Ivy League Cross Country Heptagonal Championships 2013

Men's HEPS Preview: Can the Harvard studs deliver and Princeton Four-Peat?

Oct 29, 2013 by Jonathan Gault

As the eight Ivy League schools descend on Princeton’s West Windsor Fields for the 2013 Ivy League Heptagonal Championships (HEPS) on Saturday, they will be accompanied by several important questions. Can the No. 15 Princeton men win their fourth straight title? Can Harvard’s duo of Maksim Korolev and James Leakos go 1-2? Can No. 21 Harvard or Dartmouth sneak into the top two and grab a critical at-large point?

Around 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, we’ll have the answers to all of those questions. But since our current understanding of time travel is limited, I’ll do my best to let you know what to expect before the meet begins.

Click here for the HEPS individual and team projections

Men’s Individual: Can the Harvard Studs Deliver at HEPS?

Korolev and Leakos have been the two best runners in the league this year. Korolev ran 23:14 to take second in a loaded field at Wisconsin, with Leakos 19-seconds behind in 10th (23:33). Columbia’s Jake Sienko, the next Ivy runner, was just 34th (23:53). When you add in Leakos’ victory at Paul Short – in the second-fastest time in course history – it seems clear that Harvard should have the top two runners, in some order.

Not so fast. Korolev and Leakos have demonstrated two things in their careers: 1) They are both extremely talented; and 2) They are both extremely inconsistent. Take a look at what they’ve done over the past two years.

	The Good	The Bad
Korolev	- 20th at Wisconsin (2012 XC) - 2nd at Northeast Regional (2012 XC) - 8:04 3k (1st, 2013 Indoor HEPS) - Qualified for NCAAs in 10k (2013)	- 22nd at HEPS (2012 XC) - 201st at NCAAs (2012 XC) - 15:16/31:13 5k/10k (19th and 21st, 2013 Outdoor HEPS) - Placed last at NCAA 10k in 33:55 (2013)
Leakos	- 39th at Wisconsin (2012 XC) - 5th at Northeast Regional (2012 XC) - 13:57 5k (2013 Mt. SAC Relays)	- 19th at HEPS (2012 XC) - DNF at NCAAs (2012 XC) - DNF at Outdoor HEPS 10k (2013)

There are some incredible performances in there, but there are also some really, really ugly ones. Until Korolev and Leakos prove they can put it together at HEPS XC -- and this is their last chance -- they can't be considered heavy favorites.

So if Harvard's duo falters, who else could win? Columbia and Princeton both have incredibly tight top fours, and anyone in that group has the potential to become HEPS champ.

For Columbia, Sienko was the next-best Ivy finisher at Wisconsin, but Daniel Everett, John Gregorek and Nico Composto all finished within eight seconds of Sienko. Sienko has been Columbia's most consistent cross guy for the last four years, and he's their top returner, finishing 13th at HEPS last year. If it's a close race, Everett bears watching with his 4:00 mile speed.

Princeton has a similarly close top four. The Tigers’ Sam Pons was the top Ivy at Pre-Nats (35th, 24:04), but teammates Tyler Udland, Alejandro Arroyo Yamin and defending HEPS champion Chris Bendtsen all crossed within 12-seconds of Pons. Those orders change from week to week, though, as Udland was the top Ivy when Princeton raced Columbia at Notre Dame, followed by Bendtsen, Composto, Sienko and Everett (all within four seconds of Udland).

It’s hard to choose just one name for Princeton, but keep an eye on the hard-closing Bendtsen. He won this race in 2012 and he’s always performed well at HEPS whether it’s indoors, outdoors or XC.

Dartmouth also has a strong top 1-2 punch in Will Geoghegan (who was sick at Wisconsin but finished 3rd at Paul Short) and John Bleday (8th at Paul Short, 7:59 3k PR) and it wouldn't be a surprise to see either of them in contention for the win. Penn's Thomas Awad is a dark horse to look out for after qualifying for NCAAs in the 5k last spring as a freshman.

Men’s Team: Can Princeton Four-Peat?

Princeton’s seniors will attempt to become the first group since Dartmouth’s Class of 1992 to go a perfect four-for-four at HEPS. Despite losing to No. 10 Columbia at Notre Dame, they should probably enter as co-favorites with the Lions because of their home-course advantage and coach Jason Vigilante’s ability to peak his runners at the perfect time.

The two teams entered last year’s HEPS in a similar situation. Columbia held the higher national ranking (10 vs. 23) and had already beat Princeton head-to-head at Wisconsin. Princeton turned what appeared to be a close race into a blowout, going 1-2-4-7-12 to win with a miniscule 26 points. How dominant was Princeton? Even if you combined the finishers from all the other Ivy schools into one team, the Tigers still would have won.

Princeton returns its entire top seven from that race, while Columbia graduated four of its top seven (including its top two). That dominance carried over to the track last year too, as the Tigers took 10 of the 18 scoring spots on the track between the indoor 5k, outdoor 5k and outdoor 10k (including a 1-2-4-5 performance in the 10k).

My point is that Vigilante is 3-for-3 in getting his runners to peak well at HEPS, and that could be the difference in a very tight race.

Coach Vigilante was already looking towards HEPS at Pre-Nats

The other edge the Tigers hold is at the No. 5 spot. Each team boasts an experienced top four, but Princeton’s fifth runner will likely be either junior Matt McDonald (22nd at Notre Dame, 14th at ’12 HEPS, 12th at ’11 HEPS) or junior Eddie Owens (12th at ’12 HEPS, ran 24:09 on Princeton’s course on Oct. 19 after shaky start to season) while Columbia will be relying on freshman Jack Boyle (50th at Notre Dame, 97th at Wisconsin, 8:55 3200m in HS).

Princeton’s depth (with both McDonald and Owens as viable fives, they have a better chance of getting a good race from one of them) and experience gives them a slight advantage here.

Behind the top two, Harvard and Dartmouth are the only other squads worth mentioning. So far they’ve split their two meetings with the Big Green prevailing at Paul Short and the Crimson coming out on top at Wisconsin. Unlike Harvard, Dartmouth has been a model of consistency at HEPS, placing 3rd, 2nd, 3rd and 3rd in the last four years. Harvard was 5th last year and hasn’t finished higher than that since 1993.

This battle will come down to how each team’s top two runs. If Korolev/Leakos can put enough places between them and Geoghegan/Bleday, Harvard has a chance to repeat their performance at Wisconsin and get third. If not, Dartmouth’s edge at 4-5 should be enough for third.

Note: The following projections are based on Wisconsin and Pre-Nats, except for Brown, who didn't run at either meet (we used their results for Paul Short). These projections are independent of the analysis above.

Individual Projections

Team Projections

Place Name                   School
1     Maksim Korolev         Harvard
2     James Leakos           Harvard
3     Jake Sienko            Columbia
4     Daniel Everett         Columbia
5     John Gregorek          Columbia
6     Nico Composto          Columbia
7     Sam Pons               Princeton
8     Tyler Udland           Princeton
9     Alejandro Arroyo Yamin Princeton
10    Tom Purnell            Harvard
11    John Bleday            Dartmouth
12    Chris Bendtsen         Princeton
13    Thomas Awad            Penn
14    Silas Talbot           Dartmouth
15    Jack Boyle             Columbia
16    Henry Sterling         Dartmouth
17    Kevin Dooney           Yale
18    Steve Mangan           Dartmouth
19    Alexander Conner       Yale
20    Will Geoghegan         Dartmouth
21    Chris Allen            Harvard
22    Matt McDonald          Princeton
23    Will Geiken            Harvard
24    Brian Eimstad          Cornell
25    Nephat Maritim         Harvard
26    Michael Williams       Princeton
27    John McGowan           Yale
28    Curtis King            Dartmouth
29    James Randon           Yale
30    Ben Potts              Cornell
31    Ben Golestan           Columbia
32    Connor Martin          Princeton
33    Paul Ross              Columbia
34    Tyler Eustance         Cornell
35    Brendan Shearn         Penn
36    Dylan O'Sullivan       Dartmouth
37    Mark Tedder            Cornell
38    Ben Rainero            Cornell
39    Joseph Kotran          Columbia
40    Conner Paez            Penn
41    Duncan Tomlin          Yale
42    Nicholas Tuck          Penn
43    Isa Qasim              Yale
44    John Trueman           Penn
45    Kurt Ruegg             Harvard
46    Mark McGurrin          Brown University
47    Clark Shurtleff        Penn
48    Dustin Wilson          Columbia
49    Lukas Gemar            Harvard
50    Colin Savage           Brown University
51    Conor Nickel           Penn
52    Jeff Bush              Brown University
53    Stephen Bourguet       Brown University
54    Jon Phillips           Cornell
55    Ben Halpin             Brown University
56    Andre Ivankovic        Yale
57    Will Sheeran           Brown University

Place School       Points
1     Columbia     33
2     Harvard      57
3     Princeton    58
4     Dartmouth    79
5     Yale         133
6     Cornell      163
7     Penn         174
8     Brown        256