VARIOUS SITES, November 01 & 02— The conference championships are title meets, the results count for something. They’re also key signposts suggesting how the short cross country season’s final bouts, men’s and women’s comps at the NCAA Championships, may unfold.
If you harbor a soft spot for tradition, this year’s rocked your landscape. The Pac-12? Gone. Longtime West Coast powers raced on the Atlantic seaboard at the ACC, with Stanford placing 2nd in both the men’s and women’s races, bested by the Wake Forest men and the Notre Dame women.
In the Heartland at the Big 10 — now swollen to 18 members — the women’s comp saw an Oregon-Washington team 1-2 ahead of Wisconsin with Ducks Şilan Ayyıldız and Maddy Elmore out front by 10-seconds plus.
“We picked winning this championship, specifically, as a main goal and focus this season,” Oregon assistant Shalane Flanagan told correspondent Don Kopriva. “Nine weeks ago, they told me they wanted to win this meet and wanted to be a contender at Nationals. I believed them and I’m here to facilitate.”
The Wisconsin men rolled to a seventh straight conference crown, the program’s 55th overall in the nation’s oldest loop.
Badger senior Bob Liking made himself the Big 10’s fourth 4-time champ, racing in front of two predecessors — Craig Virgin and Kevin Sullivan. The other 4-timer club member, Bob Kennedy, perhaps spectated at the ACC where soph daughter Sophia ran No. 2 for Stanford in 11th.
“After my sophomore year, I thought, ‘Maybe I could do this,’” Liking said of his quest for 4. “[Coach Mick Byrne] was pretty big on it my whole time here, so I’m a little relieved. But it’s cool, just to be part of those names, and to be congratulated by them.”
Following Liking in the next four places were ex-Pac-12ers.
Among the early-line individual top 10 picks in our October issue NCAA XC Preview, 6 men triumphed at their conferences:
Men: Graham Blanks (Harvard/Heps), Patrick Kiprop (Arkansas/SEC), Evans Kurui (Washington State/West Coast), David Mullarkey (Northern Arizona/Big Sky), Brian Musau (Oklahoma State/Big 12), Habtom Samuel (Mountain West).
Of our women’s picks, only Doris Lemngole (Alabama/SEC) won a title, though that stat only means so much when stars run on dominant teams at the loop level (see Northern…
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