NXN 2024 at-large bids

Some people might have thought that ML King boys team would get an at-large if they took top 3 in the merge at the state meet, but look what happened. They didn’t even make it to the state meet yesterday

On the girls side, why is all the talk about whether or not the Southwest should get 2 spots or if California should get 2 spots (despite not having raced their state meet yet), aside from one post about Bridgeland TX?

Why isn't anyone talking about the Southeast girls? I thought they ran very well at NXR. I'm not sure if the Southeast #3/4 or Southwest #3/4 are better this year, but for the conversation to only be about the Southwest and California seems strange. I haven't look that closely at the California girls teams yet, but just based off of the Clovis invite I'm not sure why anyone from Cali except Buchanan should really be considered ahead of the Southeast or Southwest teams. Were there multiple other teams not at Clovis that are better than JSerra or Corona, or have those teams (and someone else) gotten notably better since then?

Anyone have any thoughts about girls nxr NY? What happened to Saratoga?? They lost to Shen pretty hard. Anyone think Toga will get a bid?

Saratoga not only lost their top 3 from last year, but they also have some girls who ran at NXN in the past that were on JV this year - Turner (Sr), and sophomores Ang, Wilding, and Berglund. I saw in the NY thread that one of the Kranicks has been on the wheelchair.

As far as getting a bid, not very likely since the NY region is not as strong as some others. And Saratoga wasn’t as close to autoqualifying as some other 3rd (and even 4th) place teams were

Saratoga’s varsity is mostly 8th and 9th graders. Hard to tell their future from this because as I mentioned, many of Saratoga’s NXN underclassmen regress later on

Saratoga runners basically don’t regress at all. I don’t know if you’re confusing them with FM.

If you look at any of the toga scorers from the powerhouse teams of the past few years, virtually every girl made MASSIVE improvements from the beginning to end of high school or were already top 50 in the country in 9th grade and maintained. (Bush, the Wheeler twins, Belisle, Hart, Kurto, Chmiel).

If a girl goes 35 at nationals her freshman year and then 35 her senior year I don’t consider that regression because she’s already at her top potential. (I don’t know if this is what you’re referencing).

To address the posts above though, Toga graduated basically everyone and still put together a top 50 nationally ranked team with 8th and 9th graders. They’re in a rebuild year and will be a powerhouse soon enough.

None of the NY teams, boys or girls, ran particularly well at NXR. No way will a NY team get an at-large bid. Saratoga and Shen's girls both needed lights-out performances to make that a possibility. Didn't happen. Bethlehem ran perhaps their worst race of the season, for that matter.

If Bethlehem ran their worst of the season, they were probably tempoing to get ready for NXN to try to win it. Just like CBA

I think it’s possible that they might have tried something different to limit their fatigue, but more likely they’re just a bit fried after the sectional/state/NXR three week run. Looking at the NXR results (and having been there), the speed ratings are confusing. It rained inches over about 48hrs and was wet/muddy, but the speed-correction TullyRunners used was identical to previous years when the ground was frozen and fast. Measuring from kid to kid, many runners in the top 40-50 were consistently the same distance between one another, and a SR increase of 5-6 seems to match this. I think what happened was that even though the bell curve is what matters, pushing the runners up 5/6SRs drives the leaders up very high, so it made more sense to use TR as the “anchors” rather than runners spread throughout the average.

Rocky Mountain getting 3th by 2 points at nxr northwest is such a big tragedy for the northwest region. All it took was for crater to get 2 more points, and the northwest would have been set for nxn. CDA, Crater, Jesuit - very good representation.

Yes, especially with Tostenson back and healthy.

But things like this happen. Last year Ventura was a preseason favorite in California and it didn’t work out at the state meet. And FastHorse got hurt and his season was over after state. Ventura girls dominated all California teams at Woodbridge but this team is falling apart due to injuries. ML King was in the conversation to autoqualify or get an at large, but they didn’t make state

Good news in that northwest tragedy though is that Crater got a really good post race track workout in after NXR.

Is that course ever "fast", even frozen?

That course is a beast, and has to be the most difficult of all the NXR regionals by a large margin, no?

A team at that level doesn't get fried at sectionals, they tempo it

Bethlehem was slower per runner than Union Catholic in the NE regional race. Same course, same day.

BUT they were not competing against each other in the same race.

THAT woulda been a little more interesting.

Wins are wins and losses are losses. Who did Rocky beat that makes them deserve a bid?

Not sure anyone would argue too hard against Fossil Ridge, but if Lone Peak took an at-large this year, it would only be because of their history. LP lost their #1 and #3 from last year, and last year they were significantly closer to the top 2 (in average time and in points) when they got an at-large last year. Their 122 points in 2023 NXR-SW, fell to 160 this year has to hurt their case.