Culver Invitational Preview
By: Stephen Bain
September 24, 2009
The Culver Invitational has a lot of things going for it. First, it’s a beautiful course. With this comes a great atmosphere, and Culver Academy does a wonderful job of hosting this meet. After the race, many of the day’s highlights will come in the cafeteria where a nobody is bound to drop a tray and become the new face of Indiana High School Cross Country and pick up a date to the upcoming homecoming dance. Before any of this happens, the best race of the regular season will take place.
I recently learned that this meet started as a JV Invitational. Then a few teams started adding into it, and now teams from out of state try to come over to face some of Indiana’s best. This is a great national showcase race in our own Hoosier Land.
For this preview, I will only be focusing on the open race. I am also not including any teams who may move up from the closed division.
Let’s look at a competitive team line up:
Bloomington North, #5 Carmel, #8 Chesterton, #1 Columbus North, #25 Crown Point, Downers Grove South (IL), #14 Fishers, Lake Central, LaPorte, Lawrence Central, Logansport, Martinsville, #6 MW Mason (OH), McCutcheon, Michigan City, Munster, #3 North Central, Northridge, Northview, Oak Hill, Portage, South Bend Clay, #18 South Bend St. Joseph’s, #22 Fort Wayne Snider, Ohio #3 Sylvania Northview, Valparaiso, #12 Warren Central, Warsaw, Westfield, #10 Zionsville
Question to be answered:
Can Fox make a difference?
North Central’s Matt Fox (10) was unable to finish the Flashrock Invitational due to injury. There is no saying if he will come back. But IF he does, will he be enough to help North Central take down the Columbus North Bull Dogs?
Fishers’ Line up
These guys are a very dangerous team, if they ever run anybody. There really is not a better time to run the full squad other than Culver in the regular season. It would be nice to see how good these guys are as we enter the tournament. They have an outside shot at podium if all their guys run to potential.
How good is Indiana?
One thing to unite all of the state is that we need to put on a show against the out-of-state teams. Neuqua Valley has been coming into Culver and just dominating the past years. They are not in the race this year but some quality teams are from Illinois and Ohio. It would be nice to see the Hoosier State make a statement, and some of the top teams make a push for NXN. Mason (OH) is currently ranked 6th in the Midwest regional, and I think that they could possibly not finish in the top 3 of this race.
A quick look at the Top Teams:
#1 Columbus North – Win after win, these guys are ready to go after a state title. This weekend they may be thinking about NXN “points” as previously mentioned. However, they will have their hands full with Indiana’s finest once again.
#3 North Central – Another loss to Columbus North last weekend, you know that these guys have to be getting tired of it. They are hoping for Matt Fox to come around, otherwise their 5th man will kill them. Futsum will finally have a nice race up front as well.
#5 Carmel – Great performance in Kentucky and these guys will be ready to show that they are still in contention for the state title as well. Never fall asleep on the Greyhounds.
#8 Chesterton – With a nice win at the New Prairie Invite, these guys are looking to make their push for the podium. This could be their last real test until the state meet again.
#10 Zionsville – The Eagles had a solid performance at the FlashRock Invitational but are part of the group of Carmel Semi State teams looking to advance. This is test to see how they stack up with the state with only a few top teams missing from this weekend.
#12 Warren Central – Same as above. The Warrior Pack will be looking to move together in this race and running it the way they are trained to. They will have a nice advantage in such a crowded race by using their teammates.
#14 Fishers – As mentioned before, the question is always who they will run. If they run everybody, they are a top ten team easily.
#18 South Bend St. Joseph’s – With a nice win in the small school division at New Prairie, St. Joe’s should be looking to come in with some momentum and attempt to pick off some teams.
#22 Fort Wayne Snider – These guys have a lot to prove as they have been sitting on the bubble for weeks. It would be nice to enter the tournament with a good race and some confidence.
Lawrence Central – Looking to rebound this weekend before entering the tourney.
Valparaiso – Just fell out of the ranks, but Coach Prow should have his guys starting to feel fast and the young squad may be coming into form soon. No team in the north will fall asleep on these guys.
LaPorte – They have had a lack of love all year, but have ran some VERY solid times. Look for them to prove a lot this weekend. This is a nice darkhorse pick to beat out some ranked teams.
Westfield – Shiver may be done for the season, but if by chance he is back then this team is a top 25 team once again.
Out of State Scouting Report:
I quickly looked over Milesplit’s results for these teams, and searched a few other sites to find out just where these teams were ranked and what kind of times they had thrown down. Milesplit’s rankings simply give you an idea of where these teams are. Mason is a highly ranked team with NXN points to be caught by the Hoosier teams.
Here is what I found:
Downer’s Grove South (Illinois) – After a quick search I did not find any big results from this school. They don’t appear to be ranked but I do believe they are a big school so they should have some respectable guys in the race and I doubt they would come all the way to Culver if not.
#6 MW Mason (Ohio) [Ranked #8 on milesplit in Ohio] – Were Ohio’s Division 1 State Champions last year and are lead by junior Zack Willis. This is a big team, which gives you an idea that it is a very good program. Their roster lists 82 runners, which is simply massive. I do not know Carmel’s roster size this year, but this should be comparable.
Here is an idea of their times from their win at the Mason Invitational (9/12). I have read that it is a moderately difficult course, which means little, but take it for what it is worth:
15:17, 16:25, 17:05, 17:19, 17:22
And this last week they rested their #1 and #2 guys (maybe for Culver)… but their #3 and on guys ran:
16:17, 16:45, 17:00, 17:15, 17:23, 17:36, 17:39
With this, I would expect that they will have Willis up front attempting to win, then their #2/3 guys up in the mix with Columbus North, North Central and Carmel, but their 4 and 5 guys will be back behind a crowd.
Sylvania Northview (Ohio)[Ranked #3 on milesplit in Ohio] – Looking at some season bests from these guys, they are a real good pack running team. They have a 16:10, 16:14, 16:18, 16:24, 16:25 for their top 5. Of course this has no idea on the type of course it was run on, but those are still pretty good times either way. I would expect them to be competing with some of our 10-15 teams, but not quite the top 3 in the race.
Race team favorite: Columbus North
Team that may surprise: Carmel
A look at the front of the race:
Futsum Zeinassallassie (10) – North Central [#4 Nationally]
Zach Wills (11) – Mason (OH) [#2 Nationally] – 8:55 2mile (2 time state champion, World Youth Championships in Italy (9th) and won XC State last year.
This is the actual front of the race and I expect to see one of the best races we will see in the state all year here up front. Both of these guys can break 15:00 on this course if the course is dry like it has been for the past month. Of course this means little toward Foot Locker, but a nice preview of some top end talent.
David Osborn (12) – Chesterton (NP #1)
Cameron Balser (12) – Oak Hill (NP #2)
Jace Lowry (11) – Martinsville (BC #4)
Connor Martin (11) – Westfield (C #5)
Chris Walden (11) – Carmel (C #6)
Tom Ohlman (12) – Carmel (C #8)
Ryan Cutter (11) – Chesterton (NP #8)
Evan Scruton (12) – Columbus North (C #9)
Connor Geshay (12) – North Central (C #10)
Michael Bradley (12) – SB St. Joseph’s (NH #10)
Mitchell Hubner (10) – LaPorte (NP #12)
Chris Shellenberger (12) – Crown Point (NP #14)
Ahmad Aljobeh (10) – Valparaiso (NP #15)
Filimon Adhanom (11) – North Central (C #15)
Gabe Ocasio (11) – Columbus North (C #16)
Taylor Lowery (11) – Martinsville (BC #16)
Jared Wethington (12) McCutcheon (NP #17)
Adrew Diehn (10) – Columbus North (C #19)
Josh Millares (11) – Fishers (C #20)
Jake Ponton (12) – Lake Central (NP #20)
Morgan Welsh (11) – McCutcheon
Both Osborn and Martin have the right to be insulted and motivated by this list separation I have formed. However, I really do believe those top two guys will run away as Futsum is finally truly pushed to his edge. Osborn, Martin and maybe Balser should provide for an interesting race behind that though and do have the outside shot of getting up in the race.