{"id":3986,"date":"2014-04-30T15:48:46","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T19:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/?p=3986"},"modified":"2014-04-30T15:48:46","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T19:48:46","slug":"mwccc-regionals-purdue-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/mwccc-regionals-purdue-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"MWCCC Regionals Purdue Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Notre Dame Cycling team competed in West Lafayette, IN on April 26-27 in the MWCCC Regional Championships hosted by Purdue with the Division II conference title on the line. The races were held west of Purdue\u2019s campus and began with an 8-mile team time trial on Saturday morning. The Notre Dame men\u2019s A team represented by John Pratt (Jr.), Jim Snitzer (Jr.), Luke Tilmans (Sr.), and Andrew O\u2019Donnell (Grad.) took a season best 4<sup>th<\/sup> place, only 32 seconds behind the winning time, while averaging a blistering 28+ mph pace.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after the time trial, the road races began. The course consisted of a 9.4-mile lap including a one-mile, 160ft climb followed by sections with strong winds and a fast decent. The races had riders completing between three and eight laps totaling 28-75 miles, depending on their respective categories. Sarah Cullen (Fr.), despite wrecking early on in the race, took 7<sup>th<\/sup> in the women\u2019s B race after quickly catching up to the field. Mike Lorenzen (Grad.) once again set the pace for the men\u2019s D race. He took third place after establishing himself in a four-man breakaway, providing the Irish with their first podium spot of the weekend. In the men\u2019s C road race, Tom Frederick (grad.) was able to bridge to a seven-man break and took a season best 6<sup>th<\/sup> place. Notre Dame\u2019s star freshman James Pratt was able to fend off several attacks by riders from Marian in the men\u2019s B field, and took a career best second place in the final sprint. The men\u2019s A road race saw an uncharacteristically large amount of wrecks, which claimed riders Douglas Ansel (Grad.) and O\u2019Donnell as victims. However, the Irish were able to get their leader John Pratt in the day\u2019s six-man breakaway. Both Snitzer and Tilmans worked together to cover other teams\u2019 attempts to bridge the gap allowing the break to gain more than a ten-minute advantage. Pratt took second in the final sprint, while Tilmans and Snitzer finished 17<sup>th<\/sup> and 20<sup>th<\/sup> respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s circuit race featured a four-mile loop that included a short, steep climb, with no time to recover due to strong crosswinds and a quick descent back to the base of the climb. Cullen put in an impressive effort to grab 9<sup>th<\/sup> place in women\u2019s B. Lorenzen applied constant pressure while attacking the men\u2019s D field, eventually taking 15<sup>th<\/sup>.\u00a0 In men\u2019s C, an attack by a rider from Case Western established the ten-man break including Frederick in the final lap. On the finishing climb, Frederick took another impressive top ten finish grabbing 5<sup>th<\/sup> place. The men\u2019s A field was shelled by the tough climb and strong crosswinds; however, John Pratt helped Snitzer establish himself in the days surviving field. Snitzer eventually grabbed 18<sup>th<\/sup>, Pratt 21<sup>st<\/sup>, Tilmans 25<sup>th<\/sup>, and O\u2019Donnell 30<sup>th<\/sup> in a very difficult race.<\/p>\n<p>For the fourth year running, the Notre Dame Cycling team emerged as the MWCCC Division II team champions. Furthermore, John Pratt and Jim Snitzer took first and second place respectively in the Division II Individual Omnium. Notre Dame would like to thank Purdue for hosting a very well organized race weekend and providing a stellar setting to help bring an end to another successful MWCCC season.<\/p>\n<p>Men\u2019s A riders John Pratt, Jim Snitzer, Luke Tilmans, and Andrew O\u2019Donnell will head to Richmond, VA for the USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships on May 2-4. The Irish will face the best collegiate riders from across the country on the course for the eventual 2015 UCI Road World Championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Notre Dame Cycling team competed in West Lafayette, IN on April 26-27 in the MWCCC Regional Championships hosted by Purdue with the Division II conference title on the line. The races were held west of Purdue\u2019s campus and began with an 8-mile team time trial on Saturday morning. The Notre Dame men\u2019s A team &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/mwccc-regionals-purdue-recap\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;MWCCC Regionals Purdue Recap&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":950,"featured_media":3987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49004,15605],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2014-road-race-reports","category-newsannouncements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/950"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3988,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions\/3988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/cyclingirish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}