Event Results >>
NAIA National Championship
Lawrence, KA, US
November 22nd, 2014
User Comments
-
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Then was a Thunder said 8 years ago
Gonna make a bold statement and say UBC is the best women XC team in Canada after this.
Quote comment -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354 -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
Well maybe if UBC decided to actually compete in the CIS for cross-country/track, then we could see if that statement is true.
Quote comment
....no way they beat Guelph. -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354 -
User since:
Nov 3rd, 2013
Posts: 99Bomber said 8 years ago
I've seen UBC up close more than any other CIS coach and Id say ( no disrespect intended) that UBC would have been duking it out with the rest of us for podium spots at this years CIS.
The 6km at this year's race ( vs 5km at NAIA) would exposé the strength of depth a team like guelph has.... 60 sec would turn not 90...90 into 2mins etc....Guelphs spread is simply to small
I'll go back to my general attitude in these debates. I think it is more relevant to look at the improvements on the women's side at the collegiate level that are deciding to stay in Canada and are running well. Female dist runners have been the backbone of the female side of athletics in this country and the depth of competition is outstanding. I'd argue this years top 10 at CIS ( and even if u include a few of the young favourites who had a tough day) would have been top 3-5 only a few years when I first came into the CIS.
Here on the west coast it's been great as u know if u lineup against any of the 4 major female programs out here u had better be ready to roll if u want bragging rights. Best part is it changes from year to year....This post was edited by Bomber 8 years ago .Quote comment -
User since:
Oct 30th, 2013
Posts: 217SammyD said 8 years ago
Thanks for the insight Bomber... I have no grasp of the depth or quality of the top end of the NAIA (or NCAA div 2 for that matter). I know Maria Bernard is good.... but who doesn't at this point. Having a school outdoor season is probably pretty cool for UBC and SFU... but I would love to get them in the CIS to increase the already rapidly improving depth of the CIS.
Quote comment
I looked at NCAA div.2 rankings in indoor last year and if I recall the CIS actually looked comparable if not better in many events. Considering how many schools are in div.2 (several hundred) and how many are in the CIS (40-50ish?) that is pretty good. (I admit I have no idea how many schools have track programs in div. 2).
Side note: how good are the UBC men? -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
The UBC men have looked really well this year, they have had some good front runners and some guys did not perform to their overall capabilities. But I feel that they have a really strong program on the men's side, as well as some good depth. This year was bad representation on what they can really do. But to be honest I feel that I would take Luc Bruchet (when he was still racing) over some of the top guys in CIS.
Quote comment
I feel that UBC would prob rank in the top 3 of CIS in both the men and women. I am not saying that they would beat Guelph, but I feel that they would give them a run for their money for sure. -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
Quoting: Anonymous
"The UBC men have looked really well this year, they have had some good front runners and some guys did not perform to their overall capabilities. But I feel that they have a really strong program on the men's side, as well as some good depth. This year was bad representation on what they can really do. But to be honest I feel that I would take Luc Bruchet (when he was still racing) over some of the top guys in CIS.
I feel that UBC would prob rank in the top 3 of CIS in both the men and women. I am not saying that they would beat Guelph, but I feel that they would give them a run for their money for sure."
Dude they have a chance against Guelph, but what about TWU?? Those boys can runnnn Quote comment -
User since:
Nov 3rd, 2013
Posts: 99 -
User since:
Nov 3rd, 2013
Posts: 99Bomber said 8 years ago
Once again I preface this by saying no disrespect intended as posed to simply an accurate assessment.
Ubc women would be dukig it out for top 3 at CIS. The best objective assessment I can offer are some of the early season results where we ran against them or on similar courses ( egs sundodger) Our top end is as a good as Maria( even if she beat all our girls I'd still say wed place 2-6 range) , but our 2-4 runners tended to be better than their 2-4 by a bit. They have a lesser spread than us at 5-7 ( and oir eariler season results show this scenario) but if look at NAIAresults ( over 5km) they had a pretty big gap back to their 5th vs CIS. The condition at CIS also meant running time for both the men and women's was about an extra km. so I'd argue 5 vs 7km.
The UBC men's wouldn't be a shoe n for top 3. The might be in the mix, but I'd also not put them in a favourite spot for top 3. It's tougher to analyze he NAIA 8km where u can be a decent 5km runner and run a good 5km, but the 10km Xc is a different animal.
I figured our girls were a 3-5 spot realistically at Div 2. I am interested to see theSFU womens results nationals as a final analysis. My assessment may change, but I don't think I am being rose coloured in saying we were minimum 3-5. SFU is currently ranked just inside the top 10 (7-8 last I saw).
Like the CIS...the NAIA goes thru cycles. Last years women were much better than years women's individual wise ( not sure about teams though) . Hillary Holt would been the best CIS 1500m runner ( won NAIA) and has run around 4:11-13 ( you'd have to check, but around there). But once you get beyond her the CIS 1500m female PRs show the depth i have mentioned earlier ( espec on guelph's side, but even various individuals like Jenna westaway, Inglis, Staehli, etc....) in comparison to the CIS ladies ( a bunch in the 4:15-4:20 range).
Historically the NAIA women have had good top end, but lack depth. The men really go in cycles., but in general have more depth than the women. I'd argue it was this way when I competed and is still relevant today.
Once again my assessment is in no way meant to belittle anyone's results at CIS, NAIA or NCAA, but rather what I term objective observations of the various divisions. If it helps I'd argue guelph would beat the competition in every one of those ( although adams state and GVS on the mens. side at d2 would be fun to watch) .....This post was edited by Bomber 8 years ago .Quote comment -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
What? None of the TWU girls are as good as Bernard, that's an asinine statement. Furthermore, bringing up Sundodger as some sort of comparison is just silly, since it was a start-of-season meet and UBC's 2 and 3 weren't even racing. What's more, these points are all moot, because you argue for TWU's top 4, whereas this is a 5 person event and UBC destroys TWU through 5 athletes.
Quote comment -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354 -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
UBC women would be top 3, Men would be around 6th be my guess, if racing in the CIS
Quote comment -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Bomber said 8 years ago
I only used sundodger as a compariosn point, not as the final point. Any early season results needs to be taken with agrain of salt (you can see the TWU men and sundodger/WWU as point of lack of readiness for any early season race as we got killed by UVIC and at least had a few guys in their top 5 at CIS. We never run well at WWU by design, not by accident. on the mens side and the womens are definitely not consistent from year to year.
Quote comment
Marai Bernard is an exceptional athlete, but a reminder that the TWU women are no slouches. I didnt even say they'd beat her but they'd definitely be around her at the very least and much closer than 2nd at NAIA . It's not like we peaked for sundodger, but the times did show a high level of fitness vs past and current results especially relative in regards to where our fitness is normally in Sept vs where we tend to be by the end.
Fiona Benson has qualified for Wld XC on two separate occasions (Sr and Jr) and Sarah Inglis did win CIS 1500 (and has represented the UK in Wld XC a s a junior nevermind various head to race track and XC races with Maria). In objectively assessing final CIS results Alsion Jackson lacks track pedigree, but in looking who she was around at CIS (just behind Ayers, Inglis, Clarke, etc....). And Regan Yee has a 3000m time (9:29)faster than any of UBC's 2+ (unless you can prove me wrong). Crossy is a different animal, but i'd argue my stats back an argument vs an opinion.....
The increased depth at CIS vs NAIA makes the low sticks very relevant.....as does team parody. Dalhouise women at CIS would be a good example vs TWU/Queens. TWU/Queens many lower stick while Dal had only about 10-15 places from 1-5 In the end you add up the numbers and see what happens....it dont matter how u get there..... just that u get there. -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
Nice thread hijack there Bomba. No one asked about the credentials of the TWU girls. But while we're on the subject, UBC doesn't have any Scottish imports to bolster their roster. They make it happen with good old Canadian girls as they should.
Quote comment
Back on topic, congrats Maria! -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354bro pls said 8 years ago
Quoting: Anonymous
"Nice thread hijack there Bomba. No one asked about the credentials of the TWU girls. But while we're on the subject, UBC doesn't have any Scottish imports to bolster their roster. They make it happen with good old Canadian girls as they should.
Back on topic, congrats Maria!"
Wasn't a hijack. Someone asked how the UBC women would fare in the CIS. TWU is the only CIS team that UBC has competed against this season, so the comparison is valid. And if anything, TWU has a disadvantage when it comes to pulling in recruits because it is a niche religious private school, whereas UBC is a world-ranked institution.
For what it's worth, I think that UBC would have been 3rd at CIS this year. Bernard is certainly good and would be mixing it up at the front, but judging from the NAIA results, the rest of the team would be more mid-pack. Mid 18's for 5k XC ain't what it used to be in the CIS (this of course assumes that conditions were reasonably good). Quote comment -
-
Anonymous
Posts: 57354FurRealSlothLove said 8 years ago
The only time TWU raced UBC this season was at the WWU invite and UBC rested their #1,#2, #3 and #6 at this race. UBC's #4 (who was over a minute back of Bernard and around 30sec back of UBCs #2 and #3 at NAIA's (5km)) finished around TWUs 3rd. Also UBCs #5 was a minute ahead of TWUs #5 (6km) in this race. From this result I find it hard to believe TWU could beat UBC but that is just my interpretation.
Quote comment
Either way both teams are very impressive teams of girls and a huge congratulations to the lady Thunderbirds on their impressive three-peat at the NAIA championships. -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
Quoting: bro pls
"Wasn't a hijack. Someone asked how the UBC women would fare in the CIS. TWU is the only CIS team that UBC has competed against this season, so the comparison is valid. And if anything, TWU has a disadvantage when it comes to pulling in recruits because it is a niche religious private school, whereas UBC is a world-ranked institution.
For what it's worth, I think that UBC would have been 3rd at CIS this year. Bernard is certainly good and would be mixing it up at the front, but judging from the NAIA results, the rest of the team would be more mid-pack. Mid 18's for 5k XC ain't what it used to be in the CIS (this of course assumes that conditions were reasonably good)."
If anything I would say that UBC has a disadvantage when it comes to recruiting. Yes it is a prestigious school but with that comes crazy high entry requirements, higher than any other school in Canada excluding McGill. While potentially strong recruits do have some leeway when it comes to grades, there is no point in lowering the standards as maintaining a passing grade in 4 courses (NAIA requires minimum 4 over the 3 required from the CIS) can be difficult and has proved too much in the past for strong recruits who have failed classes and lost eligibility. I have heard of athletes turning down UBC for other schools like UVIC/SFU because it is too focused on academics. Not only are the UBC girls fast, they have one of the highest average GPA's of any of the other varsity teams at the school. Quote comment -
User since:
Oct 2nd, 2014
Posts: 98Rome said 8 years ago
I found something kind of interesting to compare the CIS to NAIA FOR THE MEN ONLY. Please take with a grain of salt because obviously this is cross and there are lots of factors that can impact these results.
Quote comment
We (Calgary) raced Eastern Oregon at the Northwest Inland Classic in Idaho. We lost to Eastern Oregon 40-34 without Hadfield (1-3 on our team) in our lineup. Eastern Oregon was 4th at NAIA and it looks like their one guy had a bad race. They had a :49 second spread in Idaho and 1:40 spread at NAIA's. They had the same top 5 and both Idaho and NAIA were 8km. We were 8th at CIS this year with a tough race from James.
Their top guy was DJ Flores who finished 2nd at NAIA's. James and I both beat him in Idaho. Maybe he had a really bad race at Idaho and a good one at NAIA's, we don't know. James was 73rd (tough race as mentioned above) and I was 18th with a good race. Assuming DJ didn't have the worst race of his life in Idaho that puts him somewhere around me.
To sum it up we barely lose to Eastern Oregon when they have a decent day and we were shorthanded. We go to CIS and have a rough day and finish 8th. They go to NAIA and have a rough day and finish 4th a couple points out of 3rd and not even close to 5th. As well it looks like a top 3 guy at NAIA would have a time cracking the top 20.
In conclusion CIS men > NAIA men
I could be completely off because I don't know what Eastern Oregon considers a good race (DJ might have tempo'ed Idaho and that would skew the facts) but those are the results so have fun nerding out on this. -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Anonymous said 8 years ago
http://www.naiasports.org/scoreboardSearch.php
Quote comment
Searching M Cross Country and Eastern Oregon shows that Flores actually stopped from being in the lead and fell back to 26th. No idea how much his coach exaggerated this but this is the official race report from the coach. It is hard to say where one team would line up going from the NAIA to CIS or the otherway around but I don't think that Calgary would as dominant in the Mens NAIA as you are suggesting (3-4 on a bad day). No knock on Calgary they are an talented, awesome team of guys both on and off the track. Just give the NAIA some credit it is a pretty deep league and the EO guys absolutely killed it at NAIAs (they were ranked 9th going in).
Just my input on the matter, I am by far no expert. -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354For what it\\\'s worth said 8 years ago
I myself have competed in the Naia and I have this to say. It is much deeper than the CIS. Especially on the men's side. They have close to 250 entrants in the race, obviously more to draw from, but I still think the runners from 10-60 are more than capable of being in the competitive 'all-Canadian' range. I think, right now, the CIS has a better top end, with guys like Ross and Charles, however naia could be like than any given year. It was only 3 years ago Kennedy Kithuka was tearing it up at Wayland Baptist. I'm not trying to knock either program, and NAIA is a lot like the Div 2/3, but when the population is 10 times the size of Canada there is a much, much larger range of athletes to draw from. Just think of it like this, for every guy that places 10 at CIS there are at least 10 guys with the exact same level of talent in the US.
Quote comment -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354bro pls said 8 years ago
Quoting: Anonymous
"If anything I would say that UBC has a disadvantage when it comes to recruiting. Yes it is a prestigious school but with that comes crazy high entry requirements, higher than any other school in Canada excluding McGill. While potentially strong recruits do have some leeway when it comes to grades, there is no point in lowering the standards as maintaining a passing grade in 4 courses (NAIA requires minimum 4 over the 3 required from the CIS) can be difficult and has proved too much in the past for strong recruits who have failed classes and lost eligibility. I have heard of athletes turning down UBC for other schools like UVIC/SFU because it is too focused on academics. Not only are the UBC girls fast, they have one of the highest average GPA's of any of the other varsity teams at the school."
I wouldn't disagree that UBC might be at a disadvantage relative to other CIS schools, but I would say that it has a relative recruiting advantage over TWU. TWU as a school does simply not have a broad appeal due to its strong religious ties. Similar statements could be made about some American universities (eg. Brigham Young). This does not preclude them getting good recruits or having strong teams, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of athletes will write off such a school based on its niche appeal.
I actually think what hurts UBC more than its academic strength is its NAIA affiliation. I personally wrote UBC/SFU off completely because I didn't want to run in the NAIA (or Div 2) if I stayed in Canada.
[And while impressive, it is usually the case at most schools that the XC team has the highest mean/average GPA.] Quote comment -
User since:
Oct 2nd, 2014
Posts: 98Rome said 8 years ago
Quoting: Anonymous
"http://www.naiasports.org/scoreboardSearch.php
Searching M Cross Country and Eastern Oregon shows that Flores actually stopped from being in the lead and fell back to 26th. No idea how much his coach exaggerated this but this is the official race report from the coach. "
Nice find, I remember this happening in the race, forgot it was an Eastern Oregon guy. He was leading then fell back and called for someone to bring him shoes. That would be a factor that would skew results. A teams low stick stopping to change shoes and almost coming back to beat us bodes well for NAIA.This post was edited by Rome 8 years ago .Quote comment -
User since:
Oct 30th, 2013
Posts: 217SammyD said 8 years ago
I am not sure if he was saying Calgary would dominate NAIA. If that guy lost his shoes and came back, lets say he wins... that improves their score by 8 points and knocks Calgary back 2; 10 point swing. Then if Hadfield ran and was a bit back of Justinen as he was a CIS, he could improve their team score by 30ish points as their fifth man in that race was 44th. As Rome mentioned, it isn't a perfect comparison but shows that a mid-level CIS team could be near if not in front of a team that was 4th (almost third) at NAIA. It is also hard to tell what running an extra 2k would do to the NAIA field. For some guys I am sure nothing... but for other I am sure they wouldn't be having fun that last little bit.
Quote comment
The argument that there is more bodies and are thus better make sense in a statistical sense to me. There are more of them so there must in the end be better guys at all levels overall. However, if you check the indoor rankings for last year:
http://www.tfrrs.org/lists/1142.html#54
http://www.trackie.com/CIS/TNF/Rankings/mens-1500-meter/10/
Lets compare 1500 and mile times. The bottom of the NAIA list is a 4:21.80 mile, which by the 1.08 conversion factor from the NCAA is about a 4:02.44 1500m. This puts the 34th ranked NAIA guy equivalent to the 71st CIS guy.The 3k list tells a similar story. Based on those lists it would seem that CIS is significantly better both in terms of top end and depth. That being said, there are probably lots of NAIA schools that don't do indoor, so you can look at their outdoor lists:
http://www.tfrrs.org/lists/1227.html#13
Kind of to my surprise, the results are pretty similar. Bruchet leads with a 3:42 but the 37th person on the list is 3:56.48. We don't have a CIS outdoor list, but we know Ross and CPT are at the Bruchet level. The indoor lists have 3:56.58 at 33rd for CIS, but that is assuming that indoor performances wouldn't improve going into outdoor. From what I have seen people tend to run faster outdoors. So at the very least, based on track rankings, CIS men have comparable if not better top end, and surprisingly comparable if not better depth.
Lots of caveats I imagine in this argument, but the rankings lists seem to be reasonably objective and show fairly clearly the NAIA isn't dramatically more deep than the CIS. In fact it shows the opposite. -
User since:
Oct 30th, 2013
Posts: 217SammyD said 8 years ago
Already thought of something that could skew the above results; perhaps because the NAIA has an indoor 5k (not to bring up that argument again for the CIS) that dilutes the mile/1500 times in the NAIA. So maybe the CIS is better at middle distance or at the very least for focused on it, so in XC the NAIA is better than its indoor times show as they have 5ks and are more into longer distance stuff.
Quote comment
That being said, I think there are lots of CIS guys who could run comparable 5k times to NAIA given the above mentioned 3k rankings and the fact there are probably lots of good CIS xc guys who wish there were longer events indoors. -
User since:
Oct 30th, 2013
Posts: 217SammyD said 8 years ago
The only way to REALLY solve this question is for UBC to just join the CIS and defend NAIA's honour.
Quote comment -
User since:
Mar 6th, 2014
Posts: 108evandunfee said 8 years ago
Im loving this back and forth about NAIA vs. CIS, but just wanted to chime in a little off topic here
Quote comment
76 Thorne, Ben FR British Columbia 5:16.4 26:12.60 61
That's pretty stinking good for a guy that doesn't run. -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354I said 8 years ago
Rumour has it Ben had at least one foot one the ground the whole race!
Quote comment -
Anonymous
Posts: 57354Ben Shortthorn said 8 years ago
Quoting: evandunfee
"Im loving this back and forth about NAIA vs. CIS, but just wanted to chime in a little off topic here
76 Thorne, Ben FR British Columbia 5:16.4 26:12.60 61
That's pretty stinking good for a guy that doesn't run."
Not too bad for a 7.7km course! Quote comment
7