It comes down to geographic region. Some examples, not all.
* CIF Southern Section
* The Chicagoland (York, Nequa Valley, Napervilles, Glenbards, Palatine)
* Boulder County
* Greater D.C. area in Virginia
* certain New Jersey counties
* New York hubs (all it takes is one national ranking and suddenly you have a spurt of contenders)
* Dallas/Fort Worth metro
* Salt Lake City / Utah hubs
* Greater Twin Cities (Stillwater, Edina, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka area)
* Madison, WI / sometimes SE Wisconsin (where 4:15 isnt guaranteed through to state)
Essentially, a pre-existing suburban area adjacent to the metropolitan districts or when two rival high schools with a storied history to begin with really load up with a state champions and prospective all-americans.
There is qualifying for states in CA and then there is qualifying for states through the CIF - SS. It's not uncommon for some teams ranked in the top 10 - 15 in the state in their division to not even qualify out of their league to SS Prelims. Then if they make it to the finals and they are those teams hoping to steal a 4th to 6th place qualifier....good luck! I remember a prominent Southern Section Coach saying if you are one of those teams in that range.....you better run the best race of your life, because if you don't...someone else will be. Some even say the CA state meet is an easier race than the state meet, because the SS teams often go and smash the rest of the state. Individual spots are obviously tricky as well as. There's just so much depth in the Southern Section with lots of excellent, experience coaches leading their athletes.
I'll echo what that prominent coach said as someone who was an assistant on one such team and also ran in SS back in the day. When I was coaching we were D5, the smallest division, and we still barely qualified as a team, literally myself and other coaches frantically checking live results as they came in, knowing they needed their best performance of the season or we stayed home for Thanksgiving. State was just a cherry on top after that. Obviously as a small school we weren't amazing and the competition was much less than the larger division but even with the easiest path to state we needed a team of ~16:00-17:30 guys to have their best day to make it. For individuals it's even more brutal because even in the higher divisions there's always some studs. They weren't SS but German Fernandez and Cooper Teare were both D4 and D5 respectively, and I think that just serves to underline the top to bottom depth of CA.
New York only allows 1 team per section at states.
Bethlehem girls team hasn’t been at states in forever but they made NXN the last 2 years. In fact they took 11th at NXN in 2023. The issue is that Saratoga was in their section, who has always been really good. That’s the hurdle one has to go through to make states.
I think that Bethlehem will beat Saratoga at sections next year though
Unfortunately false. As much as I would love for Colorado (my state wooo) to be the hardest state to make it to the State meet in, top 15 individuals AND top four teams across 5 regions for any given class is extremely forgiving. You can make it to state never breaking 17 in Colorado and that is not rare.
Unfortunately false. As much as I would love for Colorado (my state wooo) to be the hardest state to make it to the State meet in, top 15 individuals AND top four teams across 5 regions for any given class is extremely forgiving. You can make it to state never breaking 17 in Colorado and that is not rare.
And in Track & Field in Colorado there are no districts or conference or regionals to get through to qualify. It's just like NCAA indoors...simply the top 18 performance marks within the season and within each classification qualify.
Definitely nothing like CA or others. Of course, this is the most democratic and just way to determine the participants. But much easier to get in if you're good.
State as in the entirety of the state. I.E. the ONE state meet that Indiana holds. or the ONE state meet that Ohio holds with three different sections of the ONE state meet.
I don't get why people call it "states" either. It is grammatically incorrect. "States" is plural, you know, as in more than one. "States" would have a more correct meaning if was considered some sort of national meet. The "state meet" would be the meet that culminates at the end of a season in one state, as in the INDIANA STATE MEET. Where does "INDIANA STATES MEET" come from? The schools that don't even teach moderatley decent grammar? Or is this another stupid euro thing, like when the they say Nike like (NighK)...or Puma like (PUooma).
I know this post is old, but this topic always come up and needs to be put to rest.
States is exactly the same as worlds, or regionals, or districts, it's The "s" takes the place of the word "Championships"
World Championships = Worlds
Regional Championships = Regionals
District Championships = Districts
Section Championships = Sections, Sub-sections or Sectionals
State Championships = States
"I made it to state" makes no sense and would be a complete departure from how all the others are worded.
I don't get why people call it "states" either. It is grammatically incorrect. "States" is plural, you know, as in more than one. "States" would have a more correct meaning if was considered some sort of national meet. The "state meet" would be the meet that culminates at the end of a season in one state, as in the INDIANA STATE MEET. Where does "INDIANA STATES MEET" come from? The schools that don't even teach moderatley decent grammar? Or is this another stupid euro thing, like when the they say Nike like (NighK)...or Puma like (PUooma).
I know this post is old, but this topic always come up and needs to be put to rest.
States is exactly the same as worlds, or regionals, or districts, it's The "s" takes the place of the word "Championships"
World Championships = Worlds
Regional Championships = Regionals
District Championships = Districts
Section Championships = Sections, Sub-sections or Sectionals
State Championships = States
"I made it to state" makes no sense and would be a complete departure from how all the others are worded.
I know for track, the california qualification process is brutal and stressful. To put it in perspective around half of the sub 9 guys that year couldn't make it to the state meet for 3200
Cif finals (4rd round) was today. Only top 12 get to move to cif masters (5th round). Then State prelims (6th round) State finals (7th or last round).
Previously in D1 Cif Prelims you needed to run 4:15 or 9:10 to move on to finals.
At Cif Finals you couldn't qualify to Cif Masters if you didn't run a 4:10 or 9:05
Top 12 qualifiers and their times.
8:48 8:52 8:56 8:56 8:57 8:57 8:59 9:01 9:02 9:03 9:04 9:05 First out 9:06 Second out 9:06
4:04 4:05 4:06 4:06 4:07 4:07 4:08 4:08 4:09 4:10 4:10 4:11 First out 4:11 Second out 4:11
And that’s never going to happen. All sports are classified the same and always will be. This isn’t a thing unique to Utah.
To give further context, dropping Utah track/XC to 3 classifications would put it on par with states like Wyoming, Alaska, and Vermont despite having 2.5 times the population of those three states combined. New Mexico, by comparison, has 4 classifications despite only having 60% the population of Utah. Likewise, Arkansas also has 6 classifications despite being smaller than Utah.
There's no way Utah or any other state could be on par with Vermont. Vermont has a JV race at their state meet. Joke.
The correct answer though would be; the best team not to qualify to state meet in each state. Compare those and the state with the best therefore is the hardest to qualify in. Minnesota.
I would argue that making state in Minnesota is now one of the easiest in the nation now that they have moved to three classes.
Having half of sub9 guys not make it is harsh. I always thought it made sense to have some sort of time qualifier, even if very few can reach it. In Texas back in the day (maybe it's different now, idk), there were only 4 regions and one had to finish in the top 2 to make it. Normally, I'd have no issue with this, but not every region was equal (the region with the north Houston burbs were always stronger), and having only 8 runners in the 3200m at State was silly. But, they didn't want more than 8 in the sprints, so whatchyagonna do?
Time qualifiers are lame. you have to learn to compete when it matters. Coaches need to get their kids to peak when it matters. That stuff is what the sport is about, especially getting 4 people to peak at the same time in a relay etc.
why wouldn’t you just train hard all winter, run super fast the first meet of the year and then just train until the big meet if you were a stud. Two peaks.
Could be boring and not breed competition which you’re trying to develop in young athletes.
it’s why the ncaa final four tournament and college sports in general is so exciting - the teams expected to win don’t. Nothing is given, pressure can crack you.
Definitely not Wisconsin (where I’m from). California seems insane to qualify for based on what everyone’s saying. The Indiana state meet is pretty competitive (no small or large school divisions) but only slightly tougher than WI to qualify for from what I’ve seen.
New York only allows 1 team per section at states.
Bethlehem girls team hasn’t been at states in forever but they made NXN the last 2 years. In fact they took 11th at NXN in 2023. The issue is that Saratoga was in their section, who has always been really good. That’s the hurdle one has to go through to make states.
I think that Bethlehem will beat Saratoga at sections next year though
To be fair their path to nxn was easier than most teams because their region is only one state. They only had to be 2nd best in their state. They did not have to beat the best teams from several states.
No. That metric would be used to identify the easiest state to qualify in. The state with the best team not to qualify, is the hardest state to qualify in.
If I asked what the hardest college to get admitted to, it is the one in which the smartest kid go rejected. The easiest to get admitted to is the one that has the dumbest kid who got accepted.
I feel that it would be the state with the highest average non qualifying team quality across all state qualifying races. I.e. each state qualifier is difficult/competitive/there's no easy way to make it
New York only allows 1 team per section at states.
Bethlehem girls team hasn’t been at states in forever but they made NXN the last 2 years. In fact they took 11th at NXN in 2023. The issue is that Saratoga was in their section, who has always been really good. That’s the hurdle one has to go through to make states.
I think that Bethlehem will beat Saratoga at sections next year though
This aged well. The top 3 teams in this section will go 1-2-3 at Feds unless East Aurora breaks into this.