Pick Ten: Big Ten & MIAC Cross Country

Editor's Note: The 2009 "Fantasy Season" is drawing to a close! Today's Pick Ten contest will be the penultimate Pick Ten contest of the season. It's companion Yes/No contest will end the weekend before Thanksgiving with a question (or two?) on the NCAA Championships.

To get everyone in the spirit of the Fantasy season's climax, we'll present a double-header this weekend. Along with today's Pick Ten, we'll also present a Yes/No question tomorrow ... giving DtB fantasy players every chance to improve their standing -- or fall by the wayside! -- in the final weeks of the season.

Enjoy the fantasy madness ...

The collegiate cross country season is winding down and heating up. It is a conference meet Halloween weekend for the Big Ten and MIAC. The Gophers will travel to Penn State to run on Sunday morning while the MIAC follows tradition with a mid-afternoon Saturday competition at Como golf course in St. Paul.

The Pick Ten contest will challenge your predictive abilities for the two conference meets this weekend.

A refresher on Pick Ten rules: You're asked to predict the finish place for each of 10 Minnesota athletes/teams in their respective conference races. You will score points for each athlete/team that scores at or above the finish place you predict for them. The rules change slightly for cross country as we will not use track and field scoring (10-8-6-5…) but will simply go 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for each place.

Remember though, if the athlete/team finishes below your predicted place, you receive zero points.

To play Pick Ten, cut and paste the list of names below into an e-mail and add your place predictions -- 1st, 2nd, 3rd ... or 10th. Send your predictions to DtBFantasy [AT] gmail [DOT] com by 2:00 P.M. CDT on Saturday, October 31. Make sure your full name is in the e-mail. We'll announce the winner of this Pick Ten contest next week and update the running tally of Pick Ten scores from which we'll ultimately crown a grand champion.

The current overall top-5 in Pick Ten is:

Doug Cowles – 224
Charlie Mahler – 207
Mick Hondo - 206
Ryan Aylesworth - 202
Nate Porath - 196

The full leaderboard is HERE.

Pick Ten ... Big Ten/MIAC Conference Meets:

Megan Duwell (Gophers):
Hassan Mead (Gophers):
University of Minnesota Men:
University of Minnesota Women:
St. Thomas Women:
St. Olaf Men:
Alex Potter (Bethel):
Simone Childs-Walker (Carleton):
Brent Haglund (Augsberg):
Wade Eckstrom (Macalester):

To Help You Make Your Picks ... Here is some information on the athletes/teams we've included in the competition:

Hassan Mead and Megan Duwell are both All-Americans and Mead is the defending Big Ten Champ. Duwell finished 4th last year at Big Tens. The Gopher women are ranked #15 in the nation and won Big Tens in 2007 and 2008. They will be challenged by nationally ranked Illinois (#13), Penn State (#18), Michigan (#22), Iowa (#23) and Michigan State (#27). The Gopher men finished 3rd at the conference meet last year and have only recently fallen out of the national rankings. The men's favorites include #15 ranked Wisconsin and #18 ranked Indiana.

Find 2008 Big Ten results HERE.

The St. Thomas women and St. Olaf men will attempt to defend their 2008 MIAC team titles. On the women’s side, Bethel is ranked #14, Carleton #20 and St. Thomas #23. St. Thomas is the lone ranked men’s team in the conference – they are #22 in the nation.

Click the links for 2008 MIAC results for men and women.

Alex Potter and Simone Childs-Walker finished 2nd and 3rd at the conference meet to eventual National Champion and Bethel returnee Marie Borner in 2008. Brent Haglund was 7th and Wade Eckstrom was 10th at MIAC last year.

Good luck!