OUA Cross 2011 Recap

Women's Highlight Video

Men's Highlight Video

SportingCanada.com Summary

Women's Results
OUA Champs

Saturday, October 29 2011 at University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON

Conditions: sunny, pleasant, 8ºC
Race Distance: 5km

Teams Participating: 16
Winning Score: 25
Winner Name/Time/Team: Guelph

Teams You Beat: 14
Teams You Lost To: 1
CIS Teams You Beat: 14
CIS Teams You Lost To: 1

Course Rating: 3

McMaster Team Result: 2    Team Score: 57

Individual McMaster Results:

Place	Athlete Name	Time	Comments
4	Coates, Victoria	17:50
9	Wyman, Jillian	18:20
11	Haliburton, Sarah	18:29
13	MacNeill, Stephanie	18:32
20	Patterson, Courtney	18:44
28	Giovannetti, Sara	19:02
34	Mackinnon, Chelsea	19:17

Team Members Not Participating Katie Anderson, Lindsay Carson, Rachel Lamb, Sarah Wilson

Next Competition: 12-Nov-2011 - CIS Champs
Next Race Distance: 5km





Men's Results
OUA Champs

Saturday, October 29 2011 at University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON

Conditions: sunny, pleasant, 8ºC
Race Distance: 10km

Teams Participating: 15
Winning Score: 20
Winner Name/Time/Team: Guelph

Teams You Beat: 10
Teams You Lost To: 4
CIS Teams You Beat: 10
CIS Teams You Lost To: 4

Course Rating: 3

McMaster Team Result: 5    Team Score: 135

Individual McMaster Results:

Place	Athlete Name	Time	Comments
19	Bowes, Graham	32:17
23	Yorke, Andrew	32:27
27	Reid, Taylor	32:43
31	McCurry, Cory	32:50
35	Bysice, Andrew	33:04
39	Bierema, Jordan	33:16
45	Tice, Ryan	33:39

Team Members Not Participating Zac Brown, Sean Bowen

Next Competition: 12-Nov-2011 - CIS Championships
Next Race Distance: 10km


A good weekend for the Marauders this weekend. The women were back of guelph but well ahead of the other teams as they finished second. Coates had a huge kick on the track as predicted, but had to settle for 4th. The Mac men had some solid runs and some not so solid runs. This coupled with stellar runs from Queens and Toronto meant yet another 5th at OUAs for the maroon and grey. But Head Coach Rory Sneyd said it best, "You ain't seen nothing yet"

See you at CIS.

Conference Summaries:
Quebec - Laval Team Recap
East - AUS Video, AUS Results
Canada West - Stewart Cup Results and a couple videos

OUA Results

Women 2nd, Men 5th

Coates leads women with a 4th place finish. Bowes leads men in 19th.

Videos and recap to come tomorrow.

Marauders.ca Recap

Mens Team

Mens Individual

Womens Team

Womens Individual

OUA Cross Preview

Updated Slanders and Speculation


Race: OUA Cross Country Championships
Location: Mooney's Bay Park, Ottawa
Date: Saturday, October 29, 2011
Start Times:
Women 5k: 11am
Men 10k: 12:15pm

OUA Info

Last Years Results
Men & Women
Find results up to 2006 in Results Archive tab above.

All-Time List
Men
Women

Weather

Course Maps

Mens Course

Two starting loops, 4 big yellow loops and finish on the track. Something tells me track season is coming :D.

Click to Enlarge

Women's Course

Two big yellow loops and finish.

Click to Enlarge

Women

It looks like the girls might have to settle for second again this year at OUAs. Okay settle probably isn’t the right word for it. More like kick butt, and place just about as low as possible without winning a team title. Of course we do need to keep in mind that anything can happen on a cross course, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Coach Rory will have these girls peaking come CIS’s and they will be looking for a great pre-CIS tune-up Saturday.

Sarah Haliburton will try to keep her steady rise through the ranks as she feasts on mere mortal's flesh that didn’t spend their summer working in India. Victoria Coates will be flying around the course in her Nimbus 2000, with mud and mondo in her eye. Maybe we will see a huge kick on the track like CIS indoors last year. Jill Wyman will also be dangerous on the track finish. I wouldn’t want to be ahead of any of these girls come that final 300m (flashbacks of every Halloween movie chase scene). Rounding out the scoring will be Steph MacNeill and Sara Giovannetti, who both have had rock solid performances this season. Close on their heels will be Courtney Patterson and the top female rookie for Mac, Chelsea Mackinnnon.

Men

The men have not looked better than this in over 10 years. Could this be the year that they claim the programs second ever OUA team medal? Well let's set the scene a bit.

The Western Mustangs have been the favourite for the early part of the season for the Bronze at OUAs and CI’s, as Guelph and Windsor have solidified themselves as distant 1^st and 2^nd teams. But Mac beat Western handedly in Chicago at the Loyola Lakefront. Why on Earth is Western still ahead of Mac in some rankings? Well, the crux of their success is hindered on their consistency. Western’s top 5 has run very inconsistently over the past two years. With a lack of depth, and injury prone front runners, they have disappointed on many occasions. However, when all their guns are firing on the same day they are lethal (see the CIS Bronze they pulled off last year). If Western has an on day on Saturday, Mac will have some serious competition.

Queens is the other team with a legitimate case for a top 3 position at OUAs. Under new coach Steve Boyd’s, Queens is transitioning into an aerobic powerhouse. Boyd has impressive personal credentials, and has lead Queens to dominance in the past as an athlete, but his team has yet to really show results indicative of beating the Marauder men this year. Some close to the team claim they have been waiting until the championship races to show their cards. I think we’ll find out Saturday.

For the Maruaders, Andrew Yorke will keep carrying on his beet-infused stellar season as the top dog. He finished an impressive 9^th at OUAs last year, and this year seems to be on track for a top-7 performance. No pressure. Graham Bowes, Taylor Reid, and Jordan Bierema are going to be the Ghost Busters this Halloween weekend. Will this trio be able to win battles against the provinces’ best, and bust the myth that the men are just waterboys for the women’s team. Normally I just look at the last race to list off the team members, but I know Cory will come in here for at least the 5^th spot (sorry Bysice). Cory was built for 10k cross and is the team’s X-factor that can push the team onto the podium. Challenging for scoring positions will be Andrew Bysice and Ryan Tice. With this veteran top 7 the boys will be looking to trick and treat Saturday.

Speaking of Ryan Tice, he is one of the top reason’s you should make the trek to Ottawa Saturday. Not only to see him race, but to see the pure genius of the flag he has made for this year.

Treat yo self
Jeremy

Rankings Round-Up Pre-OUAs

Updated Slanders & Speculation


Slanders & Speculation (as of Oct. 28)
Men & Women
Women 2nd
Men 5th

Sporting Canada Poll (as of Oct. 25)
Women 2nd
Men 3rd

Putdowns & Prognostics #2 (as of Oct. 19)
Men Marauders 6th

TNF Poll (as of Oct. 10)
Women 2nd
Men 8th

Slanders and TNF poll will posted here once they are updated.

The running community seems to have written the Mac Women off as Bridesmaids again this year. But we know better than to just blindly trust rankings. Isn't that why we do races? To see who wins?

The Marauder Men are predicted to finish in a large range of places. this should be expected as the depth in the CIS is outrageous for places 3-7th. Most pollsters seem to generally sidestep the Mac team for a lack of big names (exception being Yorke). Perfect setup for a shock and awe display at OUAs.

Explanation of the rankings:

Slanders & Speculations: Done by two Queen's grads (Jeff Barr and Rob Kitz), who look at nation-wide results and information provided by teams to develop a CIS ranking with a humourous and mildly informative comment about each team. It's the Late night talk show of the cross country rankings world. The duo had plans to run the rankings for 5 years (this being their 3rd), but Kitz has taking to a shine to pickling eggs leaving Barr to pick up the slack, which has meant for a much less frequent updating than in previous years.

Putdowns & Prognostics: This is the attempted new generation of Slanders & Speculation due to the late and infrequent Slanders posts. Where the Slanders boys favour their alma-matter Queens, Putdowns favours Western and Queens, due to highschool ties with Queen's head coach Steve Boyd, and past years on Western's squad.

Sporting Canada Poll: This is a poll of all of the CIS coaches in regards to rankings. No wasted words, just straight numbers. This provides what should be expected to be the fairest and most correct rankings due to the equal number of votes for coaches at each university. However a small bias is expected toward Ontario schools, as we have more universities in Ontario and compete against each other regularly so coaches in Ontario are more likely to pick a team that they see regularly versus other non-Ontario schools.

TNF Poll: Similar to the Sporting Canada Poll, this polls draws from Tnf contributors that include CIS coaches as well as club coaches and former athletes. Out of the 6 pollsters, 3 are from Ontario (London, Guelph, Toronto), and they rate 10 teams on a scale from 1-10, 10 being a first place position, and 1 being an expected 10th place position.

Vic Matthews Results

Marauders.ca write-up  (note: Jordan Bierema finished 38th not 28th)

Mac Women 2nd to Guelph.
Mac Men 4th behind Guelph, Windsor, and Eastern Michigan.

Haliburton leads women with a 6th place position.
Yorke leads men with a 10th place position.

Team Men & Women Results: http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?do=news&news_id=21438&event_id=5748

Individual Men & Women Results: http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?do=news&news_id=21437&event_id=5748

Vic Matthews Preview

Race: Vic Matthews Open (Formally Guelph Open)
Location: University of Guelph Arboretum, Guelph Ontario
Date: Saturday October 15, 2011
Start Times
11:30 am Women 5km
12:15 pm Men 8km

Meet Information
http://gryphons.ca/sports/2011/9/6/CROSS_0906113247.aspx?path=cross

Trail Video

2010 Results
Women (4k)
Men (7.5k)

See results back to 2007 in Results Archive tab

Weather Report

OUA Teams Present
Guelph, Windsor, Laurier, Queens, UofT, Waterloo, Trent, York, Nipissing
9/15 total teams in OUA
430 Entries
Plus Eastern Michigan, Regina, Detroit Mercy


Women

The Marauder women's team will march into the rival guelph's neck of the woods Saturday and try to shame them on their home turf. Linday Carson will be making her first return to racing at her past home, and though she's not expected to be booed everytime she goes for the lead like a high-profile hockey player  might, we do expect the Guelph girls to put up a fight in the race. Luckily she's not fighting this battle on her own. Close on her heels will be Victoria Coates (who was crowned Jr. National champion on this course last year), and Jill Wyman. Not to be outdoed will be the likes of Sarah Hali(burden)  and Steph MacNeil amongst a slew of Maraduer depth runners as they not only try to prove their worth against Guelph, but also amongst themselves as they battle for the hotly contested top 7 OUA and CIS racing positions. Although nothing really matters until we get OUAs and CIS, if the Mac girls are going to take home the top prize they are going to need to show that they can win some battles this weekend.

Men

With 9 out of the 15 OUA teams representing this weekend, the Vic Matthews Open should be a great indicator of how OUAs will turn out in 2 weeks. Missing only Western out of the big name teams (but how can you really miss Western ;)),  the finally full Marauders squad will be looking to prove their worth to all those doubters that make the polls. Yorke wants to mix it up this weekend with the Guelph lads as he will continue his duties as the lowstick. Taylor Reid will be riding his strong performance in Chicago into this meet with Graham Bowes chasing closely. Expect to see Jordan Bierma to slot in around here as he will be trying to pull off a redemption race after a rough go in Chicago. Captain Cory McCurry should round out the scoring as he waits patiently to get in another 10k at OUAs and CIS. The odds seem to be in the favour of Brown, Bysice, Rasmussen and Forbes to finish out the Marauder top 9, but on a tough course like this where the real grinders stake their claim, who knows what may happen. Maybe we'll see a darkhorse.

If you've got some free time Saturday make sure you get down to Guelph to watch will definitely be an amazing couple of races with a strong McMaster presence.

Go Mac Go!

CIS Rankings

Eventually I'll figure out a way to post these rankings in a more complete way. It's tough when their are 3-4 different rankings (CIS coaches, TNF, Slanders and Spec ...) that get updated several times a month. The jist is pretty clear though, Mac women are expected to place 2nd, while the men are expected to be 5th at OUAs and somewhere between 8th and 5th at CIS.

WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

1. Guelph

2. McMaster

3. Victoria

4. Western Ontario

5. Saskatchewan

6. McGill

7. Dalhousie

8. Calgary

9. Queen’s

10. Toronto

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

1. Guelph

2. Windsor

3. Western Ontario

4. Queen’s

5. McMaster

6. Victoria

7. Regina

8. Laval

9. Calgary

10. Toronto



TnfNorth CIS Poll #2 (October 10, 2011)

The University of Guelph remain on top of the latest TnfNorth CIS Poll in their quest to continue their record-breaking streak of CIS Cross Country Championships. Close behind on their heels are the Windsor men and McMaster women both of whom were within a couple points of an incomplete Gryphons team at the Western International.

MEN'S NOTES: Guelph has yet to run a full squad heading into its home meet at the Vic Matthews Open next weekend....Windsor appears to have more depth than last season and edged an incomplete Guelph squad by one point at Western led by an individual win by Matt Walters. They will meet again at Vic Matthews....Western Ontario precariously holds on for third after Victoria ran to second place at Western Washington.....Regina moves into the top-five on the backs of Kelly Wiebe's individual performance at Roy Griak. Wiebe and Regina will also run at Vic Matthews this weekend.

WOMEN'S NOTES: Guelph held off a late surge by McMaster at Western International without a handful of their top five but McMaster looked good again at Loyola Lakefront and will continue to challenge as Lindsay Carson progresses throughout the season....Victoria finished second at Western Washington and is a favourite for the Stewart Cup....McGill has moved up thanks to the individual exploits of Jessica Porfilio....Tamara Jewett has Toronto back in the top ten and is a legitimate individual title contender in November.




Taken From: http://can.milesplit.com/articles/74148-tnfnorth-cis-poll-2

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Notes from Mactrack:
The Mac men's team saw a decrease in their ranking in this poll despite the fact that they beat a full Western squad (who are still ranked third) in Chicago. Laval also seems to be heavily underranked on the mens side.

Little faith has been stowed in the Mac women's team, but they remain at least a clear number 2.



Mac in the Media

Check out the October 6th edition of the Silhouette for a nice piece on the Marauders after Chicago with a good interview with Lindsay Carson (S3 or page 15).



On the following page is a write-up about Andrew Yorke and his ups and downs. If you've never heard the Andrew Yorke story, this is a good one to explain why he likes Death Cab for Cutie so much.

Rankings: Women 2nd, Men up to 6th

WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY


(points) / (previous rankings)

1. Guelph 96.0 points / (1)

2. McMaster 90.0 / (2)

3. Victoria 60.7 / (4)

4. Western Ontario 57.3 / (3)

5. McGill 54.0 / (5)

6. Saskatchewan 38.0 / (NR)

7. Dalhousie 34.0 / (6)

8. Calgary 32.7 / (7)

9. Queen’s 24.7 / (8)

10. Toronto 14.0 / (NR)



MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

(points) / (previous rankings)

1. Guelph 96.7 points / (1)

2. Windsor 88.0 / (2)

3. Western Ontario 60.0 / (3)

4. Queen’s 53.3 / (4)

5. Victoria 51.3 / (5)

6. McMaster 49.3 / (10)

7. Regina 42.7 / (6)

8. Laval 32.7 / (7)

9. Calgary 27.3 / (9)

10. Toronto 20.7 / (8)

Mustang Open Results

Novakowski leads men, Beairsto leads tightly packed rookie girls.

Womens 4k
Mens 6k

Mustang Open Preview

Race: Mustang Open
Location: Gibbons Park, London, Ontario

Date: Thursday October 6, 2011

Start Times
3:00 Womens 4k
3:30 Mens 6k

Meet Information
http://www.westernmustangs.ca/documents/2011/8/21/2011_MO_Meet_Info_Flier.pdf?id=754

Course Maps
Mens - 6k
Womens - 4k

2010 Results
Men
Women
See results up to 2007 in Results Archive tab or at westernmustangs.ca

Weather Report

R&P

Rankings Oct. 4, 2011

Slanders and Speculation - Men Issue #1 (Marauder Men 10th)
Slanders and Speculation - Women Issue #1 (Marauder Women 2nd)

Putdowns and Prognostics - Men Issue #1 (Marauder Men 8th)

Coaches Poll
WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY
1. Guelph
2. McMaster
3. Western Ontario
4. Victoria
5. McGill
6. Dalhousie
7. Calgary
8. Queen's
9. StFX
10. Windsor

MENS CROSS COUNTRY
1. Guelph
2. Windsor
3. Western Ontario
4. Queen's.
5. Victoria
6. Regina
7. Laval
8. Toronto
9. Calgary
10. McMaster

Loyola Lakefront Recap

Women 2nd, Men 3rd! Lindsay Carson leads women with a 2nd place finish, while Andrew Yorke leads men with a 3rd place finish.

Marauders.ca Recap

Results:

Men Team Results
Men Individual Results
Women Team Results
Women Individual Results

Sorry to dissapoint, but the file containing the men's race was corrupted while trasferring to my laptop and has been deemed unsaveable. The girls race, men's "run-outs", and awards are all in the following video.

Video Recap

Cory McCurry Post Race Interview

Andrew Yorke Post Race Interview

Rory Sneyd Post Race Interview