NCAA Regionals: Final thoughts and numbers

As I mentioned on Facebook, the outpouring of alumni interest and support in this meet was tremendous. Making it more exciting was that the alumni tracking the live results knew more about how our teams were doing than we did on the frozen ground in Buffalo. I mean, the “eye test” was pretty accurate – I could tell our women’s team was having a special day early, and I could tell our men’s team was grinding its way through the field methodically after a slow start in the slop. But through the leonetiming.com results, we can see tangible data of the progress at varying checkpoints along the course (more in the men’s race, because it was longer and with more electronic splits). What you can see with the numbers below is what we saw with our own two eyes, as I just said: The women got out, stayed out and closed like champs. The men got bogged down early, drove me batty with nerves, but ran with grit and toughness and progressed a whopping 11 places from start to finish.

Women’s progression:

1-mile: 14^th place

3km: 14^th place

6km (finish): 11^th place

Men’s progression:

1-mile: 29^th place

3km: 26^th place

5.8km: 21^st place

7.2km: 20^th place

10km (finish): 18^th place

And one last mind-blowing fact, courtesy of a late-night text from Coach Chuck: At the MAAC Championships, we had three All-MAAC (top-15) runners. Of those three runners, one did not compete due to injury and the other two competed hard but did not factor into our team scoring at the regional meet. And yet, the top-5 scorers on Friday got the job done to the tune of a historic, 11^th-place finish. Strange things happen at the regional meet – and sometimes they are strangely wonderful.