So this week was another great week for D3 XC, in fact it caught me a bit by surprise. I knew the Oshkosh meet would be fast, it always is, but some of the other meets around the country featured some big time faceoffs that should mix up the rankings a bit.

New rankings came out again this week, with only a few changes in the overall picture of who will and will not make nationals. On the women's side, the Northeast and Central regions each has 7 teams crack the top 35, however since only 5 teams per region can make it to Hanover, four of these 14 teams will be staying home. Because of this it looks like 5 teams from the Atlantic, Central, Midwest and Northeast will all be going to nationals, while 3 from the Great Lakes and Mid East, 4 from the West and 2 from the Southeast also make the trip. This means the last team to make Nationals looks to be Willamette out of the West, who currently sits just off the poll, in the Receiving Votes category. On the men's side things seem a bit more straight forward, as the Atlantic, Midwest, Great Lakes, Mideast and Northeast all get 5 teams to Nationals, meanwhil the Central gets 3 and the South and West get their 2 Auto spots. On the women's side we had a last team in, on the Men's side we have a last team out and in this case it happens to be St. Thomas. New England takes the cake with the most teams on the poll (12 ) and the three big conferences all tied with 8 teams.

RECAP:

MEN

1st ranked Cortland finished 4th overall just 1 point back of Villanova at Penn State's 5.2 mile race, where Georgetown and Penn State finished in the top 2 spots.

2nd ranked North Cenral  was victorious at the Oshkosh Brooks invite, besting a field of many top D3 programs including 4th ranked Steven's Point (second), 5th ranked Calvin (third), 19th ranked Oshkosh (fourth), 14th ranked Augustana (fifth), 8th ranked Haverford (sixth) and 31st ranked Ginnell (ninth). Oshkosh's Willy Kaul was the invididual winner on his home course in a Blazing fast 24:00.

3rd ranked Lacrosse finished first at their home meet, ahead of 22nd ranked Platteville (sixth), 35th ranked St. Olaf (ninth), 27th ranked Nebraska Wesleyan (tenth), 15th ranked Hamline (12th) and 34th ranked Eau-Claire (13th). 

6th ranked Carnegie Mellon was without their top runners at Oberlin, and finished a distant 21st place. This meet ended up being great, as 7 other ranked teams beside CMU were present. Leading the way was 26th ranked NYU led by individual winner Jesse Scneider who covered 8k in 24:43. Behind NYU was 16th ranked Dickinson (second), 20th ranked Ohio Northern (third), 21st ranked St. Lawrence (fourth), 13th ranked Allegheny (fifth), 18th ranked Mt. Union (sixth) and 11th ranked Case's B team (14th). 

10th ranked Geneseo finished second to Cornell's B-team at Rochester.

12th ranked Emory finished second to MTSU at the Chattanooga 5k

23rd ranked Willamette was 3rd at the Clackamas 4 miler behind D1 #1 Oregon, and Southern Oregon.

23rd ranked MIT was victorious at Williams, edging out 25th ranked TCNJ (second). the 7th ranked hosts did not run any of their top runners and finished 5th.

29th ranked Denison came in first at the Wilmington Fall Classic

29th ranked Johns Hopkins won the Gettysburgh invite

32nd ranked St. Thomas traveled to Albany New York and finished third to D1 Marist, and non-ranked D3 Brandeis University (pre-season 29th).

33rd ranked Pamona Pitzer was second at the SCIAC duals finishing with a 6-1 record. OXY was the overall winner, finishing 7-0.

WOMEN

1st ranked Calvin bested the field at Oshkosh, finishing ahead of the 10th ranked hosts (second), 26th ranked Washington University (fourth, third D3), 31st ranked Bethel (fifth) and 35th ranked Illinois Wesleyan (11th). Bethel's Borner was the individual champion covering the 6k course in 20:37.

2nd ranked Eau-Claire was the fourth team overall and 2nd D3 team at Lacrosse, falling to 3rd ranked Wartburg (third overall behind South Dakota State and Minnesota). Filling in behind them were 6th ranked Lacrosse (6th, 3rd D3), 21st ranked Nebraska Wesleyan (8th), 29th ranked St. Olaf (10th), and 18th ranked Luther (12th).

4th ranked Williams ran without their A-squad finishing fourth at their home invite. 23rd ranked MIT finished first, ahead of 16th ranked TCNJ (second) and 23rd ranked Tufts (third). Tufts' McNamera was the first individual.

5th ranked Middlebury running without some of their top runners finished second to Brown University at Albany. 32nd ranked Brandeis was the second D3 team, finishing in 8th overall.

7th ranked Geneseo was victorious at the University of Rochester Invite.

8th ranked Case won a big clash at Oberlin, besting 16th ranked Depauw (second), 15th ranked St. Lawrence (third), 30th ranked Dickinson (fourth) and 23rd ranked Washington & Lee (ninth). 

12th ranked Cortland was the top D3 team at Penn State finishing in 17th place overall. 27th ranked Messiah was also competing finishing second among D3 schools in 25th place overall.

13th ranked Carleton was victorious at the Running of the Cows, beating 28th ranked Whitman (second).

14th ranked Johns Hopkins won the Gettysburg invite with Paulsen leading the way finishing as the first individual.

19th ranked Colby took first at the Maine State Meet.

22nd ranked Claremont finished with a 7-0 record to win the SCIAC Duals.

33rd ranked Emory won the Jacksonville State 5k.

34th ranked Whitworth was first at the Bigfoot Open.

As we get closer to championship season and more teams are racing their top runners on a more regular basis, we should start to get a good feel for who will make it to Hanover in 4 more weeks.