Menu
What's new
By:
Filters
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Buffs in the hunt for a pair of NCAA national championships

Deleted member 807

Guest
Tomorrow the CU mens and womens Cross Country team line up to compete for the 2011 NCAA Cross Country National Championships. The Buffs have advanced both squads to nationals in 18 of the last 19 years. The women did not qualify in 2008.

Colorado has won three NCAA Men's Cross Country Championships (2001, 2004, and 2006) and two NCAA Women's Cross Country Championships (2000 and 2004). The men's team also has won three individual titles (Adam Goucher, Jorge Torres, and Dathan Ritzenhein), while the women's side has won one (Kara Goucher).

Next to skiing, Cross Country is CU's biggest dynasty.

But unlike skiing, cross country does not require a close proximity to skiing facilities. Any school with some open space nearby can field an XC team. The barriers to entry are incredibly low. Other than travel and access to a trainer, XC is an inexpensive sport. Almost any school can field an XC team. XC talent is developed in Oregon, Oklahoma State, Florida State, Georgetown, BYU; basically coast to coast. While high altitude helps attract runners to CU, Boulder does not have a monopoly on high elevation (CSU, AFA, Adams State, BYU, Utah, Northern Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, ext.)

In further contrast to skiing, the CU cross country team does not rely on foreign talent in the big race. CU's runners are homegrown. (See Crested Butte's Coburn and Bosshard) and Americans. Compare this with Iona, who fields a team packed with foreigners who are recruited specifically for running.

CU does't have many scholarships for the XC team. The fact that coach Wetmore gets his Buffs to the big race year in and year out is a testimate to him attracting and developing runners who are committed, durable, and talented. It's an amazing, and largely unheralded accomplishment. It's not something to take for granted.

I'm not expecting CU to come home with the title tomorrow. But a top 5 finish for both mens and womens team is not out of the question. Hopefully there will be atleast one runner in the top ten, maybe two. I am expecting that three or four of CU's runners will run personal bests. And I'm expecting CU's fifth place runner to be within 90 seconds to 120 seconds of CU's lead runner. And I'm expecting the Buffs to wait until the last 1000 meters to pass a bunch of their competitors. Wetmore teams are very disciplined and do their damage at the end of the race.

Here's a link to the Pac12 champions CU cross country roster. Check it out if you have the time.
http://www.cubuffs.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=600&SPID=260&SPSID=3960

Here's a link to the NCAA XC site with race information.
http://www.ncaa.com/championships/cross-country-men/d1

Division I schedule: Monday, November 21, Terre Haute, Ind. Men’s race starts at 10:08am. Women’s race at 10:58am. LIVE at 10AM - CLICK HERE TO WATCH LIVE
http://www.flotrack.org/article/909...s-LIVE-Streaming-Video-Internet-Web-Link-Info



Go Buffs!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
We seem to be better as teams this year as far as quality depth, but it doesn't look like we have anyone who will be among the favorites to take home the individual championship.
 
In order to be eligible to participate in the championships, teams and individuals qualified in their respective NCAA regional competitions.

Thirty-one teams are selected to participate in each championship. The top two, seven-person teams automatically qualified from each of the nine regions, for a total of 18 teams. Thirteen additional teams are selected at-large.

Thirty-eight individuals are selected to participate in each championship through an automatic qualifier and at-large selection process. All individual qualifiers finished in the top 25 in their region.
Click to expand...

http://www.ncaa.com/news/cross-country-men/article/2011-11-13/2011-di-qualifiers-announced
 
Last edited by a moderator:
2011 D1 Mens Ranking

1 Wisconsin
2 Oklahoma State
3 BYU
4 Oklahoma
5 Stanford
6 Colorado
7 Indiana
8 Portland
9 Texas
10 N Carolina State

Womens 2011 D1 Ranking
1 Florida State
2 Villanova
3 Washington
4 Georgetown
5 Vanderbilt
6 Colorado
7 Iowa State
8 Arizona
9 West Virginia
10 Michigan
 
Buffnik said:
We seem to be better as teams this year as far as quality depth, but it doesn't look like we have anyone who will be among the favorites to take home the individual championship.
Click to expand...

We are deeper this season, which is important in trying to get a podium finish. You usually need that individual championship contender to be the team winner though, or at least that is how it has generally worked for us when we have won the team championship.
 
Sounds like Washington 1, Villanova 2 for the Women...

Edit: Oops it's Georgetown 1. I heard our top two runners finished 19 and 20.
 
Last edited:
19 and 20 isn't bad and should be a big help to the team scores
 
Goose said:
Men finished 3rd -- just 5 seconds behind Okie Lite for 2nd.
Click to expand...

Pac-12 Champions and #3 in the nation is a huge XC season for our men's side. Hopefully our women can also bring home a top 10 finish.
 
Great Work Buffs :thumbsup:

but I have a cuz on the Badgers XC team, so glad to Wisconsin win the title!
 
ouch on the ladies. Bad races happen. good mix of youth for the buff guys as well with 2 frosh finishing in the scoring. Only other top 10 team that had that was Portland at 8th.
 
That's a strong finish by our women's team.

I believe that in the pre-season the women were ranked around 20 and the men around 30. That's great coaching and a great job by the individual athletes to maximize their ability and really progress this season.
 
Great race by the men, bad day for the women. The men peaked at the right time, while it seems like the women did not have enough left in the tank after the conference and regional meets.
 
I had high hopes senior Emma Coburn would bring her elite steeple skills over to XC.
But she hasn't had much of a break from training with all of her world travel over the summer.
Shalaya Kipp and Emma finished side by side and really pushed each other. Congrats on a solid season and a P12 title.

Ammar Moussa on the men's side indicates that the future of the buffs is bright. Today proved that he picket correctly when deciding between Oregon and CU. He's only going to get better. Nice work by the seniors to exceed expectations.

GO BUFFS!
 
The Buffs did come away from the meet with the highest combined team score (14). The second best team was Stanford (15). The Cardinal men finished fifth and the women were 10 th .
Click to expand...

This accolade is impressive. Suck it Stanford.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top