top high school states

Over the past 10 years certain states would stand out. Certainly, IL would be near the top, but you would have to include Texas, Oregon, Utah (Meade and Bingham always rate high), California and Michigan. Other states that have done well include Montana, PA. Don't just look at the last year or two, look at the question over the past decade. I am from IL, so know our runners best, but you can see that we had Broe, Pilja, Sage, Torres and Torres, Keller, Siemers, Bakken for a year, and a host of others still running and doing well. And these are just the guys. We also had Cicero, Odlaug, Mitchell, Cassidy Wall and a bunch of very fine female runners.

Massachusetts, baby!

Jon Riley, Andy Powell, Franklyn Sanchez, Abdizirack Mohammud (2x cross country national champ), Tristian Colangelo, plus, the current crop of guys that is really talented. Also, in terms of D3 athletes, which definitely count, we have Mark Miller, who was a 4:05 miler in college.

There are also a bunch of guys that will turn out to be nasty... David Burnham (8:33 3k in high school) and Ian Marcus (Amherst-Pelham Regional) both run for Dartmouth, Owen Washburn has had health issues at Brown but he'll be good, and there are other guys I am probably forgetting but they will come out of the woodwork and do their state proud.

Massachusetts is the best running state in New England, bar none.

For have the best overall mens and womens, i would have to say california and washington.

someone compile a list of sub 4:15 milers and sub 9:10 two milers, compare

i'm not saying we're the best, but i do think VA deserves more credit than you're giving it here

Not saying Colorado deseveres to be on top, but we would be up there. If you do a comparsion for mile and 2 mile times, remeber that we're at high altitude. So you can't really compare our times. For example Brett Vaugh ran 9:06 or something for a state record in CO, and before that he ran 8:48 to put him second on the highschool list for last year.

I'm not sure about the last two years, but I believe New Jersey would have "won" the 2001 Outdoor Championships if the meet had been scored, but that was thanks to Danny Johnson and Max Booker in the sprints.

What about Ohio? Last year had the footlocker XC runnerup, 3 guys under 4:10 for the mile w/ a handful of others under 4:15, a two miler in the 8:50's w/ another sub 9 2 miler hurt, as well as a 1:50 800 meter runner who won AOC. Plus produced such greats as Alan Scharsu, Scott Fry, Bob Kennedy, Tom Byers,and Dave Wottle.

dude, i hate to say this but maine runners will always beat mass holes. matt lane took down riley and powell easy in HS and in college, id rather have Lunchini than Sanchez and Muhammed combined on my HS or college team. Pat Tarpy just WON the new englands meet with maine teammate Jeff Gaudette on his heals. Justin Easter is the DIII 2 time steeple champ. and with HSers Ben True (footlocker finalist and 4:12 miler last year) and eric giddings (31:17 10k as a 16 year old at the beach to beacon) theres more talent coming. besides, of all those Mass. names, who has stayed healthy and continues to compete?Colangello is running the same speed in college as a sr in hs. Powell is done, Sanchez says he isnt but he is. and riley didnt race all summer in europe or the us. About all Mass has going for them is Shalane right now. Id put NH before mass in terms of quality runners producedbring me results that tell me otherwise...

dean moriarty wrote:

Massachusetts, baby!

Jon Riley, Andy Powell, Franklyn Sanchez, Abdizirack Mohammud (2x cross country national champ), Tristian Colangelo, plus, the current crop of guys that is really talented. Also, in terms of D3 athletes, which definitely count, we have Mark Miller, who was a 4:05 miler in college.

There are also a bunch of guys that will turn out to be nasty... David Burnham (8:33 3k in high school) and Ian Marcus (Amherst-Pelham Regional) both run for Dartmouth, Owen Washburn has had health issues at Brown but he'll be good, and there are other guys I am probably forgetting but they will come out of the woodwork and do their state proud.

Massachusetts is the best running state in New England, bar none.

maines population is a bout 1 million. they have had other great runners such as joan benoit samuelson and bruce bickford. i think maine would be hard to beat if u look at the population. also i agree that nh has had better individuals. they have had mortimer, and the downins, lynn jennings, and cathy something i forget her last name but she qualified for footlockers 4 times. although mass has had salazar, rogers and some other greats.

We can argue about WI, MI, IL, OH, MN etc. but the one fact is the best region by far is the Midwest. Period.

Excuse me but Mead is in WASHINGTON not Utah. Washington is definitely in the top five. I would even say the GSL in Spokane is the toughest league in the country for cross country. Dual meets in the GSL are just as big as any invitational. You also wouldn't believe the insane amount of talent that is lost to girl's soccer in the fall and guy's soccer in the spring.

Considering the poplulations, Washington and Oregon are very,very hard to beat. Spokane is crawling with some of the best H.S. teams in the country every year. There have been a lot of guys in Spokane that ran 9:12 to 9:18 who never made the state meet in track. The biggest meet for Mead is often duals. Oregon is loaded every year too, especially up front.

Sub 4:10 and 9:15 guys in high school in recent MA history...

Jonathon Riley (Stanford)

Scott Estabrook (Iona for half a year)

Abdirizak Mohamed

Said Ahmed (Arkansas)

Andy Powell (Stanford)

Frankyln Sanchez (G-town)

Tristan Colangelo (Princeton)

Matt Emond (Brown)

Victor Gras (In high schoo)

Chris Barnicle ("

Furthermore, there are a few college runners who have gone on to tear it up in the NCAA, like Tom Mcardle and Mike Smith of G-town. Thats all in the past 6 or 7 years that MA has produced these runners.

Maine has produced Matt Lane, Ben something who went to Oregon (what happened to him?) and Ben True. Furthermore, Victor Gras would have beaten anyone at footlockers, including Ben True-- the kid just broke Trautmans record at VCP. 12:17 is no joke.

entire state is about 1-1/4 million. maine has had a handful of foot locker finalists, 2 guys (one of whom was matt lane at stanford) that have gone on to run around 13:30 college, all in the last five years. look at the latest running times (december issue?) -- there is a Maine junior in high school who ran low 31's for 10k this past summer at joanie's race (beach to beacon).

recently, maine has far outproduced states like... maryland (which has about 3 times more people). per capita i would rank maine ahead of PA (10.5M), Mass (5.5M) and NY (14M), and it would probably be close to NJ (6.5M) on a per capita basis. and even straight head to head, maine's top few (while maybe an anomaly) have shown they can compete with the nation's best (not just getting to foot locker nationals but excelling at nationals), at least for this most recent, short span of time.

===2002 NCAA XC===

Here's how the states fared followed by how Foot Locker regions did at the 2002 NCAA Division 1 Cross Country Nationals.

Scoring/places is for U.S. runners only and is based on where each guy went to high school.

BY STATE:

1. Illinois 112

2. Michigan 117

3. Oregon 147

4. California 166

5. Texas 244

6. Utah 261; 7. Montana 267; 8. New York 271; 9. New Jersey 359; 10. Virginia 396; 11. Washington 433; 12. Ohio 450; 13. Indiana 471; 14. Colorado 484; No other state had 5 finishers (No Carolina and Minnesota had 4.)

BY FOOT LOCKER REGION:

1. Midwest 29

2. West 42

3. Northeast 74

4. South 157

===2001 NCAA XC===

BY STATE:

1. Michigan 84

2. Illinois 115

3. California 178

4. Washington 220

5. Oregon 221

6. Texas 231; 7. Colorado 251; 8. Virginia 279; 9. Ohio 283; 10. New Jersey 330; 11. New York 386; 12. Minnesota 434; 13. No. Carolina 462; 14. Pennsylvania 485; 15. Indiana 575; 16. Arizona 579

No other state had 5 finishers.

BY FOOT LOCKER REGION:

1. Midwest 15

2. West 70

3. Northeast 87

4. South 101

All high school sub 4:10 1600m (4:11.46 mile) by state

481 total

1. CA 124

2. IL 36

3. NY 28

3. WA 28

5. OR 27

6. TX 26

7. NJ 21

8. FL 19

8. OH 19

10. VA 18; 11. IN 13; 12. PA 11; 13. MI 10; 14. MD 9; 15. KS, MA, WI 8; 18. NC 7; 19. CT, MO 6; 21. CO, MN, UT 4; 24. AZ 3, GA, LA, NM, SD 3; 29. AL, IA, NH, OK, RI, TN 2; 35. HI, ID, KY, ME, MS, MT, ND, NE, NV, SC 1

ZERO = AK, AR, DE, VT, WV, WY