South Central Regional today at Agri Park in Fayetteville. Women won the regional with a perfect score of 15 (finished 1 through 5). Taylor Werner won the individual title. Men were second to Texass (UT 38, Hogs 68) but still advance to the NCAA. Matt Young led the Hogs with a third place finish behind two Fallopian runners.
I do not think I ever saw a perfect score before in XC.
John McDonnell’s teams used to have them all the time. But in an NCAA regional, maybe not. Of course in his day there may not have been NCAA regionals either.
It wasn’t uncommon for McDonnell’s teams to have a sixth-place finisher who didn’t contribute to the team score.
Where is the women XC team ranked nationally?
Numero uno.
Men are 38th, but only the top 31 teams make NCAAs and we’ll be there, so that ranking will improve
I guess I had forgotten just how good coach Mac’s teams were.
Of course, Coach McDonnell built his teams on his distance runners. There were other significant contributors, but the distance runners were the heart of the teams.
Holy smokes, just read the women’s article-perfect score?!?!?!? I’ve never heard of such, this really is a special team. if they win the NC, they’ve got to be considered some kind of “best ever” team. that is really amazing.
GHG!!!
I don’t think there’s any question it’s our best women’s XC team. Never ranked #1 before. As noted above in the thread, perfect scores have not been too infrequent in Arkansas XC history, although usually by the men,
By the way, our 1-5 finishers were all seniors, so there might be a little drop-off in 2020 unless Lance can get some people out of the portal, Which he might. XC people transfer a lot anyway because they usually don’t have to sit out for a year.
The Razorbacks have had four national runner-up finishes at the NCAA meet. Those were all in the 1990s, before the race was extended to 6K. Arkansas’ finish at the NCAA meet this year will determine where this team belongs among the school’s best. They have performed well against good teams, but they haven’t seen the teams from the West who should be their biggest challengers in Terre Haute.
This year has been a surprise for Lance Harter. He told me that. The biggest surprise has been the performance of Katie Izzo, who was an 88th-place finisher last year at Cal Poly. She could be a top 10 finisher in two weeks. It is also surprising because Katrina Robinson, who was the team’s best cross country runner last year, missed this season with an injury. Robinson should return in 2020, so that will mitigate the loss of the seniors some.