Regional a tough test for Buffs
Automatic championship berth up for grabs in challenging field
It’s a rare opportunity when any team, in any sport, can go into the postseason with the same personnel plan dreamed up at the season’s start.
Veteran coach Mark Wetmore believes that exact sort of opportunity is at hand for Colorado’s cross country teams.
Two weeks after tearing through the Pac-12 Conference championships, the CU men’s and women’s cross country teams begin the stretch run of the season in the Mountain Region Championships today at the Timpanogos Golf Club in Provo, Utah.
The women’s race (six kilometers) begins at 11 a.m., with the men’s race (10K) to follow at noon.
“Probably if you’d have asked me which seven men and which seven women I’d hope to have in November all the way back in August, I would’ve named these people,” Wetmore said. “No team gets through the fall completely unscathed, and we’ve had little bumps along the way, but I’d say we’re relatively healthy and fresh for where we are in the year.”
The top two teams at each of the nation’s nine regionals receive automatic berths in the national championships next week in Tallahassee. If CU falls short of the top two, and barring a completely disastrous reg iona l meet, the Buffs should at least be in line for a championship bid when the remaining 13 at-large teams are announced on Saturday.
The Mountain Regional field is expected to be the toughest of the nine sites across the country, with 13 total teams (seven women, six men) ranked in the latest USTFCCCA top 30. That total is the most among all the NCAA regionals. The CU men are ranked second and the women are third.
After dominating the Pac12 championships two weeks ago — CU swept the team titles, while senior Abby Nichols took first in the women’s race — the Buffs will attempt to strike what always is a delicate balance at regionals. CU obviously needs to perform well enough to advance to nationals, yet leave enough in the tank for the quick turnaround ahead of the NCAA championships.
“The nine regions, some are more difficult than others. Ours is the most difficult of them all,” Wetmore said. “It’s complicated for us to do well enough against very good teams to advance, and then hope to be recovered in a couple of days physically and mentally.
“There are other regions where any one of the top five Mountain teams could cruise through, controlled and comfortable, and be off to lunch 20 minutes later. But our region is too strong. We’re going to have to run hard. So that’s the task, and then recover from running hard.”