Polls

Polls have always been something I look at with amusement. Most of the time it is someones best guess or a match up on paper to see which team is better than another. To me polls have always been interesting but nothing more than that. Since I arrived on the NAIA scene polls have more weight to them. They can determine weather a team makes it to nationals or not. To me this is absolutely ridiculous. If you have schools that always race on fast courses or historically have been good but are having down years they are just considered to be good because they have always been good. Cross Country is one of those sports where every course is different, they might not even be the same distanced based on how they are measured etc... It is very hard outside of head to head competition to judge how one team would run against another. But each week I still find myself checking the NAIA web site http://naia.cstv.com/sports/m-xc/2009Ratings.html http://naia.cstv.com/sports/w-xc/2009Ratings.html to see where the pollsters think our team matches up in the conference. And as of right now I would say they hit the nail on the head for where we are right now. I will say that I am excited to see what will happen at the conference meet when we finally match up head to head with something on the line.

On the women's side we started the year off in 9th, we then moved up to 7th for two weeks after our first meet and the latest poll has us at 6th. As I said earlier I feel this is a honest representation of where we are right now. I do feel that if we can pull things together for the end of the year we could place higher but we will have to stay on our game and keep making major improvements.

The men started the year off at 5th, after our first meet we dropped to 6th which again was justified with our number 3 man going to the meet as a spectator. The next week we moved back to 5th without racing which always makes me laugh and this week we find ourselves sitting in 4th.

The next two weekends should tell a big story about both teams. If we can continue to improve and be successful we will be set ourselves up very nicely for a great end to the season. With the way workouts have been going I have the utmost confidence in our ability to run our best at the end of the year and realistically that's all that matters. Only time will tell.