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Thursday, March 28, 2024
With six of their top seven scorers from 2017 returning inlcuding Amy Davis (left) and Alicia Monson (center), Wisconsin's women's squad will have a deep and experienced pack in 2018.

With six of their top seven scorers from 2017 returning inlcuding Amy Davis (left) and Alicia Monson (center), Wisconsin's women's squad will have a deep and experienced pack in 2018.

2018 Nuttycombe Preview: The country's top teams descend on Madison as part of strongest-ever field

Just weeks after legendary cross country and track coach Ed Nuttycombe was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletics Hall of Fame, the meet that bears his name is set to host the strongest field in its history.

In fact, the 2018 Nuttycombe invitational could make a claim as the strongest regular season meet in NCAA cross country history.

A pair of truly stacked fields — seven of the top 10 teams in the country on both the women’s and men’s sides, and 33 ranked teams between the two races — will descend on Madison on Friday to get a first look at the course that will host the national championships for the first time this season.

Men’s Preview

2018’s unprecedentedly deep field will provide a perfect measuring stick for a seventh-ranked Badgers squad that has as much uncertainty as any team in the country.

Aussies Morgan McDonald and Oliver Hoare are the back-to-back defending Big Ten individual cross country champions, and although he hasn’t competed for UW in a year, McDonald is the most pedigreed runner in the NCAA. Junior Olin Hacker and sophomores Finn Gessner and Seth Hirsch came to campus with stellar high school credentials; Hacker and Gessner were second-place finishers at the Footlocker Cross Country National Championship, while Hirsch took third.

If all those runners perform to their potential, the Badgers can run with any team in the country. That caliber of performance simply hasn’t happened in recent years, even as they’ve amassed talent, and with McDonald entering his final season of eligibility, time is running out to put it all together.

How the Badgers run at Nuttycombe — where they 25th finished last year in a performance head coach Mick Byrne called “not acceptable” — will give the first sense of where the season is headed for Wisconsin.

All signs point to McDonald being healthy, so expect him be in contention for the win until the closing meters; anything else should be a cause for concern for Badger fans. Hoare, who’s only gotten better since capturing the 2017 Big Ten title, shouldn’t be far behind.

Hacker, Gessner and Hirsch are the wild cards. Given their pedigrees, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see any or all of them in the top 30 of a field like this, but such a performance would also be easily the best performance of their college careers.

Even if all of Wisconsin’s top five run their best race, it’ll still have trouble challenging for the win against two-time defending national champions Northern Arizona. The Lumberjacks scored just 50 points at this meet last year, and could go even lower this time around. The other top-10 teams in the field — No. 3 Portland, No. 5 Iowa State, No. 6 Alabama, No. 7 Colorado, No. 10 Colorado State — are a better measuring stick for the Badgers. Given that the Badgers typically improve as the season goes on, if they score better than more than two of those teams on Friday, it’ll bode well for the state of the program.

On the individual side, McDonald should be the favorite on his home course, but he’ll have as much competition as at any point in the season. The Northern Arizona duo of Matthew Baxter and Tyler Day were second and third at nationals last year, and they’ve run well on this course before. Alabama boasts its own star-studded top-two with seniors Gilbert Kigen and Vincent Kiprop, both top-10 finishers at nationals from 2017. Chances are high the winner comes from that group of five, but if something unexpected happens, Portland junior Emmanuel Roudolff-Levisse could lead the Pilots to a surprise upset.

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Women’s Preview

Also ranked seventh in the country, Wisconsin’s women’s cross country squad enters the season with an outlook completely different from the men's. The Badgers collected a tenth-place finish at nationals in 2017, and although they lost number-one scorer Sarah Disanza, they’ve got a stable of reliable contributors ready to run in back in 2018.

Leading the way for UW is junior and two-time All-American Alicia Monson. Monson ran to a 19th-place finish at Nuttycombe last year to lead the Badgers and is well-positioned to secure another low stick this time around. Fellow junior Amy Davis, the 27th-best returner from nationals last season, also had a pair of strong track seasons last year and could join Monson in the top 25.

Behind Monson and Davis, six returners from last year’s top seven mean the Badgers have a deep and experienced pack that should be able to handle one or two poor performances.

Nuttycombe also represents the first major meet for the Badgers under the guidance of new women’s head coach Jill Miller. While Miller has been an assistant under Byrne for four years and is unlikely to have changed the team’s training plans significantly, Friday’s run will still set the tone for the new coach’s tenure.

On the women’s side, the team battle is almost as much of a done deal as the men’s, with No. 1 New Mexico likely to romp over even this competitive field. The Lobos bring back three of the top six returners from nationals last year in junior Ednah Kurgat, sophomore Weini Kelati and senior Charlotte Prouse, who could sweep the individual podium on Friday.

With less than ten points expected from its top three, New Mexico needs only top-50 performances from its final two scorers, something its stable of experienced transfers and sophomore Alondra Negron, the 8th-highest placed freshman at 2017 nationals, should easily be able to provide.

If the Lobos falter, it’s likely to come down to a battle between No. 2 Colorado and No. 5 Boise State.

If that’s the case, the individual battle will take on even greater importance, as the Broncos and Buffaloes are lead by two of the top runners in the country. Boise’s Allie Ostrander has struggled with injury in her NCAA career, but when she’s healthy for an extended block of training, she’s got the talent to win any race. Colorado star Dani Jones is best at shorter distances — she placed fifth at the US national championships in the 1500 — but her kick is the strongest in the field if the race goes out slowly.

Defending national champion Kurgat is still the favorite to back up last year’s title at this meet, but with Jones and Ostrander breathing down her neck, along with her own teammates, it won’t be a walk in the park. Regardless of the outcome, whoever wins on Friday is the instant favorite to secure a national title on the same course come November.

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