Good Luck Josh!

[krh44]

Don't let all the other activities in the athletic department take away from Josh McDougal's run at a National Championship. It is not every day that LU has someone running for a NCAA Championship. At trackshark.com Josh is on their homepage and he is all leading in their poll as far as predictions on the race.



Poll
Who will win the NCAA Division I men's individual title?
Josh McDougal 721
Simon Bairu 489
Josphat Boit 289
other 271
Peter Kosgei 81

Total votes: 1851

[thesportscritic]

He definitely has a chance to take it home today. Good luck Josh and bring it home.

[Sly Fox]

Let's pray for good weather. On a level playing field, Josh is the hands down favorite to win this one.

[krh44]

Here is some of the Prerace coverage from trackshark.com, on their website today they have a picture of Josh being questioned at the NCAA Press conference. Pretty Neat. You know you are good when you are a runner and get interviewed! Good LucK Josh




2005 NCAA Division I Press Conference
Coverage provided by Ricky Quintana

McDonnell and all the coaches thought that the conditions were conducive to a fast race tomorrow. All the men's teams are healthy. Wetmore piped up that his team was " tired of waiting and ready to go." He also said that he would have to make adjustments because of the conditions.

Liza Pusciuto had a cyst on/in her knee early on in the season and now is 100% as evident by her steady progression over the course of the season. Barringer has been a dream to coach and should be one of the top freshman next year.

Piane noted that Kurt Benninger has not been considered highly in the internet predictions and is using that as s source of motivation.

Wetmore noted that Schoolmeester has put a lot of hard running in and is ready to run. He added that Billy Nelson has huge talent and is getting fitter and fitter. Wetmore also said that if the race is slow, Nelson will be in it.

McDonnell said that Boit will be top five.

Rohatinski was dissapointed in last year's performance and wants to do better this year. He thought that someone would go out fast. The middle of the race was going to be a key point in the race.

Schoolmeester said he was ready for everything and didn't have a set strategy. He said he thought the pace was going to be really fast. He won't be going out fast though. He said that a fast race would benefit him because more people would be coming back. He'll run by feel and be checking his status as he goes. The race was really too long to decide on what was going to say where a definite critical point was going to be.

McDougal said he is really pumped. He was a little disappointed with his performance last year and thought it was due to a lack of base. He ran trak into the summer and was late starting his base. He has done a tremendous amount of bas work this summer and has seen the results. He's going to play it by ear and is hoping for a higher finish. The 6k-8k mnark is where they left him last year so he thought that was going to be where it was going to happen this year.

Kiplagat said he was struggling with injuries entering the meet last year, but is ready to go this year. His team had done a lot of strength training coming in to prenationals, but have done speed since. K thought 7k-8k was going to be when tehr ace started.

[PAmedic]

CHRIS' take on Josh

McDougal going for only title that's eluded him - a national championship

By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
November 21, 2005

Memo to self: Pack the right shoes.

Don’t be surprised if Josh McDougal puts a sticky somewhere to remind himself of this simple chore before heading off to Terre Haute, Ind., for today’s NCAA Division I cross country championship.

The Liberty University sophomore wore the wrong shoes during last year’s NCAA meet and finished 13th, hardly a terrible finish for a freshman, but one that was somewhat disappointing for McDougal, who has won every other collegiate race he’s entered.

“I’ll definitely be prepared this time,” McDougal said.

McDougal is one of two area runners competing today. James Madison’s Shannon Saunders, a Jefferson Forest grad, will also run after finishing 11th in last week’s Southeast Region meet to qualify.

Saunders is competing for the second straight year in the NCAA championships. She finished 58th last year as a junior.

“I have trained just as hard as anyone else in the country, and I have as good of a chance to do well (today) as anyone else out there,” Saunders said in an e-mail.

McDougal enters the men’s meet as one of a handful of favorites. He shattered the course record at the NCAA pre-national meet in October, won the Big South championship two weeks later and took first in the Southeast Region meet.

McDougal has been exceedingly healthy this fall, not having “even twisted an ankle,” he said.

Would anything but a national title be disappointing for McDougal? His immediate answer is “yes.” But after thinking it through, he offered another one.

“To some extent,” he said. “I’m going there as an individual. I have no team responsibilities to hold me back, so I’m going for the win.

“But if I feel like I put forth the best effort that I can, and somebody beats me, I can be decently pleased. But if I go and I don’t run as well as I’m capable, then that would be really disappointing.”

Liberty coach Brant Tolsma expects McDougal will have to run a smart tactical race to win a national championship. Last year, aside from the footwear issues, McDougal came out of the gates too hot and faded toward the end.

McDougal said he is in better shape this fall because he built a much better mileage base during the summer. He wants to go off with the lead pack but have enough juice left in the end to make a move against some of the more talented runners.

Tolsma said he wants McDougal to go off with a secondary wave of runners rather than trying to set a tone in the first 2,000 meters of the 10K race. That will put him in a better position to make a move in the 8,000-9,000 meter range and dictate the pace in the final 1,000.

“He’s really good through the middle stretch,” Tolsma said. “When we ran pre-nationals there, he kept hitting the same splits in the fifth K, sixth K, seventh K. Most of those guys who go out really fast, they back off a bit through the middle.”

Forecasts are calling for cool, sunny weather today. The weather conditions don’t concern McDougal, who struggled last year on a muddy nationals course.

“It wasn’t that the conditions weren’t optimal,” McDougal said. “It’s just that I was dumb enough to wear shorter spikes.”

With the right shoes in his bag this time around, McDougal’s ready to challenge for a championship.

“Last year, I was frankly maybe a little tired at the end of the season and fading off,” he said. “This year, I’ve got a good base in and I’m coming on. I’m a whole lot stronger, so I’ll be able to go out with the guys in the lead pack and hang on comfortably and then have the energy to surge.”