Northwest XC 2024

CDA had 2 sophomores and 2 freshmen on varsity.
I saw in the ID thread that they have some some more solid freshmen coming in

I wonder how long their NXN qualifying streak will last

At least through Wyatt Carr. Once he graduates, maybe his dad moves on.

Is Crater gonna be that good after losing Kitchen / Tostenson / Hokanson / Headley?

Dyestat national rankings are out:

For the girls: Rocky 12th, Lincoln 30th

For the boys: CDA 5th, Jesuit 13th, Rocky 25th, Crater 26th

Personally I'm pretty satisfied with these. I think Jesuit could place as high as 8th or 9th at NXN, and while I doubt CDA will be 4th or 5th, I think they've earned that spot and are certainly a top 10 team.

Crater is better than Rocky if everything is controlled for, but obviously they lost to Rocky no matter how you cut it, so those seem fair enough. If the Northwest does get a bid or two, I'm guessing that both of those teams would be capable of placing 15th or higher at NXN (particularly in the case of Crater), but the ranking is valid. I also personally believe Helena could have been put at 29 or 30, but it's a small detail.

For the girls, I personally didn't have Rocky that high, maybe more like 15th. I think Lincoln should be a little closer to them as well, maybe 10 spots back instead of 18 spots back.

Overall, I thought these were really good!

Agreed pretty solid rankings, I think every team can play the what if game, but these are a decent representation of the NXR weekend results. The NW Ceiling on the boys side is probably CDA, Crater, Jesuit and Rocky all in the Top 15 (Rocky finishing 11 points behind CDA at State was worthy of them being 14th/15th I'd guess). But there will always be variability from week to week since these aren't robots racing. Honestly, 15th-50th in the Nation is probably closer than we all want to recognize. From race to race the small differences in efforts kids give depending on the circumstances can really shake things up. The NW Girls were definitely down this year, Rocky somewhere in the Top 16-20 is probably right, but the rest of the region was probably racing in the 30-50th type National teams. Thankful to have 2 auto bids. Should be stronger next year hopefully!

Finishing 11 points behind CDA at the Idaho state meet is indicative of top 15 at NXN only because regions are limited in how many at larges they can send.

Rocky runners finished pretty far behind their counterparts from CDA.
CDA's #1 was 22 seconds up on Rocky's.
Their #2 was 35 seconds up on Rocky's #2.
#3 was 19 seconds up.
#4 was 5 seconds back.
#5 was 2 seconds up.

At the Idaho state meet, 22 seconds was only 2 points. At a meet like NXN, it's going to be more like 15-20. 35 seconds could be 30 points. It's also way easier to run in a much smaller field where you aren't fighting traffic.

If the SW could actually send all the teams they should, those 70 seconds of total team time at the state meet would have a bigger impact, although the spread was 2:02 at NXR, which is more like what NXN would be. Using last years results, if CDA were to finish 8th and Rocky finished 2:02 behind, they would be 20th.