NCAA Action

Last night I watched Lawi Lalang become the fastest mile in NCAA history when he clocked his 3:52.88 and moments later watched a Division II athlete beat a field of some of the best runners at the D1 level in the 3000m, including my boy Ben Saarel. Then I watched a real disappointing slam dunk contest.

Kevin Batt, a Junior from Adam State, ran 7:52.15 at the UW Husky Classic last night, making him the #4 runner in the entire NCAA at this moment! Unbelievable running by him, just Lawi, Korolev and Geoghegan sit ahead of him at this moment. Korolev and Geoghegan have been two of the most exciting stories this year. Korolev just runs all-out, his face is in permanent pain but somehow every time he looks like he is about to fall off, he finds another gear and holds on. Those Ivy league guys get it down.

Lawi is in flat out domination mode, can't see anybody touching this man this year. He will win whatever he wants to at NCAAs (besides the DMR which he probably can't quite pull off by himself).

For the record, there are 30 guys across all levels who have broken 8 minutes for 3k this year. I saw Jake Hursyz run 7:59.89 yesterday and he was so back in the pack, the flotrack guys thought he dropped out of the race! That's unbelievable depth at the college level and a truly remarkable group that will fight for NCAA spots.

In the mile 19 guys have broken the 4 minute barrier with a large group of others (11) that are under 4:01.00 and looking for more. Jordan Williamsyz of Villanova became the NCAA leader (besides Lawi) when he ran 3:56.84 at the Iowa State Classic.

In terms of DMR stuff, Oregon has two guys under, Notre Dame has two under, Nova has two under (one of whom almost never runs on their DMR A team), Dartmouth has three under 4:01.

In the 800m this weekend PA's own Sam Ellison ran 1:48.40 which I believe is an indoor PR for him and a very nice midseason mark. That being said, the Iowa State 800m was stacked and Ellison actually ran his time dominating the slow section of the meet. In the fast heat, Edward Kemboi ran 1:45.98! Easily an NCAA #1 mark. In the process he pulled Sean Obinwa from Florida, Billy Ledder from GTown and freshman Andres Arroyo from Florida to sub 1:48 marks. There are currently 18 guys under 1:49.00 in the NCAA, two of which run for PSU (Watkins and Kidder). The Division II boys are still representing well on the national scene. Drew Windle of D2 Ashland dropped a 1:46.52 this weekend in an effort that secured him a win by over 2 seconds!

At 5000m, Reed Conner barely edged out Patrick Tiernan, the freshman stud from Nova, both guys running 13:37. Those marks were fantastic, but Eddy Cheserek's 13:40, closing in 58, was the performance of the night. The surprise NCAA champ in XC is eyeing up a repeat performance in the 5000m indoors. He also has interesting DMR duties to consider going forward and maybe we will see a 3k with a nice time. After the dramatic bit of 5k running this weekend nation wide there are now 25 guys under 14 minutes for 5k in the NCAA.