If it hasnt already been said, congrats to Nelah Roberts for being the first female in Idaho state history to win state all four years of her high school career. Where is she going to school? BYU?
If it hasnt already been said, congrats to Nelah Roberts for being the first female in Idaho state history to win state all four years of her high school career. Where is she going to school? BYU?
She is taking a number of trips and hasn’t committed yet. BYU seems like a likely fit for her, but she appears to be considering other schools too.
Will Ruby Ihmels (Timberline 9th Grader and daughter of Corey Ihmels the Boise State Head Coach) win the State Title this upcoming fall? If so, does she help lead Timberline to an upset over Boise?
Wow ^^^^^
Any thoughts on what happened to Paisley Taylor in that final quarter mile? She looked really strong the whole race. They were neck and neck at top of the hill. I didn't see the finish but saw the video.
I do think conditions were slower at State versus Bob Conley due to a few factors (a little snow on the ground, 25-30 degrees temps, and a few slight course changes). CDA is legit and averaged 15:54 versus Rocky averaging 15:50 at Bob Conley. I don’t think Rocky’s Bob Conley run was better than CDAs State run so that tells me State was a slower day/course.
That’s also fair, but 4 guys averaging 24 seconds slower tells me there’s an issue with something other than it being cold.
FWIW, I do think that if Rocky had more experience racing better teams, I think they would have won.
I don’t get how people don’t understand this. I get the whole “we want our entire team to experience things together” but now that CDA is here and here to stay, I feel like RM has to find a way to get to bigger meets. They traveled everyone to Lewiston last year. There are big meets in Spokane and Salt Lake- basically the same amount of travel. Portland is an hour more. At some point you don’t know if you have kids that struggle with being in bigger races and you can’t make adjustments accordingly. Rocky’s 2 and 4 runners are 0/4 in big meets this year in terms of running close to their actual talent level. Their 2 is 0/4 on his own over the last two years. Multiple bites at the apple can only help here.
I bet if Cody Lucas raced down a level at Bob Firman or NXR, he would run faster than he would in the elite or championship section.
If you check the Lewiston results from last year Rocky did not travel their whole team which makes me think the commitment to full team trips was something that happened as they reflected on the season as a team.
Also the State meet has 80ish kids on a start line so large invites don’t necessarily correlate, but I do agree Rocky could find larger invites that they could maybe travel their whole team too (4-5 hours away). Lots of kids made big jumps from the previous year on many teams had kids not run well this year at State (maybe due to cold, or first state experience, or sickness…who knows)
To me, it’s that it’s very different running in second place in a meet where no one is challenging you for that and having to run in a pack with guys just as good as you.
It’s the difference between learning to time trial vs learning to race.
Average improvement from first meet of the year to districts: +2.71 Average improvement from first meet of the year to state: +4 Average improvement from first meet of the year to season's best: +7.85 (+6.71) Average removing high and low: Heemeyer: 186.33 (186 before) Lucas: 177 (176.75) Tuft: 169 (168) Jensen: 164.4 (164.5)Richardson: 162.6 (162.25) Kurtz: 157.6 (158.25) Thomas: 158.2 (157.25) Average improvement from start of season to average performance: +2.42 (+2.57 before)
There were comments about how Sam Jensen performed relative to his teammates. Jensen actually ran right at his season average, it's more that Pierce Richardson had a great day- +7 points better than anything else he has done this season. Cody Lucas was pretty much who he has been all season, and Tuft had an equal performance to his season's best. It looks like Rocky pretty much gave CDA their best shot that we've seen this season.
One thing to note- the first meet of the year for Tuft saw him in JV. His first race in varsity would change the average numbers to +.85 from first meet to districts, +1.71 to state, +5 for first to best, and +1.71 for start of season to average performance.
Those represent improvements of 2.55 seconds from first meet to districts, 5.13 to state, 15 seconds from first to best, and 5.13 from first to average.
Seasons best performances came at State, Bob Conley, Gary Ward and State (tie), Bob Conley, State, Gary Ward, and Gary Ward (in order).
I will do one more of these for the 5 of the top 6 teams in Boys 5A following NXR. Highland doesn't have enough speed rated results to do it.
To me, it’s that it’s very different running in second place in a meet where no one is challenging you for that and having to run in a pack with guys just as good as you.
It’s the difference between learning to time trial vs learning to race.
They do all run Bob Firman every year. It’s not like they haven’t all been in at least one big competitive field each mid season.
What’s missing there is learning race prep and focus with a bus ride and hotel stay, but I’m not really sure how much that matters.
As a coach (I’m not) if I decided we will take the whole team or no one, I’d still declare one travel trip as OYO optional. For example, they could tell the kids one coach will be at Nike Portland or whatever and anyone who wants to go can travel with their parents on their own dime and compete.
Sheesley- 169/171/176/174/180/183 Helder- 176/175/173 (ran most of the race with one shoe)/175/177/187 Kemper- 164/173/173/174/169/178 Dodds- 162/161/160/167/157/165 Knutsen- 158/143/Don't see one/150/159/164 Roberts- 149/158/159/171/143/155 Bruce- 151/157/153/160/148/148 Average improvement from start of season to districts: +.57 Average improvement from start of season to state: +7.28 Average improvement from start of season to season's best: +11.57 Removing the highest and lowest performance and averaging each runner's middle scores: Sheesley: 175.25 (173.66) Helder: 175.75 (175.33) Kemper: 172.25 (171.66) Dodds: 162 (161) Knutsen: 155.66 (154) Roberts: 155.25 (155.33) Bruce: 152.25 (153.66) Average improvement from start of season to average score: +2.71 (+2.28 before)
Boise improved an average of +5.71 from their average performance to their state performance. Talk about Coach Olswanger nailing the peak!
Season's best performances came at State, State, State, Twilight, State, Twilight, Twilight. 4 of your top 5 having their best day at state is massive.
To me, it’s that it’s very different running in second place in a meet where no one is challenging you for that and having to run in a pack with guys just as good as you.
It’s the difference between learning to time trial vs learning to race.
They do all run Bob Firman every year. It’s not like they haven’t all been in at least one big competitive field each mid season.
What’s missing there is learning race prep and focus with a bus ride and hotel stay, but I’m not really sure how much that matters.
As a coach (I’m not) if I decided we will take the whole team or no one, I’d still declare one travel trip as OYO optional. For example, they could tell the kids one coach will be at Nike Portland or whatever and anyone who wants to go can travel with their parents on their own dime and compete.
Exactly. There’s real solutions there. The other is to just charge for the trip.
Traveling and staying overnight presents its own set of challenges. I would rather not have my varsity group have their first experience at state.
Really solid boys 4a analysis. IF boys would have been runaway favorites if their preseason top 6 were all healthy and showed even a slight improvement from last year, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. None of the 4a teams are deep so they could still win, but it would probably take the other teams both having a bad day. I think BK has a slight edge over Burley.
Athay, Goss, and Dopp are all showing well at the end of the season and have the ability to make a big end of season jump. I think it will take at least a 15:40 to win and wouldn’t be surprised to see the winner under 15:30 as long as it gets paced right.
You were completely right. BK, Burley had off days and IF was able to pull off the "upset". Also completely right about the winning time too. Felt really bad for Goss, he was right with Athay for 2 miles then dropped over a minute and 7 places in the last mile to run his second-worst time of the season. I feel like something must have gone majorly wrong for him, because a drop-off that steep in the last mile for a runner of his caliber seems like something beyond a pace or a course issue. Maybe the altitude got to him. I'm happy for Athay though, really solid race from start to finish, and a nice way to end his hs running career after battling through injury for so long.
Sheesley- 169/171/176/174/180/183 Helder- 176/175/173 (ran most of the race with one shoe)/175/177/187 Kemper- 164/173/173/174/169/178 Dodds- 162/161/160/167/157/165 Knutsen- 158/143/Don't see one/150/159/164 Roberts- 149/158/159/171/143/155 Bruce- 151/157/153/160/148/148 Average improvement from start of season to districts: +.57 Average improvement from start of season to state: +7.28 Average improvement from start of season to season's best: +11.57 Removing the highest and lowest performance and averaging each runner's middle scores: Sheesley: 175.25 (173.66) Helder: 175.75 (175.33) Kemper: 172.25 (171.66) Dodds: 162 (161) Knutsen: 155.66 (154) Roberts: 155.25 (155.33) Bruce: 152.25 (153.66) Average improvement from start of season to average score: +2.71 (+2.28 before)
Boise improved an average of +5.71 from their average performance to their state performance. Talk about Coach Olswanger nailing the peak!
Season's best performances came at State, State, State, Twilight, State, Twilight, Twilight. 4 of your top 5 having their best day at state is massive.
Idaho Falls had similar improvements to win state in 4A, but lately they usually seem to perform better at state than expected. Some programs just taper better than others. It’d be interesting to know how all the teams spend their last two weeks and compare the results.
On the flip side, tapering well for state doesn’t really translate at all to doing well at NXR, at least from the little I’ve paid attention to.
Really solid boys 4a analysis. IF boys would have been runaway favorites if their preseason top 6 were all healthy and showed even a slight improvement from last year, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. None of the 4a teams are deep so they could still win, but it would probably take the other teams both having a bad day. I think BK has a slight edge over Burley.
Athay, Goss, and Dopp are all showing well at the end of the season and have the ability to make a big end of season jump. I think it will take at least a 15:40 to win and wouldn’t be surprised to see the winner under 15:30 as long as it gets paced right.
You were completely right. BK, Burley had off days and IF was able to pull off the "upset". Also completely right about the winning time too. Felt really bad for Goss, he was right with Athay for 2 miles then dropped over a minute and 7 places in the last mile to run his second-worst time of the season. I feel like something must have gone majorly wrong for him, because a drop-off that steep in the last mile for a runner of his caliber seems like something beyond a pace or a course issue. Maybe the altitude got to him. I'm happy for Athay though, really solid race from start to finish, and a nice way to end his hs running career after battling through injury for so long.
Athay set a really hot pace from the start and Goss shouldn’t have gone with him. Poky can be a trap course for kids who go harder than they should in the downhill then the uphill grind at too fast a pace catches them by surprise and they bonk hard. Happened to Shane Gard and to a lesser degree Mitchell Athay a few years back.
Have to run your own pacing when someone else goes beyond what you personally should be doing. Hard to blame someone for going for the win though.
Average improvement from first meet of the year to districts: +2.71 Average improvement from first meet of the year to state: +4 Average improvement from first meet of the year to season's best: +7.85 (+6.71)
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