Is Montrose a small school that just couldn’t field a 6th and 7th. It is odd to have 5 “count” for the score and then go past that on ties. But dem is the rules.
Yup, pretty small school in the middle of nowhere. They only had 5 runners at the district 2 meet as well.
They should be celebrated for running well with just 5 on the team.
It's ridiculous that in any tie situation they automatically lose just because they only have 5 on the team. There is no other sport where any team would automatically lose if they tie. It's the dumbest rule.
Yup, pretty small school in the middle of nowhere. They only had 5 runners at the district 2 meet as well.
They should be celebrated for running well with just 5 on the team.
It's ridiculous that in any tie situation they automatically lose just because they only have 5 on the team. There is no other sport where any team would automatically lose if they tie. It's the dumbest rule.
The team with five runners started the race with a disadvantage. It's a disadvantage of their own making, I admit, but a disadvantage just the same.
In spite of the disadvantage they tie.
Then they lose automatically.
I can't see that as anything other than a flawed system.
To field a qualifying team you must have five runners finish. The tie should be broken by the performances of the runners on the qualifying team.
A lot of the posts here feel like "we should do it this way because we have always done it this way," which is an incredibly weak argument.
Better options include:
Which fifth runner finished higher?
Which team had five runners complete the course in the least total time?
The scoring system is fine. If I were the coach of the losing team, I would use the loss as a teaching tool so that my runners learn to work for the victory in the future such as putting in the miles in the offseason and training harder in practice, developing better race tactics, sprinting earlier, and motivating others for the team so that the 6th runner rule is not an excuse for the loss, which is really the case.
The scoring system is fine. If I were the coach of the losing team, I would use the loss as a teaching tool so that my runners learn to work for the victory in the future such as putting in the miles in the offseason and training harder in practice, developing better race tactics, sprinting earlier, and motivating others for the team so that the 6th runner rule is not an excuse for the loss, which is really the case.
The team finished with a tie for the best score in their division in the state. You don't think they put in the miles, trained hard in practice, had good race tactics and sprinted early enough?
There are a lot of assumptions baked into that post.
It's ridiculous that in any tie situation they automatically lose just because they only have 5 on the team. There is no other sport where any team would automatically lose if they tie. It's the dumbest rule.
You must not know your rules. They don't automatically lose in any tie situation. They only lose automatically if the other team has a 6th runner. If the other team also doesn't have a 6th, then they compare the scores through 4 runners.
No it wasn't a tie because they lost based on the agreed upon rules of competition.
If it wasn't a tie, why did it go to a...wait for it... TIEBREAKER?
Let's have a serious conversation.
Montrose lost within the agreed upon rules. The question is whether these are the best rules possible for determining who had the best team.
If you score it as a dual meet, Notre Dame wins 27-28.
If you score it per NCAA rules, Montrose wins 3-2.
If you score it based on the higher finishing final scoring runner (like the IAAF would), Montrose wins.
If you score it based on the better total time of five finishers, Montrose wins 1:48:23 to 1:49:31.3. (Think about that. The winning team is over a minute slower than the losing team.)
Based on the finishing places and times and looking at all the tie breakers that I think are better than looking at a non-scoring runner (which the rules in no way require you to have), I arrive at the conclusion that Montrose was the better team.
(And I have no dog in this fight. I have never even heard of either team before this thread.)
No, I said work harder, look for areas for improvement. What you are saying is let's teach the team to be complacent. There is room for improvement. You are looking to change rules to benefit your team. And then other teams who lose under your new rules can find reasons to complain and find others scoring systems that benefit them. You lost under the rules. My high school coach always looked for areas to grow especially in tough losses. My high didn't go on to win several section titles, state, and be ranked #1 nationally for nothing.
No, I said work harder, look for areas for improvement. What you are saying is let's teach the team to be complacent. There is room for improvement. You are looking to change rules to benefit your team. And then other teams who lose under your new rules can find reasons to complain and find others scoring systems that benefit them. You lost under the rules. My high school coach always looked for areas to grow especially in tough losses. My high didn't go on to win several section titles, state, and be ranked #1 nationally for nothing.
Are you missing the part that I have no affiliation with these schools, and had never even heard of these schools prior to this thread.
This isn't even about these teams per se.
To me, the thread is about whether the current high school tiebreakers rules are better than the other options (used by the NCAA and IAAF, and also adding the possibility of total time as an option).
My conclusion is that the current rule is inferior to the options.
You do know that sports change rules all the time when the current rules are deemed insufficient or inferior, right?
But in this case, you can like the team that had a 6th runner. I'll like the team that ran the course over a minute faster. We can agree to disagree.