NXN 2024 at-large bids

He still coaches. FM boys team is extremely young this year - 1 senior, 5 freshmen, and 6 sophomores, which is actually a really decent group of underclassmen.

4 sophomores and 4 freshmen 18:00 in a 5k or under. Also a freshman state qualifier who ran a 15:53 (which is a freshman school record and #5 all time freshman in NY according to Milesplit). Better than last year without question. So this program is off to a good start, in terms of building its old self back up.

Only a couple of those guys are under 17:50, and outside of Heller they return exactly one all-time SR performance better than 140.

John Heron and Owen Kimple aren't walking through that door anytime soon. Be honest... FM is a loooong way from being competitive again.

There must be a speed rating for the regional courses. Some variables to consider are the hills, surfaces such as frozen, mud water, weather( temperature, rain, snow, altitude, wind). Number of runners, turns on the course, the width of the course, barriers on the course.

There would be some kind of calculation for the course and the speed rating. I suspect this is already being done but would be curious what is calculated and how accurate it is. This could be a good coaching tool.

Plainfield South underwhelmed this year. I thought they’d contend for an NXN spot after missing it by 1 point last year and losing only 2 seniors. They did a great job reloading from 2022 to 2023 though

New York isn’t one of the fastest states in the country anymore and yet it has its own region ….

This is a new, nuanced opinion that I've never heard before. Very interesting.

It’s one of the smaller regions, but not the smallest. Below is a breakdown of the approximate population of each region (in millions):

NW - 17.9

NY - 19.6

HL - 21.5

SW - 22.0

NE - 37.4

CA - 39.0

S - 45.4

MW - 47.4

SE - 85.0

Hard to gauge popularity of the sport without breaking down participation numbers by region. SW punches above its weight (and NY has in the past). I think it would be interesting to score each region. Score top ten runners. Use next five for offsets.

Not sure if it's true, but I've heard that the SW has the largest amount of people registered for their NXR races, so although they don't have the highest population the sport is very popular in this region.

Truthfully I was surprised NY had their own region. Being a jumps coach I haven't paid close attention to cross-country. I am assuming it had something to do with the girls teams dominating.

I would be concerned about the number of athletes on the course. It is already very challenging with a very steep 1 mile hill. Athletes struggle to go under 16 minutes as it is. Im speculating but think it is already tough to pace the course correctly. With more runners this would be even more difficult. There are narrow patches on the course.

New York may have the same issue that California has with state meets ending late.

Are we going to rearrange other regions when they are weak? Will we rearrange a district based on this years results when next year New York may be strong? If California has a weak year will we combine them with another region?

I know your last paragraph is hypothetical... but there's very little chance that NY's boys teams will be strong next year. Might even be worse than this year.

This year, we experienced a perfect storm of a historically weak set of teams, plus none of them running well at the Regional. If you had showed Xavier's coach their speed-ratings for NXR before the race, he probably would have shrugged his shoulders and said, "Meh. Tough race for us. 6th place." Yet, they qualified. They could well give El Paso Eastwood's team score record a scare today.

Speaking of Xavier, I didn’t know it was a Jesuit school. That or Rockhurst. Now there are 5 Jesuit teams at NXN this year. And an individual from Jesuit LA. Gonna be a battle of the Jesuits between Jesuit OR, Jesuit CA, and Belen Jesuit FL

This is because Utah and Colorado are behemoths in XC. They each have a long list of large, well-coached programs. Utah and Colorado combined have 17 different boys programs that have qualified for NXN(Arizona had one team make a single appearance, Nevada zero).

Utah isn't nearly as competitive on the girls side, but Colorado more than makes up for it.

If the rest of the country had half the participation as CO and UT the US would be a powerhouse on the professional level. What are the odds are two top US marathoners grew up in a tiny state an hour away from each other? So much talent falls through the cracks.

State College took 8th at NXN.
Ridgefield was 11 points behind them at NXR. Where would they have placed at NXN?

Carmel actually beat an at large team by 1 point.
Knoxville Catholic lost to a team that ended up in 13th at NXN. But they have everyone back next year

Webb school of Knoxville* and they return 5 of their top 6

well they will probably get an at-large next year 5th and 8th for auto qualifying teams are no joke

California schools were 11, 15, 17. Probably didn’t deserve an at large

Yes just took a quick look I was busy today.

I felt Ridgefield ran well at the regional. Based on team time they would be 10th place a few seconds behind 9. 8-12 were very close.

I am a fan of Ridgefield which brought me to this sight to plead my case for an at large bid.

Ridgefield traveled and also had three great races in November.

Northeast top team lost a runner on the third K when they were in first. Their sixth man became their fifth.

I wonder why teams that actively recruit athletes from an entire region are competitive...

Rocky’s 2 and 3/4 boys ran mid 17’s at footlocker today, so good thing they weren’t picked.