XC: Buckeyes Ready to Take on Stacked Field at Pre Nationals
10/13/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
Oct. 13, 2016
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State men’s and women’s cross country teams will head to Terre Haute, Ind., on Saturday to compete at Pre Nationals. The race will be held at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course; the women will run a 6K, while the men will cover an 8K course.
The race has two benefits: first, it will enable both teams an opportunity to knock off quality opponents, and secondly, it will allow them to scope the course that will host the NCAA Championships in late November.
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MEN’S PREVIEW
Evan Stifel has been nothing short of excellent this fall for the Buckeyes. The junior has run two races for Ohio State, and he has been the top-finisher at both of those events. At the Commodore Classic (Sept. 17), he ran to a 10th-place showing in a field of over 200 runners with an 8K time of 24:52.1.
Just two weeks ago, Stifel contended for an individual title at the All-Ohio Championships. He wound up finishing second and helped Ohio State capture its second team title of 2016. Dating back to last year, Stifel has been the top Buckeye finisher in the last five races he has run.
Fellow junior Jake Mandel has settled into a nice groove as the midpoint of the season has arrived. Mandel has been in the Buckeyes top three at two of the three events this year, and he is coming off his best performance of the season. Mandel closely followed Stifel for a majority of the 8K race at the All-Ohio Championships two weeks ago, and he turned that into a fourth-place showing.
True freshmen Alex Lomong and Aaron Wood have scored in all the meets they have run this season. They started off the season with a five-six finish at the Queen City Invite, and then at the Commodore Classic, Lomong was the second Scarlet and Gray member to cross the finish line, and Wood was the fifth. Only Wood ran at the All-Ohio Championships, and he finished in a flurry over the last 2K to improve his positioning by at least 10 spots to place 33rd overall.
WOMEN’S PREVIEW
Sarah Kanney, Emily Stoodley and Lilly Saniel-Banrey: those are three names that have been a constant source of production for the Buckeyes this fall. All three are sophomores and have already stepped up to the plate in big competitions.
Stoodley has yet to finish outside the top 20 at a race this season. At the Roy Griak Invitational, Stoodley was the Buckeyes top finisher with a 20th-place showing in a field of over 300 runners. At the Queen City Invite and Commodore Classic, she set personal bests in each race and was the second Scarlet and Gray member to cross the finish line.
Saniel-Banrey, one of the most-seasoned runners on the team, has found her stride halfway into the season. In each of her last two races, she has finished third and second for the Buckeyes with her main running partner being Kanney. In the last two big races (Commodore Classic and Roy Griak), the twosome has run with five and eight second gaps finishing right next to each other.
THE FIELD
The field features 143 teams, and over 1,400 runners between women and men. One last big test before the Big Ten Championships, Pre Nationals features 16 ranked teams (eight women’s and eight men’s), including No. 4 Oregon, No. 5 Arkansas and No. 6 Colorado in the men’s race, and No. 2 Colorado, No. 5 Portland and No. 7 Stanford for the women.
Both men’s and women’s will be taking part in the elite Blue Race. The women are scheduled for an 11 a.m. ET start, and the men will follow at 11:35 a.m. Fans our encouraged to use #PreNats2016 to find all the action on Twitter.
