Dyestat in the NW has ranked the following teams nationally:
Boys - Crater 11th, CDA, 13th, Franklin 16th, Jesuit 21st. No Rocky, Boise, Seattle Prep, Star Valley, Issaquah, or Bozeman. Personally, I'd like to see Rocky and Boise both in the 25th-30th pocket at the very least.
Girls - Jesuit 14th, Lincoln 16th. No Timberline or Boise. In my opinion, Timberline should be top 25, but no higher than 20th.
Coeur d'Alene boys roll to win their schools first state mens xc title in 12 years. Even with a shaky performance they still get the job done in Pocatello.
Congrats to CDA on being the first Idaho boys team to ever go to NXN!
Rocky Mountain boys took 4th, but all of their top 5 ran their best and did what they should have, which is really all you can ask for. Great effort by them!
Idaho is incredibly spoiled to have this group of boys. Next year will be awesome with Stadtlander, Cervi-Skinner, Sheesley, Tuft, etc. returning.
Move Lucas and King up above Helder and Sheesley.
Helder beat Lucas and King every time that he finished a race. DNF'ing doesn't mean he wasn't objectively better all season. He beat Lucas badly at Firman when he was missing a shoe for 2 miles. Sheesley beat Lucas 3/4 times they raced this season (4/5 if you include Bogus) and King 1/2. His loss to Lucas was by 1.6 seconds but he beat him by a combined 50.5 seconds, the smallest margin of victory being 14.2 seconds.
Sheesley lost to King by 3.3 seconds at NXR, but beat him by 14.7 seconds at state. You absolutely can make the argument that Sheesley is above King more easily than you can make the argument King is above Sheesley. I don't think there's a question that he's above Lucas.
Helder has the single most impressive performance out of that group and was .4 out of beating Ringert for 3rd at state.
I think the biggest thing holding Lucas back for me was the roller coaster of performances. He looked great at Caldwell, Tiger Grizz, Gary Ward and Bob Conley, and NXR. He raced very poorly at Bogus and Firman, and looked completely outclassed by Helder and Sheesley at Districts and State. Not once did Sheesley look that way compared to Lucas, and he didn't have a single bad race. Helder's worst race (besides the DNF at NXR) was at Firman, once again, without a shoe for 2 miles. Consistency matters, and Sheesley and Helder were way more consistent than Lucas.
Some stuff for NXN committee to chew on in terms of Franklin and Rocky's strength:
NXR 2023:
CDA: 15:45 team avg - probably top 8-10 at NXN (I think they are about as good as Rocky last year was)
Crater: 15:43 team avg - probably a top 10 team as well
Franklin: 15:50 team avg
Rocky: 15:49 team avg
NXR 2022:
Crater: 15:36 team avg - 4th at NXN
Jesuit: 15:43 team avg - 2nd at NXN
NXR 2021:
Rocky: 16:10 team avg - 20th at Runninglane
NXR 2019:
Kamiakin: 15:58 team avg - 20th at NXN
Jesuit: 16:10 team avg - 16th at NXN
If Lachlan May doesn't melt down, CDA wins it by 25-30 points and averages sub 15:40 on the course. Rocky was very good last year. CDA is a different animal all together. They can win NXR with the guy that can be somewhere between their 1 and 3 blowing up.
I hope Franklin and Rocky both get selected. If they do, it would move Ringert into the first non-qualifying individual and Stadtlander into the 2nd. Per the NXN selection, "Additionally, the top five placing individuals who are not on qualifying clubs will advance to NXN as individual qualifiers," and "five at-large individual berths per gender will be awarded. Clubs placing either third or fourth in the championship division race at each regional will move into a pool of clubs receiving consideration for advancing to NXN as an at-large qualifier. All runners competing in an NXR qualifier event receive consideration for advancing to NXN as an at-large qualifier. A committee of experts will determine the at-large team and individual qualifiers. Seeking upward trending at-large team and individual candidates at the end of season, the committee's first consideration for invitation is assessing each candidate's qualitative performance at the NXR meets"
I would imagine they both have pretty good resumes to get consideration. Stadtlander was 5th at Firman, won the Nike Twilight, won the State meet. Ringert ran well at Woodbridge, better at Firman for top 15 but close to top 10, 6th at Nike Portland, 3rd at the State meet but less than 5 seconds back from Heemeyer, and then ran his best at NXR. They also say they give preference to guys that have beat qualifiers in past weeks. Ringert and Stadtlander both beat Henzke, Stadtlander beat Jack Meier at Firman, and has the wins over Heemeyer.
I don’t know Sheesley , Helder or Lucas and am CDA parent. But I don’t think XC is a sport where we have to see so much opinion on x is better than y. All of these guys put in a lot of time and effort, some win one day, some win another all are really talented. I think it was a great day for IdahoXC with so much success on the team and individual level. Hats off to all from Idaho.
Idaho had 35% of the top 20, the most of any state.
It's great to see Idaho Distance running get it's due respect. I really enjoyed this race. May going from 9th to 90th in about 800 meters and CDA still has the depth to squeak out a win.
Kudos to Heemeyer & Stadtlander. Two fantastic runners. The best part of this race was the dual for 9th between Max CS and Stadtlander.
It will take a massive effort to podium at NXN but the kids from North Idaho have done nothing but deliver all year.
Idaho had 35% of the top 20, the most of any state.
It's great to see Idaho Distance running get it's due respect. I really enjoyed this race. May going from 9th to 90th in about 800 meters and CDA still has the depth to squeak out a win.
Kudos to Heemeyer & Stadtlander. Two fantastic runners. The best part of this race was the dual for 9th between Max CS and Stadtlander.
It will take a massive effort to podium at NXN but the kids from North Idaho have done nothing but deliver all year.
Don't forget Ringert in 8th. 4 guys in the top 10 is awesome. Oregon had 3, Washington 2, Montana 1.
In the top 20, Idaho had 7, Oregon 6, Washington 3, Wyoming 3, Montana 1. It's a bummer that Helder and May didn't have good days- easily could have been 9 Idaho guys in the top 20 and Oregon the next most at 4.
I have a lot of XC connections in Washington. This is two years in a row of MASSIVELY under performing at NXR.
I don't know what the story is but it seems like a state with 8 million people should be able to produce some better results.
Regardless, Idaho is here to stay in terms of distance success.
We'll see some of the success in cross catch up to track this spring. Washington had 4 guys go sub 9, with 3 more at 9:01 or faster. I'm guessing we'll see as many Idaho guys sub 9. Washington did have 20 guys run 4:15.00 or faster in the 1600 last spring. I doubt we'll see as many Idaho guys do that, though.
Guys that could run under that 4:15 mark are Heemeyer, Stadtlander, Kemper, Blaser, Ringert, Lucas, Cervi-Skinner, May, King, Helder, Stockett, Athay, Goss, Johnston. I feel like all of those guys already have the track marks and the cross success to do that.
There's a big group of guys that maybe could make the jump. They have enough success at cross and track to see where it could be possible, but it's more likely they end up as 4:18-4:20 guys. That group is guys like Sheesley, McComber, Edwards from BK, Jensen from RM, Jensen from MV, Stevens, Frampton, Tuft, etc.
"Guys that could run under that 4:15 mark are Heemeyer, Stadtlander, Kemper, Blaser, Ringert, Lucas, Cervi-Skinner, May, King, Helder, Stockett, Athay, Goss, Johnston. I feel like all of those guys already have the track marks and the cross success to do that".
Has anyone ever broke 4 minutes in Idaho at the HS level? Nathan Green ran 4 flat in 21 I think.
Regardless, 4:15 is a big ask for a few of these athletes. The CDA High School Record is 4:15.
I am looking for a sub 1:53 800 out of the May kid this year. That is doable.