2017 DI NCAA Indoor Championships

NCAA 5K Preview: Cheserek Will Win, But Will Schweizer?

NCAA 5K Preview: Cheserek Will Win, But Will Schweizer?

The 5000s are the first two track finals of the NCAA Indoor Championships, at 9 and 9:20 PM Eastern on Friday. We break down both races here.

Mar 8, 2017 by Dennis Young
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The 5000s are the first two track finals of the NCAA Indoor Championships, at 9 and 9:20 PM Eastern on Friday. We break down both races below.

Women's 5K (9 PM Eastern)


Full startlist:

  1    446 Tessa Barrett                 SO Penn State         15:28.99 
2 321 Erin Finn JR Michigan 15:32.45
3 349 Karissa Schweizer JR Missouri 15:37.40
4 381 Anna Rohrer SO Notre Dame 15:38.11
5 177 Allie Buchalski JR Furman 15:46.86
6 152 Jordann McDermitt JR E Michigan 15:50.16
7 430 Maggie Schmaedick JR Oregon 15:52.28
8 205 Judy Pendergast FR Harvard 15:52.64
9 588 Grayson Murphy JR Utah 15:53.24
10 456 Lauren LaRocco SO Portland 15:54.26
11 566 Anne-Marie Blaney SR UCF 15:55.69
12 459 Brianna Ilarda JR Providence 15:55.91
13 366 Erika Kemp JR NC State 15:56.52
14 358 Alice Wright JR New Mexico 15:56.94
15 105 Olivia Pratt SR Butler 15:57.41
16 647 Makena Morley FR Colorado 15:58.07
The battle here is between Schweizer, Finn, and Rohrer, who were the top three finishers at the NCAA XC meet four months ago. With Tennessee's Chelsea Blaase scratching, Finn and Rohrer are also the top two returners from last year's indoor NCAA 5K.

Schweizer hasn't lost a final to a collegiate athlete since Pre-Nationals in October, so she has to be the favorite. However, my personal theory is that Finn and Rohrer hung themselves out to dry by pushing hard on a very windy day in Terre Haute, Indiana. If they went a little later, I think they could have broken Schweizer with a hard last 800 meters or so. Instead, they pushed for most of the race and were vulnerable to Schweizer's lethal kick:



Finn, who has a full season of indoor and outdoor track eligibility remaining, is quietly on her way to becoming one of the best NCAA women's runners ever without an NCAA title. Her 15:23 indoor 5K PR makes her the No. 10 collegiate performer ever, and her 31:51 10K last spring at Payton Jordan would make her the No. 6 in-season performer of all time if she hadn't been redshirting. She's been second or third at nationals, regionals, or conferences eight times in her Michigan career. Unfortunately for her, with the emergence of Schweizer, finishing second or third is the likeliest outcome here.

There's also a wild card in the field: Penn State's Tessa Barrett. Barrett ran 15:28 at Big Ten indoors, making her the top seed in the field because Indiana's Katherine Receveur is focusing on the DMR. Receveur beat Barrett by a tenth of a second in that race, and they both finished four seconds ahead of Finn. Barrett dropped out of both the NCAA outdoor and cross country championships in 2016, but if she can stay on the track, she's a contender to win this race. (As reported when she was in high school, Barrett has migralepsy, a rare condition in which fluorescent lights can cause migraines and seizures. It's unclear how much her condition has affected her in college.)

Rohrer has had a quiet indoor season, losing to five different collegians in the 3Ks at Meyo and ACCs. But she's more of a 5K/cross country runner anyway, and she has won her only two 5Ks this indoor season. Her 15:38 at ACC indoors was a solo effort, as she won by 26 seconds. That's only a second slower than Schweizer's season (and personal) best, which was run in December.

Schweizer's speed is no joke, and that makes her the definitive favorite. In addition to having the best kick at cross country nationals, she also beat 2:02 800m runner Morgan Schuetz and 2015 NCAA 1500m champion Rhianwedd Price in the SEC mile two weeks ago.

​The pick: 
1. Schweizer
2. Finn
3. Barrett

​Men's 5K (9:20 PM Eastern)


​Full startlist:

  1    436 Edward Cheserek               SR Oregon             13:32.59 
  2    631 Colby Gilbert                 JR Washington         13:34.85 
  3    565 Marc Scott                    SR Tulsa              13:38.87 
  4    106 Erik Peterson                 SR Butler             13:40.90 
  5    137 John Dressel                  SO Colorado           13:42.57 
  6    122 Amon Terer                    SR Campbell           13:42.78 
  7    414 MJ Erb                        SR Ole Miss           13:43.55 
  8    373 Matthew Baxter                JR No Arizona         13:44.27 
  9    145 Jerrell Mock                  SR Colo State         13:44.65 
 10    614 Zach Herriott                 SR Virginia           13:45.37 
 11    183 Jonathan Green                JR Georgetown         13:45.73 
 12    143 Grant Fischer                 JR Colo State         13:46.58 
 13    477 Alex Short                    SR San Francisco      13:47.57 
 14     32 Alfred Chelanga               JR Alabama            13:48.12 
 15    116 Rory Linkletter               SO BYU                13:49.00 
 16    374 Tyler Day                     SO No Arizona         13:49.53
Edward Cheserek, a 3:52 indoor miler and 13:18 outdoor 5K guy, is going to win this race. (Though he did lose at his last NCAA championship, in cross country.) Marc Scott has a nice kick but has never finished in the top four at an NCAA meet. Colby Gilbert tried to take it to Cheserek in the race where they ran 13:32 and 13:34, but Cheserek handled him easily.

Enjoy this video of Gilbert outkicking Cheserek, something that is not going to happen on Friday night:


Scott has great speed and Gilbert has run four seconds faster than anyone not named Ches this year, so I'll pick them for second and third.

One question is how hard they'll make Cheserek work. The DMR is just 35 minutes after the 5K, and there is some chance that he runs both as part of an insane mile-3K-5K-DMR quadruple. He did the 5K/DMR double last year, anchoring in 3:52 just half an hour after winning the 5K in 13:47. But that was without a mile prelim in his legs and a mile/3K double on the docket for the next day.