benson Chesang, Kansas, 24:05
3 Josh Rohatinsky, Brigham Young, 24:06
4 Seth Pilkington, Weber State, 24:07
5 Stuart Eagon, Wisconsin, 24:15
6 Austin Ramos, UCLA, 24:21
7 Martin Fagan, Providence, 24:25
8 Antony Ford, Wisconsin, 24:27
9 Brad Lowery, South Dakota State, 24:30
10 Scott Overall, Butler, 24:32

I'm going to do some analysis comparing the SDSU team with USD...USD ran well in the D-II race, led by Tony Turgeon's 2nd place finish and Tyler Wettering's 3rd place finish. BUT, one needs to note that SDSU's top SEVEN runners ran faster than the USD's third finisher. (In cross country, a team's first five are scored and its next two act as "pushers" which means then do not count for points but they can push back other point-scoring runners from other teams to worse finishing places. SDSU ran 11 runners and the 8th Jackrabbit ran faster than the fourth USD runner. SDSU's 10th runner would have been the 4th finisher for NDSU!! SOME USD PEOPLE HAD BEEN SUGGESTING THE COYOTES MIGHT GIVE THE JACKRABBITS A RUN ON THE GOLF COURSE AFTER A NICE USD PERFORMANCE AT IOWA STATE A COUPLE WEEKS AGO. WELL, THAT CRAZY NOTION WAS DESTROYED THIS MORNING.

The Jack women ran without the benefit of Shannon Hattervig who fell on the course and didn't finish. Even so, they finished 20th out of 31 teams which included some of the best D-I women's teams in the country. NDSU finished 31st...not sure what happened to a couple of the Bison runners. The Jack women beat North Carolinoa, Kansas, Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa State and others.

Becka Mansheim led the lady Jacks with a 34th-place individual performance. She ran a strong 22:01 for the 5,000 meter race. The winner, Amy Hastings of Arizona State was impressive, winning in 20:58.



Full results: http://www.gophersports.com/Griak/Results.asp

[JackJD]

Re: CROSS COUNTRY:  LOWERY PROVES HE'S ONE OF THE

More analysis:

Keep in mind that the all the university/college races at the Griak meet are run on the same course and race conditions are nearly identical. There was a gentle rain during the D-II men's race but, on the other hand, the course was very slippery and chewed up in places when the D-1 men's and women's races were run -- the D-1 races were held AFTER the D-III and D-II races.

Note the following:
USD's women's team finished 4th in the D-II race. The USD women are a good D-II team but note the following: USD's top runner finished 4th in the D-II race with a time of 22:08. SDSU's top finisher, Becka Mansheim, was 34th in the D-I race WITH A TIME OF 22:01. !!!

Becka's time in the D-1 race was 5 seconds slower than the winner's time in D-2.

Brad Lowery's 9th-place finish time in the D-1 race was 42 seconds faster than the winning time in D-II.

[SDSUFAN]

Re: CROSS COUNTRY:  LOWERY PROVES HE'S ONE OF THE

JDJack:
Excellent analysis, good points made. I was impressed with Brad Lowery appearence and comments at Wednesday's Jackrabbit Club meeting. Now I am more impressed than ever with his 9th place finish.