Official 2018 NXN Discussion Thread

The top 5 Central Oregon girls all exceeded the speed ratings they had "earned" going into this race. Great effort by them. Ditto for Kinetic and FM which got them as high as they finished. N Naperville #4/5 speed ratings were off by a little though it probably did not affect their 2nd place. Yorkville #3/4/5, Liverpool #4/5 and Temecula #4/5 were also off which likely did affect their place.

Mateo Joseph and John Worthy went from not being in the top 7 for GO last year to not only leading the team at NXN, but also having the 2nd and 3rd highest finishes out of all the sophomores in the race.

Add in Gabe Abbes and 2 other GO returners that raced today, and they will be a serious contender to mimic GO’s 2015 finish next year.

oops. wrote:

Where are all the people crying Texas deserved an at-large? Finished 20th and 22nd in team scores.

Eastwood was out, 30 minutes before their race, in their jerseys and short shorts. Not surprised where they finished.

NXN 2018 wrote:

Boys Teams:

1. LV

2. FM

3. Dakota Ridge

Girls Teams:

1. Summit

2. Naperville North

3. Mountain Vista

Had a hard time matching some of the team names in the predictions to the NXN results, until I found this:

Boys teams:

Girls teams:

Sarah Baxter did not run NXN her freshman year

jwolff wrote:

Meylan has this course as probably the fastest in NxN history. Anderson's 14:57 "only" netted a 201 speed rating.

That would make sense, since it seems like a lot of the courses were being rated as the fastest in their respective history.

Looking into it, it actually appears that the 2013 race was rated slightly faster: 15:00 was a 199.0 that year, and would have been a 200.0 this year, meaning he has this year's race course running 3 seconds slower than the 2013 course for the boys. On the girls side, 18:06 was a 138.0 in 2013 and 140.0 this year, meaning this year's course was running 6 seconds slower for the girls.

What the Hunters have done at Loudon Valley has done the last two years is amazing,

WTF, They have three transfers? Do it with your own runners then it's called dam good job coach.

Colorado Boys dominate! All other States/Regions go home devastated.

Colorado dominated this year. Not even close. Colorado beats all other Regions let alone States.

Top State/Region Scores:

1. Colorado = 41 points (5 of Top 7 from Colorado are returning!)(This was also Southwest score as top 7 from CO)

2. Midwest Region = 59 points

3. California = 92 points

4. Northwest = 119 points

5. Southeast = 152 points

6. New York = 154 points

7. Heartland = 172 points

8. South = 180 points

9. Northeast = 182 points

CO Boys Dominate wrote:

Colorado Boys dominate! All other States/Regions go home devastated.

Colorado dominated this year. Not even close. Colorado beats all other Regions let alone States.

Top State/Region Scores:

1. Colorado = 41 points (5 of Top 7 from Colorado are returning!)(This was also Southwest score as top 7 from CO)

2. Midwest Region = 59 points

3. California = 92 points

4. Northwest = 119 points

5. Southeast = 152 points

6. New York = 154 points

7. Heartland = 172 points

8. South = 180 points

9. Northeast = 182 points

And New York girls as always.

CO Boys Dominate wrote:

Colorado Boys dominate! All other States/Regions go home devastated.

Colorado dominated this year. Not even close. Colorado beats all other Regions let alone States.

Top State/Region Scores:

1. Colorado = 41 points (5 of Top 7 from Colorado are returning!)(This was also Southwest score as top 7 from CO)

2. Midwest Region = 59 points

3. California = 92 points

4. Northwest = 119 points

5. Southeast = 152 points

6. New York = 154 points

7. Heartland = 172 points

8. South = 180 points

9. Northeast = 182 points

Looks like you didn't exclude runners beyond 7 for the scoring?

I got boys scores of:

41 Southwest (3-5-6-10-17-35-39)

59 Midwest (2-9-13-15-20-28-29)

90 California (1-4-8-36-41-42-47)

118 Northwest (11-16-18-33-40-46-58)

150 Southeast (14-30-31-37-38-50-55)

152 New York (22-24-25-32-49-53-54)

167 South (7-26-27-51-56-61-62)

169 Heartland (21-23-34-43-48-60-63)

172 Northeast (12-19-44-45-52-58-59)

for girls I have scores of:

36 New York (1-2-5-6-22-30-38)

58 Midwest (3-7-8-16-24-27-32)

73 Northwest (9-11-13-19-21-28-41)

133 Southwest (10-20-31-35-37-54-55)

154 South (17-25-26-40-46-47-52)

171 Northeast (12-33-39-43-44-49-51)

177 Heartland (4-14-45-56-58-59-61)

191 Southeast (15-23-36-57-60-62-63)

London Culbreath bombed. Maier did good recovering from the previous race at NXN South when he got sick, by finishing like, 7th at this NXN.

Hopefully South individuals get a chance to redeem themselves at Footlocker. London should have done much better in my opinion. It's crazy heading to a meet like NXN, and watching team spreads change so much. There is no chance in hell Alex Maier can run a normal 5K race 1:00 minute faster than teammate Jarrert Kirk. It's insane watching how much more competitive NXN has became over the past decade, on another note.

I hope Texas teams are hungry next year, because almost all the boys and girls team are returning big loads and this was one of the worst performances I have seen from Texas overall. I expected the individuals to perform a whole lot better where the teams would falter. That didn't happen. 7th place was the best individual finish, and maybe 1 other top 20 finish besides that for both genders? That's not what I was imagining, I figured there would be 2 top 10 finishes at least, and maybe 2-3 top 20 finishes. Luckily, I realize this sets up some brilliant redemption next year.

Boys

Southlake Carroll returns 1-2-6-7.

Eastwood returns 1-2-3-5-7.

Flower Mound boys return 2-3-4-5-7.

The Woodlands boys return their entire top 7 roster. (

Girls

FM returns 2-3-4-5-6-7.

Prosper returns 1-2-3-5-6-7.

Coppell returns 1-3-4-6-7

Southlake Carroll returns 2-3-4-6-7

I'm expecting some big things next season. If I don't see Texas shape it up next season for both the boys and girls, then just combine our region with another region so that more spaces can be given to better teams. One super region, with 4 invites (although this would make a race extremely jam-packed). Tired of seeing Texas do poorly, even in rebuilding years. There should be no reason we don't see a top 10 finish on at least one of the sides team races, whether it be the boys or girls side next year.

3 of the boys teams/2 of the girls teams, return at least 4/5 of their top 5 from this year.

2 of those boys teams (maybe 3) will be led by a nationally elite runner (TWL/FM/maybe SLC).

1 of those girls teams will be led by a nationally elite runner (FM).

If that doesn't produce some better results for the teams next year, I don't know.

CBA was talking big before the race... Where are they now?

If you were watching the livestream, you could see Culbreath collapse near the final hill just before the 3 mile mark and start to crawl towards the finish. She apparently got up and made her way through the finish line, about half a minute behind the girls she was running with. She had a hell of a race for the first 4800m, looking to finish near the Top 10, but she just did not having enough in the tank to maintain contact and finish that high.

Kirk did bomb the race. Started off the first mile in 40th and was outside the top 80 by mile 2. Not a great race for him.

Both boys and girls saw three South runners in the top 27, which is about what you'd expect for a 9 region field. I don't think it was that catastrophic at the top, it was just that the teams weren't as good as those from other regions.

As for moving around the regions... I think the most important part remains accessibility. The South is a fairly big region as it is, and combining with the states around it wouldn't really do much to make it more competitive unless you added all the way up to Colorado and that's getting to be a pretty spread out region. Regardless, I don't see the regional borders changing anytime soon, but maybe once Footlocker is gone and NXN is the only show in town, it would make sense to move things around a little. You could make 8 regions where pretty much everyone is within about 400 miles of the regional site, which would be a significant improvement upon today's situation, by splitting up the New York, Northeast, Southeast and Midwest regions: send Illinois and Missouri west to the new "Midwest" (combined with the Heartland), send Ohio/Indiana/Michigan east to a new "Mid-Atlantic" region stretching from Virginia/West Virginia to New Jesey/Pennsylvania centered around State College (Paul Short course), and move the New York/Northeast regional to the Albany area. That frees up 2 more at-large invites, alleviates the excessive depth of the Midwest, avoids a too powerful NY+NE region, and allows for more participation in the Southeast region (which has had issues being competitive in the past, but has had some underrated depth that has lead to improvement for the boys AQ teams at least).

As an example from this year, the boys teams could have easily been the same with one change: HL#2 Middleton WI (NXN#21) would have been out as the fifth team (or worse) in the Midwest, and replaced by SE#3 Weddington NC who probably would have finished in the #18-20 range (so little difference). Girls side would be weakened, though, as the SE would have finished in the last two spots with the addition of SE#4 Cardinal Gibbons NC while the #19 team (Champlain Valley VT) would have been left at home. However, with the extra at-large invites, the strong Southwest region might have gotten a fourth invite ahead of #17 finisher Edina MN.

PredictNxNs wrote:

nimn wrote:

What were the gang symbols those guys through up?

LV = Loudoun Valley is the "gang symbol" those kids were throwing. One of those kids is the class valedictorian.

You mean he already graduated and is still running for his high school team?

Culbreath wrote:

Did culbreath make it up tbat last hill?

was wondering that as well after she nearly passed out

I've completed the analysis of my NXN predictions. Kamiakin had 4 of their 5 scorers go down before the first corner, and they were in nearly last place at the 1st mile and recovered back to finish 15th overall. Central Valley was without their #1 runner who was running at Foot Locker.

The comparisons of my predictions to the actual results can be found here:

https://micro.runnerspace.com/profile.php?member_id=173603&do=photos&photo_id=942339

Micro wrote:

Central Valley was without their #1 runner who was running at Foot Locker.

Well that's just sad.

Actually, I think they have 4 transfers.

Northeast bombed