Catholic school recruiting (built-in advantage over public schools) in combination with coaching and tradition. Even with the latter, a public school couldn't pull off 400 wins in a row.
Update on 9/19/2024 - Here is a nice article on the streak that started 50 years ago today: https://nj.milesplit.com/artic...
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CBA had a guy who didn’t do XC freshman year, and in freshmen track he couldn’t break 5 in the 1600 or 11 in the 3200, but senior year he was their fifth man at NXN 2023
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rojo wrote:
Somone remind me when the streak started?
I’m curious if the confusion is from the thread title, the very first post, knowing what year it is, or subtracting 50 from 2024?
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blork1980 wrote:
Catholic school recruiting (built-in advantage over public schools) in combination with coaching and tradition. Even with the latter, a public school couldn't pull off 400 wins in a row.
Not sure if they still do this, but part of their recruitment strategy used to be lining up all the freshmen in the school (including all of those who did not choose a sport) and having them race a course (maybe 1.5 mi?) on campus. Coaches get a chance to see what talent the school has under the surface each year, and the best kids see that there is a sport for them. Genius strategy really.
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A school near me was proud of their 20+ year run of being undefeated in track dual meets. They also refused to schedule half the schools in the area, including mine, because doing so would risk the streak. As interesting as this streak is, there's always going to be an element of that unless you're flying out to Newbury Park in 2022 and similar.
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herriman won 500 duel meets simultaneously this time last year
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George Sheehan was one of the founders,
They do concentrate on having good distance runners specifically, and are pretty amazing at getting them. Most of the kids that I have met from there are pretty cool and very proud to be running for CBA. Not all their HS dudes continue to have success in college running.
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Congrats CBA on a truly incredible streak. However, I will always be proud to have been a member of the Paul VI team that spanked you in the ‘80s!
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This is awesome. I graduated HS in 2000, and while dual meets weren’t always the top priority, we still cared. When I coached for a few years a decade later, I was kinda bummed to see many dual meets totally replaced and the top runners at many schools not even competing in most of the ones still being run.
Probably makes me sound like an old fogey, but I think a lot of the fun of track and XC has been lost with the almost singular focus on qualifying and peaking for end-of-season meets.
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Ruxton Towers XC wrote:
That is shocking. Can you imagine? Hats off to them.
But what kind of a weird league are they in? No disrespect to them, but that is odd, right? Is it one of those school districts where kids can pick their HS and all the runners go here because they have a great program?
My town has two high schools and each school has 3-4 solid runners each year and scramble to find a good 4th-5th man... If all 6-8 of those really good kids were in the same school, we'd win state all the time. But as it is, you sort of have to stick to your home school.
I assume this is not the case in NJ?
Did you think a school called "Christian Boys Academy" was a public school?
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263 in a row.
In a public school that could not and did not recruit.
Relied totally on kids who lived in town
Unlike CBA
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Colorado has 3 girls teams in the top 4.
A little surprised with how far Chap is behind Air Academy based on what happened at Liberty Bell.
Niwot 4th might be a little too high at this point.
Where is Avalon Beltran? She raced at NXN last year for Niwot and she hasn’t raced at all this year
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Wrong thread
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They won't schedule a dual meet with any Jersey powerhouse. Never. That's been going on during those 50 years.
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CBA had a guy who didn’t do XC freshman year, and in freshmen track he couldn’t break 5 in the 1600 or 11 in the 3200, but senior year he was their fifth man at NXN 2023
That would be exactly like me. Same situation, ended up 2/3 man on State Champ team.
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I know they, like York, have had years of success. I know the top York runners, but who are some of the top CBA runners during this run?
It'd be interesting to see which schools have produced the best post HS runners. Recently. American Fork & Niwot have to be up there. I'd exclude Newbury Park as they haven't had a longish run of producing top talent.
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wouldn't have beat BC in 1978 and that's why they don't dual everyone. What has Point Pleasant Boro and Southern Regional even done in the last decade?
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I want to thank many of you and Letsrun for the positive vibes about this streak. It is getting a lot of good press for HS XC. Contrary to what many believe, these boys are not born fast. They work very hard for everything they earn and every win they get. Yesterday's wins were a culmination of 50 years of work and hundreds of young men learning to strive for excellence.
The Streak was never about beating the best teams, though sometimes we had to. It has been a great way to make everyone on our team relevant. Countless young and inexperienced runners have learned to handle pressure and win for their team in these duals. Some get to toe the line for state, regional and national titles, but EVERYONE races a dual and they matter.
It was great having Mike Mahon at the meet. What an enthusiastic fan for our sport.
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A very impressive streak indeed. CBA has been a distance running factory in the state for decades. They have the state and MOC titles to back it up.
Outside of the tremendous coaching and dedication by the high school harriers. A few key benefits that helped build the program include an all boys school of 1,000+ students. A 1.3 mile recruiting race required by all incoming freshmen. And no football team to take away athletes from xc.
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whocaresfr wrote:
Seriously - who cares. The best teams and the best athletes skip dual meets in all seasons.
We care. CBA is a XC legend and BTW dual meets are required as part of the seasons competition if you want your team to qualify to move on to counties, sectionals and group meets
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