TEMPE – This weekend's Pre-Nationals Invitational in Wisconsin's capital city is shaping up to be the biggest race of the year and will undoubtedly be the biggest test of the season for the Sun Devils as they take on a cornucopia of talent from across the country.
The abundance of top-talent converging on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course this Saturday has been divided into four races, each one just as elite as the last with the Sun Devil women lining up in the White 6K at 8:45 a.m. PT, and the men participating in the Cardinal 8K at 9:30.
"There's going to be great competition in Madison this weekend, but I think the biggest thing we have to do is focus on ourselves," women's head coach Jeremy Rasmussen said. "We've got a lot to continue to work on. We learned a lot from the last race out in Stanford and we've got to continue to build upon it to have great success."
ASU's men's squad arguably has the tougher of the two challenges as they toe the line with 10 programs ranked in the top-26, including unanimous No. 1 and two-time defending national champion Northern Arizona, and reigning Pac-12 champion No. 5 Stanford.
"Garrett's the only guy who's run at a national meet, so for a lot of the guys this is the deepest – the biggest – cross country meet they've ever run in," men's head coach Cory Leslie "It's a national meet course and we kind of lucked out and have a lot of Pac-12 schools in our race, so it's a great opportunity all-around as we head into championship season."
As for the women, they will also run against 10 of the best with defending national champion and No. 3 New Mexico headlining the race.
The Devils ultimately hope to get back to Madison next month for the NCAA Championships, and a solid performance among the elite would greatly improve their chances of booking a return trip.
"There's a lot of formulation that goes along with determining at-large bids, but the most important thing to take away from that for our team is we have to go there and take down some good teams from other regions to give us that opportunity we want," Rasmussen said.
"This is really just going to be a big indicator for where we're headed because three and five weeks from now at conference and the regional meet, this will be the team we line up," Leslie said.
The 2018 Pre-Nationals Invitational will be streamed live on FloTrack with a valid subscription, and results will be available on Record Timing. Arizona State's results and a recap of the event will be available on thesundevils.com following the conclusion of the competition.
Rankings Update
The women of New Mexico were dethroned for the first time this season, but for the most part, the USTFCCCA Week Four Rankings featured the same programs.
Once again, the Pac-12 put up the most ranked programs out of any conference with 10 combined, including the new No. 1 women's squad Colorado and the No. 5 men's Stanford team.
The men's Buffalo squad checked in at No. 11 just ahead of No. 12 Washington and No. 14 Oregon. Washington State owns the No. 17 spot and UCLA checks in at 25.
Oregon and Stanford round out the top-five on the women's side at Nos. 4 and 5, and the Huskies claim No. 16 to make it four Pac-12 programs in the women's rankings.
In the West Region, ASU remains unranked on both sides, while the Pilots of Portland and the Broncos of Boise State took over the top-spot in the men's and women's standings, respectively.
Get the O'Toole out of the Box
Graduate transfer and Ivy League standout Garrett O'Toole is expected to provide key depth to the Sun Devils lineup when he toes the line for the first time this weekend in Wisconsin.
O'Toole was an all-region honoree at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Championships last season as he finished seventh and helped the Princeton Tigers take the regional team title ahead of storied programs Georgetown and Penn State.
He went on to finish 184th at the NCAA Championships and the Tigers finished 28th as a team in Louisville, Kentucky.
The addition of O'Toole and fellow transfer Fearghal Curtin this weekend means coach Cory Leslie's squad will be at full-strength for the first time this season as both newcomers have yet to make their Maroon and Gold debuts.
Last Time Out: Pre-Nats 2017 (Louisville, Ky.)
Samantha Ortega and Chelsey Albertson were ASU's top-finishers in the Derby City, with the pair taking 77th and 79th, respectively in the women's 6K.
The tough section pitted ASU's women against 14 teams in the USTFCCCA top-30 or receiving votes, but the Sun Devils were up to the challenge as they topped a No. 24 Missouri team with the defending NCAA champion leading the Tigers' charge, and two programs receiving votes in the most recent ranking.
Ortega and Albertson ran together for the entire race and only finished within two places of each other.
Courtney Lewis (102) was ASU's No. 3 finisher, Anna Pruter took 153rd and Daan Haven finished 195th to wrap up the Sun Devil scoring. Alexis Nichols and Billie Jo Dytrt finished 213th and 215th, respectively, and in the second section of the women's 6K, Angela Saitta finished 172nd.
John Reniewicki highlighted a tough outing for the Sun Devil men.
He finished 88th in the 8K race in 24:25.4, just over 10 seconds off of his personal best.
The Sun Devil men took 41st overall with 1,096 points.
Sophomore Surges for Lewis and Haven
After freshmen campaigns that saw the young Devils score in nearly every event they ran in, the future looked promising for Iowa native Jackson Lewis and Arizona's own Daan Haven.
Lewis entered the 2018 cross country season on the heels of a special summer of competition that included a U.S. Junior title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
He's propelled himself into the top-spot so far this season, finishing as the Devils' No. 1 in two of his three races.
Haven has done the same, taking the top place at the season-opener and at the last outing in Stanford.
While Haven hasn't topped her 6K personal best just yet, her debut in a race of that distance this year was nearly three minutes better than last season.
Both Devils will return to the course this weekend in Wisconsin looking to continue their form.
American Distance Renaissance Led by Devils
While names like Desiree Linden and Shelby Houlihan are popping up in national headlines across the country, their exploits are nothing new to those from Tempe as those two and a handful of former Sun Devils have been leading a renaissance for American distance running in the past two years.
Linden's notoriety surged after she became the first American woman in more than 30 years to win the Boston Marathon, a feat she accomplished this past April.
As for Houlihan, along with competing with some of the best women in the world in the 1,500-and 5,000-meter runs, she's owned the American circuit by claiming seven U.S. titles since 2017 alone.
Elsewhere in the world of distance running, Amy Cragg-Hastings won the bronze medal at the IAAF World Championships in 2017. The medal was the USA's first since the 1980s in the event.
Pac-12 Continues XC Dominance
There have been some astronomical changes made across the NCAA this past summer in an attempt to shift the landscape of cross country.
Coaches have moved, transfers have bolstered already strong lineups and recruiting classes have raised some eyebrows.
The Pac-12, however, remains unbothered on its perch as the deepest and most-competitive conference in the NCAA.
Over the past three seasons, no Power Five conference has put more teams into the NCAA Championships than the Pac-12 with 19 men's programs toeing the line for gold, and 16 women's teams.
On the men's side, the closest conference to the Conference of Champions is the ACC with 13, and even though Syracuse has the lone Power Five NCAA title since 2015 (NAU has won back-to-back), the Pac-12 has nine top-10 finishes to the opposite coast's three.
The women have competition from the Big Ten's 14 entries, but again the Pac-12 has them doubled in top-10 finishes with eight to its four.
Oregon won the women's title in 2016, and has been sandwiched by wins from New Mexico.
