Michigan
Pre-National Invitational
Wolverine Weekly: Pre-National Invitational News and Notes
10/10/2018 5:38:00 PM | Men's Cross Country
» Due to cold weather, start times for all races have been pushed back. The men's "A" team will now run in the "Cardinal Race" at 11:50 a.m. CT, with the "B" set to compete in the "Gray Race" at 1:50 p.m. CT.
» Coming off a breakthrough performance in a tough field at Wisconsin two weekends ago, the No. 20 Michigan men return to Madison to face an equally difficult challenge at the Pre-National Invitational.
» With nearly 80 teams in the field, meet organizers have split the field into two 35-team seeded races -- in one of which Michigan's top squad will compete -- with an additional unseeded race for the remaining six teams and any additional runners from teams in the seeded races.
» The Wolverines' top lineup -- including Jacob Lee, Jack Aho, Isaac Harding, Ben Hill and Jordy Hewitt -- will once again lead the way with designs on repeating or improving upon their last outing.
THIS WEEK
Saturday, Oct. 13 -- at Pre-National Invitational (Madison, Wis.)
Seeded "Cardinal Race" -- 11:50 a.m. CDT / Unseeded "Gray Race" - 1:50 p.m. CDT
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Aiming to reprise or improve on its breakthrough performance two weekends ago, the No. 20 University of Michigan men's cross country team will return to Wisconsin for the second meet in a row as one of the more than two dozen national-caliber teams entered in the Pre-National Invitational on Saturday (Oct. 13).
Fresh off a return to the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) National Coaches' Poll top-30 following a 13th-place finish at the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invitational on Sept. 28, the reigning Big Ten champion Wolverines are back in Madison for their de facto regular-season finale looking to prove their last outing was no fluke.
The Michigan men's best seven-man lineup will do battle with 12 other squads in the latest USTFCCCA National Coaches' Poll when it lines up at 11:50 a.m. CDT for the seeded "Cardinal Race" at the same Thomas Zimmer Championship Course venue that will host the NCAA Championships on Nov. 17.
Saturday's race will be contested at the eight-kilometer (4.97-mile) distance, the same as what is run at the Big Ten Championships on Oct. 28 in Lincoln, Nebraska. The distance, however, will be bumped up to 10 kilometers (6.22 miles) when NCAA Division I cross country returns to Madison for its crowning competition.
Heading Michigan's tightly-packed seven into battle will be the underclassman duo of redshirt sophomore Jacob Lee and sophomore Jack Aho, who led the Wolverines at Nuttycombe in 58th and 61st, respectively. They will be joined by returning Nuttycombe scorers redshirt sophomore Isaac Harding and redshirt juniors Ben Hill and Jordy Hewitt, as well as true freshman John Tatter and redshirt sophomore Jacob Branch.
That crew emerged as the tightest-running pack of any team in the Nuttycombe field, with only 22.6 seconds separating top scorer Lee in 58th from No. 5 scorer Hewitt in 100th. Only seven other teams in the field managed five or more top-100 individual finishers. Such cohesive depth led to Michigan finishing 13th overall for a six-spot improvement on its pre-meet rank in the field.
The Wolverines will be striving for a repeat -- and then some -- of that effort as they square off with the links of two-time defending national champion No. 1 Northern Arizona, No. 3 Wisconsin, No. 5 Stanford, No. 9 Colorado State, No. 11 Colorado, No. 13 Oregon, No. 15 Southern Utah, No. 22 Ole Miss and No. 26 North Carolina State.
In addition to Wisconsin, the Wolverines will also get a look at Big Ten foe Iowa. Zooming out to the NCAA Great Lakes Region level, Michigan will see Wisconsin, Dayton, Youngstown State and Central Michigan.
Due to the depth of top-tier teams entered into this Saturday's competition, race officials have separated the field into two balanced seeded races -- "Cardinal" and "White" -- with 35 teams each, and an additional unseeded "Gray Race". Any remaining teams will be relegated to the "Gray Race", in which Michigan will also enlist its five next-best runners.
To simply say the field at Wisconsin is "deep" understates the collective cross country talent that will assemble in Madison. The Wolverines are among 19 teams on the start list ranked top-30 in the latest USTFCCCA National Coaches' Poll.
An additional four teams are currently outside the top-30 in the "also receiving votes" category, with five more that are not currently in the poll but have either been ranked or received votes this season.
All told, 18 of the 31 teams that competed at last year's NCAA Championships will race Saturday at Wisconsin.
This will be the Wolverines' third scored competition of the season, and the second involving its top lineup. For a breakdown of how team scoring works, click here.
Michigan took strong advantage of the opportunity to collect head-to-head wins two weekends ago in their first bona fide competition within the NCAA Championships at-large qualifying period, and this Saturday could prove to be another lucrative opportunity.
Should Michigan not finish first or second in the NCAA Great Lakes Regional -- in which it is currently ranked No. 3 -- it would need to rely on having a large number of head-to-head wins over other NCAA-qualifying teams to advance.
The Full Field
No. 1 Northern Arizona, No. 3 Wisconsin, No. 5 Stanford, No. 9 Colorado State, No. 11 Colorado, No. 13 Oregon, No. 15 Southern Utah, No. 20 Michigan, No. 22 Ole Miss, No. 26 NC State, Utah State (RV), Duke (RV), Gonzaga (RV), Campbell*, Furman*, Arizona State, Belmont, California, Cal Poly, Central Michigan, Dayton, Georgia, Hofstra, Idaho State, Iowa, Kansas, Lamar, Richmond, South Dakota State, SE Missouri State, UMass Lowell, Utah Valley, William and Mary, Wyoming, Yale, Youngstown State
The Wolverine Lineup
• For the seeded "Cardinal Race," Michigan will run with the seven-man lineup of Jacob Lee, Jack Aho, Isaac Harding, Ben Hill, Jordy Hewitt, John Tatter and Jacob Branch.
• The Wolverines also will compete in the unseeded "Gray Race" with a five-man lineup assembled from among Anthony Berry, Dominic Dimambro, Christian Hubaker, Gabe Mudel and Ryan Wilkie.
• No other team in the field two weekends ago had a top-five as tightly grouped as Michigan's. Just 22.5 seconds separated 58th-place Lee from 100th-place Hewitt, giving Michigan the smallest time spread between its Nos. 1 and 5 runners of any team in the race. In fact, with just 22.6 seconds between Lee and Michigan's No. 6 John Tatter, the U-M spread 1-6 was better than any other team in the field's 1-5 spread. And with Branch just another 12.2 seconds back, Michigan's 1-7 spread of 34.8 seconds was superior to all but three other teams' 1-5 spreads.
• Few teams were stronger in the late stages of Nuttycombe than Michigan. Every single one of Michigan's runners moved up through the pack in the closing two kilometers (1.24 miles) of the race between the six-kilometer (3.73-mile) checkpoint and eight-kilometer (4.97-mile) finish line. The Wolverines' top-five finishers moved up a combined 51 spots during that span, tied with 23rd-place Tennessee for second-most of any team in the field behind seventh-place Air Force (74 spots). Driving much of that late-race rally was Ben Hill's 20-spot improvement and Hewitt's 12-spot climb during that final split.
• Few teams were deeper at Nuttycombe than the Wolverines. Though the Wolverines were the only squad in the top 15 of the team standings without a top-30 individual finisher, they made up for their absence at the front of the race with depth matched by few other teams in the field. Only seven other teams in the race put five men through the chute within the top 100 individual finishers, and Michigan nearly had a sixth with 101st-place Tatter.
• Michigan's Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 runners at Nuttycombe were among the strongest in the field at their respective spots. At 89th overall, Hill checked in as the 10th-best No. 4 runner from among all teams' No. 4 runners. The 100th-place Hewitt as the eighth-best No. 5 runner in the field; 101st-place Tatter was the fifth-best No. 6 runner in the field; and 127th-place Jacob Branch was the sixth-best No. 7 runner in the field. Among displacers (runners Nos. 6 and 7), Tatter and Branch were the sixth- and 14th-best in the field, respectively.
Things to Know
• Led by former Great Lakes Region and two-time Big Ten Coach of the Year Kevin Sullivan, the U-M men moved up from "also receiving votes" to No. 20 to return to the National Coaches' Poll and climbed a spot to No. 3 in the latest Great Lakes Regional rankings announced Tuesday (Oct. 2) and Monday (Oct. 1), respectively, by the (USTFCCCA).
• The next edition of the rankings and polls will be announced Monday (Oct. 15) and Tuesday (Oct. 16), respectively.
• Michigan was ranked No. 4 in last year's preseason regional rankings before going on to finish second at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional to secure one of the region's two automatic berths to the NCAA Championships. The Wolverines trail Big Ten rivals Wisconsin and Purdue in the rankings this year.
• Among Big Ten teams nationally, Michigan is ranked third behind No. 3 Wisconsin and No. 13 Purdue. Indiana is ranked No. 21, and both Michigan State and Minnesota are receiving votes outside the top-30.
The Course
Name: Thomas Zimmer Championship Course
Distance: Eight Kilometers (4.97 miles)
Maximum Elevation: 1,129 feet
Minimum Elevation: 1,048 feet
Preview of today's 8K course at the #NuttyInvite @BadgerTrackXC
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A Look Ahead
Friday, Oct. 19 -- at Eastern Michigan Fall Classic (Dexter, Mich.)
Sunday, Oct. 28 -- at Big Ten Championships (Lincoln, Neb.)
