Yes I know, there were other races this weekend other than Griak across all divisions, but I really want to thank the people at Minnesotta and the various athletic directors across D3 who sent their teams to Griak for making my life a heck of a lot easier this week. Also before I break into recapping this week's action, I must clarify a few errors from last week, one was my own, another was a scoring screw up by meet software.

First I was yelled at for saying that Wash U had their full team in when they were beat pretty badly, normally I would not apologize for such a simple mistake, because I would have to do it over and over agian, however I have come to realize this is a group of girls you want on your side.

Next UMass Dartmouth was scored incorrectly, because an Amherst runner was not counted. The new results have Amherst in second and the Coast Guard in 3rd, all other teams placings are unchanged.

Finally before I move on to the meat of this week's article I must give a shout out to multiple time D3 All American and Case Alum Esther Erb who finished 14th overall and first American at the Real Berlin Marathon in a debut time of 2:46

The new poll came out this week, with a number of changes, some bigger than others, some more expected than others. For the sake of time and space I am going to simply put the link to the Men's and Women's Top 35's from this week. The rankings should pop up in an additional window.

Men

http://ustfccca.cstv.com/sports/division3/spec-rel/092408aad.html

Women

http://ustfccca.cstv.com/sports/division3/spec-rel/092408aac.html

The top of the Men's rankings are left un touched for the most part, while the Women have a new number 1 in Calvin. Calvin however, is not unanimous only getting 7 of 8 first place votes, the remaining going to Wisconsin Eau Claire who is tied for 2nd with former number 1 Amherst who is no longer receiving any first place votes.

Here is how the teams going to nationals would look if they were based off the poll today. 

On the Women's side, all 8 regions have at least 2 teams in the top 32, and only New England has 6 teams in the top 32 (although the Atlantic and Midwest have 6 in the top 35), that means the only girls team being "screwed" is 29th ranked Brandeis who will be replaced by the 5th team in the central which happens to be 34th ranked Carleton. The Midwest, New England, Central and Atlantic should all qualify the maximum 5 teams, while the Great Lakes puts in 4, the Mideast and Southeast 3 and the West 2. 

For the Men, things are a bit more complicated. The midwest has 7 teams in the top 32 and New England has 6 so Eau Claire, Wash U and Trinty will have their bubble burst. In their place will be Emory currently ranked 35th(but should move up after placing 2nd at Griak) and an additional team which is not even in the current top 35. Joining them from outside the top 32 (sort of) is St. Olaf/Grinnell each tied for 32nd place and both from the Central. This means, that the Midwest, New England, Mideast and Central will all qualify their maximum 5 teams, while the Atlantic and Great Lakes qualify 4, and the West and South put in their Automatic 2 teams.

As far as conferences go, the UAA and Wisconsin conferences tied with 8 total teams (four from each gender) while the Nescac had 7 teams (4 women, 3 men). Now for some results:

MEN:

1st ranked Cortland held out 2 of their top 7 runners and as a result took 2nd place at the St Lawrence Pre Regional meet, 3 points behind 16th ranked Geneseo who ran without three of their top 7 runners.

2nd ranked Calvin led again by Christiansen swept the top 10 spots en route to winning the MIAA Jamboree with 15 points.

3rd ranked Lacrosse won their 4th Griak title in 5 years, over a slew of D3 teams, making Griak the obvious choice for meet of the week, at least on the Men's side. Behind Lacrosse was 35th ranked Emory in 2nd led by Charlie Meade who came in 4th overall. 13th ranked Ohio Northern was 3rd, 26th ranked Hamiline 4th, 5th place was unranked and last years second place finisher Wisconsin Platteville. In 6th place was 23rd ranked Eau Claire followed by unranked River Falls and Bethel (Who had individual winner Dan Greeno who finished in 25:23). Unranked Coe and White water finished 9th and 10th, followed by 15th ranked Luther.

4th ranked Stevens Point swept the top 7 spots at Beloit scoring 15 points. 23rd ranked Eau Claire send their JV team (Varsity at Griak) and finished in 2nd place

5th ranked Carnegie Mellon put 6 in the top 10 to win at Cederville. Brian Harvey won the race with a time of 24:57 over a Freshmen from Denison who ran 25:09.

6th ranked Williams led by Kosgey won their home invite over 12th ranked Amherst (second), Dartmouth (third), 11th ranked Keene State (fourth), unranked Middlebury (fifth) and 20th ranked Coast Guard (sixth). 24th ranked MIT was scheduled to run but pulled out of the race

9th ranked Haverford hosted a mid week 4 miler that was unscored, however if scored the hosts would have been second to Villanova. 21st ranked TCNJ also competed and would have come in third if scored.

10th ranked Augustana was 2nd at their home invite, 25th ranked Wash U was 6th but the 2nd D3 team. 32nd ranked Grinell sent their JV team, which finished 16th, while their varisty finished 19th at Stanford. 

14th ranked Case was 2nd to D2 Ashland at Otterbein on the backs of a 1-2 finish led by Dominic Smith in 25:07. 18th ranked Heidelberg finished 6th behind 34th ranked Mt. Union (third) and unranked Depauw (fourth) and Kenyon (fifth).

17th ranked Allegheny took the top 8 spots en route to winning their home tri-meet.

22nd ranked Claremont took 9th at UC Riverside (heck of a performance from Chad Hall at his new school for the win), behind unranked Pomona (third) and Occidental (sixth).

28th ranked Trinity and 30th ranked NYU were scheduled to run at Conn College, however the meet was cancelled due to incliment weather.

31st ranked Johns Hopkins finished 5th at William & Mary behind the host Tribe, Michigan State, Tennessee and La Salle.

WOMEN:

New Numbe 1 Calvin, took spots 2 through 10 to win the MIAA Jamboree with 20 points

2nd ranked Eau Claire took 1st at Griak where River Falls' Becca Jordahl was the individual winner in 21:59, a time that would place 20th in the Division 1 race. Eau Claire outpaced 5th ranked Wartburg (second), 5th ranked Lacrosse (third), 34th ranked Carleton (fourth), 15th ranked St. Thomas (fifth), 4th ranked Luther (sixth), unranked Bethel and St. Olaf (seventh and Eigth), 32nd ranked Washington & Lee (ninth), unranked Stevens Point (tenth), 19th ranked Platteville (eleventh) and unable to match the success of their Men's team, 21st ranked Emory finished a distant sixteenth.

2nd ranked Amherst finished 3rd at Williams, although it appeared they were without some of their normal varsity runners. 14th ranked Williams won the meet, ahead of 9th ranked Middlebury (second), Amherst and 18th ranked Colby (fourth). 8th ranked MIT was scheduled to run but did not, limiting the meet to only 4 top 20 teams rather than 5 (3 in the top 10).

5th ranked Geneseo led the way at the stacked St. Lawrence Pre-Regional meet. 21st ranked Cortland was second, followed by the hosts St. Lawrence in third (only 3 points behind second), 11th ranked Ithaca in fourth and 31st ranked Brockport in fifth.

10th ranked Case finished first at Otterbein, led by a pack which finished 4th through 6th in the individual results. Behind Case was 16th ranked Depauw and 27th ranked Oberlin.

12th ranked Johns Hopkins finished 3rd at William & Mary behind D1 top 25 Michigan State and W&M

17th ranked TCNJ finished 1,2,4 at Haverford's midweek 3 mile race which was unscored.

25th ranked Wash U won at Augustana ahead of 35th ranked Carthage (sixth overall).

26th ranked Messiah defeated Gettysburgh 15-50 and Juniata 15-44 taking the top 6 spots overall.

28th ranked Trinity (TX) won the Texas Little State Title with 16 points

29th ranked Brandeis was scheduled to run at the Codfish Bowl but did not. 

There you have it folks, thats a wrap for week 5. Look forward to another interview next week as well as results from more big meets such as Notre Dame and Paul Short (where I should be covering the races and doing interviews for FloTrack so long as my coaching duties do not get in the way).