Predictions for Nike National High School Meet

F-M's girls will win again, easily. Saratoga's girls are down a bit this year - great front-runner, but huge gap behind her, like 90+ seconds. They may barely make the top-10.

The boys representatives from NY will probably be any two out of Saratoga, Corning, and Burnt Hills. Nobody is a lock... Saratoga has run well recently, but has to prove they can run well off of their home course. Corning is solid, but only 5-deep. Burnt Hills hasn't put a complete team race together yet, but has shown the potential... they are also incredibly young, all sophs and freshmen. They should be a force for the next two years, anyway.

Liverpool has three really good guys, but their 4-5 will keep them from qualifying for NXN - though they have been coming on recently. F-M was way off at their sectional meet... but have rebounded at the qualifier before. Throw in Xavier, Niskayuna, and Shen as teams on the fringe of contention, and the qualifier race should be great. A true toss-up.

Didn't Palmer Ridge beat Great Oak as well?

Yes it was closer to crushed

Oh? wrote:

Because this is XC, times are relative, and Ocean County Park is as fast as most flat 3 mile courses. Meanwhile, American Fork is at altitude, and their 3 mile courses tend to run more like 5k courses.

CBA averaged 16:17 this past weekend on a more "normal" (but still fast) course.

16:17 on a fast course? That is slow. We had Colorado small school teams do that at altitude.

One of the things that not everybody factors when we all cross state lines is that many states are at different points in training due to league finals and state finals being at much different times for each state. We (Great Oak) don't really even start to round into form until Mt. SAC, which is the same weekend as many of the state meets like Utah and around the same time as Colorado. This can lead to some states being much further ahead in their training cycles and a lot more ready to race at certain points in the season. Woodbridge is a great season opener and it certainly reminds the kids what a fast race feels like, but I don't think I would use it as a standard for where California teams will be on Dec. 3rd.

The Colorado teams ran really well at Woodbridge and have had great seasons. They will need to be exceptionally sharp to make it to NXN through the SW region, although I believe the SW will get 4 boys teams through. Utah has many really good teams and Desert Vista's boys are very good this year as well. Will be a fun race to watch from afar. :)

Best of luck,

Coach Soles

beenthere8 wrote:

CBA averaged 16:17 this past weekend on a more "normal" (but still fast) course.

That was their jv team. Their varsity team took the week off from racing in preparation for the next three weekends of big races (groups, meet of champs, and nike regionals).

Coach Soles - I do not disagree one bit. I was not at all arguing against Great Oak (they belong in the conversation) but rather I was arguing for Colorado teams. Pretty dishonest to not have Vista, Monarch, or Palmer Ridge in the top 25. They clearly belong there and it is because of their CO times that they are not included. With how strong SW is and based on SW historically has been hosed on additional qualifiers I think you can see how CO teams feel the need to toot their horn a little (I am not remotely affiliated with any of the aforementioned teams).

Was Vista even ranked last year before NXNSW?

old fat guy wrote:

Coach Soles - I do not disagree one bit. I was not at all arguing against Great Oak (they belong in the conversation) but rather I was arguing for Colorado teams. Pretty dishonest to not have Vista, Monarch, or Palmer Ridge in the top 25. They clearly belong there and it is because of their CO times that they are not included. With how strong SW is and based on SW historically has been hosed on additional qualifiers I think you can see how CO teams feel the need to toot their horn a little (I am not remotely affiliated with any of the aforementioned teams).

Was Vista even ranked last year before NXNSW?

I don't believe that there are any NXN Selection Committee members that currently do rankings, though I might be mistaken.

I get that too.

But when they look at at-large bids they do take rankings/ times into account.

CO teams for whatever do much better at Nationals than they are "suppossed" to.

Weird

I mean I have read through countless posts on luck about how altitude adjustments are bs. A 16:00 in CO is the same as a 16:00 at sea level.

Sorry for ranting. I really am. Just a little frustrated that again no CO teams in top 25.

As strong as Utah is, with what 4 teams in top 25, no CO team should be eligible to make nxn as an at-large anyway. So I guess what's the point.

It is my understanding that the Selection Committee does not consider any national rankings when debating who to invite, even back when there were members on the committee that did publish national rankings.

As for times: I think most on the committee probably realize that cross country times are relative to the course, although there probably is some kind of bias towards favoring faster times, or being leery of weather's effect on the race, but I don't think that is usually going to come into play.

What the committee mostly looks at, I believe, is three key things:

1. How competitive were the teams with the teams ahead of them

2. How tough is the region perceived to be

3. How competitive were the teams with other teams that qualified or are in consideration throughout the year (such as "At Large points" for beating a team that won their region at some meet in late September or later)

I think most would agree the Southwest is very tough, so as long as the #3/4 teams aren't blown out by the #1/2 teams (which they might, as it is a VERY tough region IMO), I would think a #3 or #4 team out of the Southwest will get serious consideration.

That was my understanding.

I guess I've seen CO burned too many times. SHHS took second at an early NXN and was lucky to even be invited.

Turns out there are 7 Utah teams currently top 25, so it's probably a moot point anywho.

American Fork wins, but look at bozeman,

Far faster on both boys and girls side than last yr, boys 3 mile from 14:40-15:21, whereas last year, 15:03-15:30's, and the girls have 3 girls under 17:30 3 mile where last year at this time they had 1.

Compared to last yr boys they have 5 guys faster than their #3.. and Girls 5 faster than their first 4 last yr.

American Fork & DJ Principe

Discus Morans wrote:

American Fork & DJ Principe

Agree on Principe, he is really lighting it up.

Flotrack has Principe ranked #6 in the nation.

That's ridiculous. smh...

Bozeman MT and Summit OR the first two teams in on the Boys' side. Doubt NW#3 North Central makes it as an at-large.

5-man average speed ratings for some of the top teams, per tullyrunners:

American Fork UT 185 (1:28 spread)

Brentwood TN- 182 (1:24 spread)

The Woodlands TX 181 (0:54)

Bozeman MT 181 (0:58)

CBA 180 (0:09)

Neuqua Valley IL 179 (0:23)

Olympus UT 179 (0:35)

Downers Grove North IL 178 (0:23)

Solon OH 178 (0:46)

Great Oak CA 177 (0:25)

Summit OR 177 (0:44)

Wayzata MN 176 (0:40)

North Central WA 174 (0:41)

Only included a few notable teams in the 176-178 range: there were many more.

Hirsch and Gessner just blazed through NXN Heartland with two 14:39s.

I wouldn't be surprised to see either one of these two end up with the individual national title.