Worse is a relative term - just because someone finishes further back in a different race doesn't mean they are "worse" lower place maybe. But the same thing happened in the Mid Atlantic Region as well where 6 out of the top ten were not on teams that did not auto qualify so that leave two ladies that finish in the top 10 out because only two teams came out of that region.
Yes worse is relative. Hence, the question. Are you now saying that there were no worse women who qualified?
While I do agree with the current system and don’t think there should be more individuals, there is a much higher margin of error for those on a qualifying team. PAC 12 champ Amy Bunnage was only 14th at regionals after soundly defeating Mitchell and Fetherstonhaugh 1&3 at regionals) at conference. Without the support of her team she would be sitting out, and I still think she’s a top 15 name even with the bad regional result. A few years back Katie Rainsberger placed 4th at NCAA after an 11th place regional, luckily she was part of a qualifying team. Point I’m trying to make is team qualifiers can get a second chance while individuals better be firing on all cylinders at regionals.
As it should be. Go to a good school. Problem solved. The best QB in the country can have a bad game and his team loses and is left out of the playoffs entirely. Or the best kicker can be on a mediocre team. A 16 seed can beat a 1 in basketball. XC rewards performing at regionals as it should.
She deserved to go to nationals. Despite what anyone says here, it's a whacked system when someone who finished faster than every single runner on the winning team doesn't get a shot at nationals. We all know XC is a team sport but it's a sum of individual efforts, and the lack of recognition of that is what leads to this situation and weird qualification system. Of course reward teams (team sport!), but don't shaft excellence in individuals.
The question has been asked multiple times. What if the winning team had gone 1-2-3-4 and then had its 5-6-7 runners finish 60th but scored the same? A team score is a team score regardless of the makeup of the score. Then your runner would have gotted smked by 4 of their runners even though they scored the same. You are trying to equate something that makes no sense. Nobody deserves a spot at nationals except for those who qualified using the rules of the game. Next you will complain that your favorite team didn't qualify even though their 6 and 7 runners beat all of the other teams' 6 and 7. Maybe your basketball team should win becuase the other team only made 3 pointers but your team made more baskets.
When I ran NCs, some individuals just jogged the NC race.