Who's the best inner city cross country team?

Highland Park boys bouta win MN state meet this season

HELL YEAH

scotsflytogether wrote:

Highland Park boys bouta win MN state meet this season

It’s gonna be a serious battle between them and Mounds View at state. Neither ever won it before, so they’re both gonna want it really, really bad. This will be the first time since 2010 we won’t see more than one 6AA team on the podium on the boys side. They both have a shot at NXN too.

Since 2011*

Is Mohammed Bati eligible for Highland Park? They had a good returning team without him, but with him they should be the favorite. He destroyed all the HS competition at the Torchlight 5k road race and will finish top-3 at state. Along with Paleen, they will have two guys in the top-10 now. Rumors are that he is considerably older than the 19 years old that he is listed at (or the freshman status he was listed at for track). It's a tricky scenario since I've heard he doesn't have a birth certificate: does he have to prove his eligibility or does it have to be disproven?

I still have my Collegiate XC t-shirt ... ... ... no, Collegiate is not an "inner city" school lmaooooooo

xccoach55112 wrote:

Is Mohammed Bati eligible for Highland Park? They had a good returning team without him, but with him they should be the favorite. He destroyed all the HS competition at the Torchlight 5k road race and will finish top-3 at state. Along with Paleen, they will have two guys in the top-10 now. Rumors are that he is considerably older than the 19 years old that he is listed at (or the freshman status he was listed at for track). It's a tricky scenario since I've heard he doesn't have a birth certificate: does he have to prove his eligibility or does it have to be disproven?

I was wondering if he’s eligible too. Depends on when he turns 20. Minnesota Class AA Boys Pre-Season Individual Watch List is out now, but Mohammed Bati isn’t listed anywhere there.

Instead, Omod is listed there, which was quite a surprise. The rest of the picks for that list are reasonable IMO.

Without Bati, I think Highland Park looks similar to Eastview, who is also looking to have a historic season. All top 3 returning and looking to be well ahead of the rest of their teammates like last year (unless someone closes the 3-4 gap), and 2 returning from the next 4 that were close together last year.

If Bati does have eligibility to run cross for Highland Park, the only weakness we see in them is the #5 position. At that point, the only way Mounds View can challenge them at state is by not only having MV’s top 5 race at a peak of their ability (or at least close), but also by having a 6th and preferably a 7th displace HP’s 5th. Apostol (MV’s projected 6th) posted a solid time at Torchlight too and he beat HP’s projected 5th runner (if Bati is eligible, 4th if not). So should it be a tie for first at state, MV’s 6th would break it and Mounds View would take it.

xccoach55112 wrote:

Is Mohammed Bati eligible for Highland Park? They had a good returning team without him, but with him they should be the favorite. He destroyed all the HS competition at the Torchlight 5k road race and will finish top-3 at state. Along with Paleen, they will have two guys in the top-10 now. Rumors are that he is considerably older than the 19 years old that he is listed at (or the freshman status he was listed at for track). It's a tricky scenario since I've heard he doesn't have a birth certificate: does he have to prove his eligibility or does it have to be disproven?

Was he considerably older than 19 in real life before he joined track?

If so, he’ll probably be eligible to participate in XC this fall unless he turns 20, because if the eligibility is disproven now, it would have been disproven when trying to register for track.

Roosevelt High School in Minnesota won state in 1944 & 1958

Yeahbut wrote:

Come on. WT costs over $28k a year at the high school level. OC is $15k. These may be inner-city located, but their demographics aren't really representative of Pittsburgh. If that's the case, we can add Penn Charter and Germantown Friends from Philly to this list (though PC has only gotten good with the females the last 2 years, and GFS seems to have gone down a bit since Hewitt left).

Agreed. Allderdice and Masterman suck, so no clue why they’re being listed.

Philly team wrote:

State College high school is located right by the University of Pennsylania campus. They seem to consistently be a top ten XC team in the state.

Not getting much love on this thread, but I’m pretty sure they won another track championship this past spring.

+1 wrote:

Philly team wrote:

State College high school is located right by the University of Pennsylania campus. They seem to consistently be a top ten XC team in the state.

Not getting much love on this thread, but I’m pretty sure they won another track championship this past spring.

Because they’re not inner city, and they’re bad at cross country.

kid from PA wrote:

they’re bad at cross country.

Ok then, what inner city schools in PA are consistently better?

Long Beach Poly boys were 6th at CIF Southern Section XC last year - they are utterly inner city, in every way.

One of the best athletic schools in the country too - always ranked at the top nationally. Amazing number of NFL players came from there.

https://www.si.com/vault/2005/05/16/8260841/the-25-best-high-school-athletic-programs

+1 wrote:

kid from PA wrote:

they’re bad at cross country.

Ok then, what inner city schools in PA are consistently better?

If we’re talking about “inner city” with the normal connotation it has of low-to-middle income, probably not any. If private/religious schools that happen to be in the middle of cities are counted, then WT, Central Catholic, Oakland Catholic, etc. on the Pittsburgh side.

xccoach55112 wrote:

Is Mohammed Bati eligible for Highland Park? They had a good returning team without him, but with him they should be the favorite. He destroyed all the HS competition at the Torchlight 5k road race and will finish top-3 at state. Along with Paleen, they will have two guys in the top-10 now. Rumors are that he is considerably older than the 19 years old that he is listed at (or the freshman status he was listed at for track). It's a tricky scenario since I've heard he doesn't have a birth certificate: does he have to prove his eligibility or does it have to be disproven?

Preseason rankings are out now. Bati is not ranked and HP is ranked 5th in MN

The terms "inner" and "city" coupled together might he construed as racist. But this conclusion only arrives at you after hours upon hours of doctorsl doctors research.

wejo wrote:

XC season is almost over at the high school ranks and now that I'm a NY I'm more aware all the top kids seem to be out in the country or the suburbs.

So what's the best innercity XC team in the country? Inner city can mean a lot of different things so feel free to define it how you want. Feel free to make this historical. Are city kids anywhere doing well in XC?

100th post. Yes