As the conference and National Championships draw closer, the season is beginning to wind down, but despite a drop in quantity, there remains great quality matchups taking place across the country.
Coaches’ Polls
On the women’s side, we have a new number one school in the country as Texas beat Stanford on home water to swap places, pushing the Californians down to number two. Also in Austin, Ohio State’s upset victory over Virginia lead to the Buckeyes rising two spots to number twelve while the Cavaliers fell four places to number sixteen in the country, putting them on the brink of not qualifying for NCAAs.
Elsewhere, conference rivals Duke rose two spots after the Lake Wheeler Invitational where, Washington State managed to slide up one place in the rankings, while Alabama entered the list for the first time this season at number eighteen.
On the men’s side, there is much more stability. Penn and Northeastern’s similar margins to Harvard draws them into a share of eighth place while Drexel and La Salle swap places following the Bergen Cup. Other than that, the top twenty remains almost unchanged.
Week Seven Preview
This week’s racing is highlighted by two duals happening across gender lines, as Stanford (#2 Women, #12 Men) and California (#4 Women, #4 Men) face off in a battle of the bay known simply as “the big row”. This offers a preview of the Pac-12 Championships in just a few weeks’ time and provides the first direct meeting between these two sides all season, a potentially key one in deciding who will take home the NCAA title at the start of June.
Further up the west coast, Seattle will host the 38th Windermere Cup. The Washington Huskies (#8 Women, #2 Men) will host U23 development crews representing the Italian national team as well as the WisconsinBadgers (Unranked Women, #15 Men). This showpiece event will provide a real test for the Huskies as they face off against a world class program in a hotly anticipated event.
In racing for just heavyweight men, #1 Princeton face off against #6 Brown, the third top-6 opponent in as many weeks for the Princeton Tigers, providing an opportunity for Brown to really put their nose in the fight for Eastern domination. Further down the rankings, #18 Columbia host #11 Navy as the two look to demonstrate they retain the speed hinted at by early season results.
On the women’s side, #3 Princeton and #11 Penn will be the best dual not mentioned above as the two Ivy powers have one last showdown before the conference championships. However, the main attraction will be in Worcester, Massachusetts for the Women’s Eastern Sprints. Headlined by #7 Brown, #13 Rutgers and #19 Columbia, this historic event will unite many of the oldest programmes in the country as they have their final cross-conference race of the season, preparing for the all-important conference championships.
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