NXN 2023 Way too early preview: Dawn of a new Era

Oakdale should have been ahead of niwot and franklin. I guess the Granada pick from last year came back to bite this year.

True that Oakdale beat San Clemente earlier this year @ Clovis, but since 2 of the 3 teams that beat Oakdale at state were also ahead at Clovis that seems more like a situation where San Clemente didn't run as well at Clovis as they did at State.

I don't think seniority of the team is or should be a criteria for which are the best teams in the nation and which are deserving to be invited to nationals.

I'm not saying that I think Niwot was clearly a better option than Oakdale, but I don't think it's some massive oversight either. They look to have similar resumes to me unless all you care about is raw times without considering course difficulty, or rely strictly on Meylan's speed ratings which have historically been notably too low for Southwest teams and a little high for California and Southeast teams compared to results at nationals.

Oakdale did race Great Oak at Clovis though, and it wasn't as close then. Still hard to pass on Oakdale though, since I view these qualifiers as real qualifiers, like a semi-final bracket. I think Oakdale ran better in the semi-final, but they committee uses a different criteria.

Also since California got 2 at-larges last year, that might have worked against them.

Clovis scores:
1.Dana Hills124
2.Great Oak129
3.Oakdale152
4.San Clemente172

Everyone is going after Niwot. However, my thoughts are that the Franklin pick is the problem here. That team averaged 15:50 at NXR Northwest. Niwot would have probably been around 15:45. Oakdale averaged 15:29 at woodward park course which is around 10 seconds faster than the Bob Firman course so Oakdale would be around 15:40 average.

>>In the section qualifying races 11 teams in the Southern Section of California alone had a team SR average of 170 or higher.<<

That number grew 13 teams today with an ave SR of 170+ from the SS in the state finals. And a total of 19 teams in California had a team SR average of 170 or higher today.

It’s clearly because Jesuit and Crater going 2nd and 4th. They think highly of northwest. Hopefully Midwest teams kill it this year so we can get at-large next year

Eagle Island has typically been around 25 seconds slower than Woodward, not 10.

lol, some of y'all must not like facts if you insist on downvoting me for pointing out a statistic. But I'll expand on it so you know I'm not just trying to throw bias around.

From 2016-2023 (I got tired of looking back at the meet histories), there were exactly 200 runners that ran at both Bob Firman and the Clovis Invite. The average difference was 23.24 seconds (Eagle Island slower than Woodward).

Year-by-year differences:

2023 = 23.02 seconds (10 runners)

2022 = 27.38 seconds (10 runners)

(no invite in 2020 or 2021)

2019 = 27.60 seconds (31 runners)

2018 = 18.16 seconds (51 runners)

2017 = 20.97 seconds (81 runners)

2016 = 39.02 seconds (17 runners)

If this is true, then there should be no reason for any northwest teams to lose to a single California team this year at nxn. Nathan Neil is German Fernandez level so he should be a good 10 second ahead of Noonan at nxn. Of course I don’t think this is not going to happen (but I can always be wrong).

If they lose you badly though you are full of it

How would I be "full of it" for simply posting facts about how fast runners have run at Bob Firman and Clovis before, in response to someone stating a baseless claim?

By the way... I'm not saying it's a for sure thing that Neil is going to be 10 seconds ahead of Noonan, but for what it's worth he was 21 seconds ahead of Noonan at NXN last year, so it wouldn't be THAT crazy. He is the #3 returner after all.

Because you know how badly California runners perform on that course in the early season and you are using that against them. That is like using Crater's performance at Woodbridge as a baseline for the Northwest.

I am fine with a 25 second difference as long as it can be backed up at NXN.

lol ok let me try to understand your logic here...

First, you think that California runners perform poorly at the Clovis Invitational but not at the Bob Firman Invitational, which is 2-3 weeks earlier, for some unknown reason. Despite how if that were true it would mean their times at Bob Firman would be comparatively faster than their times at Clovis. Or maybe you think they run well at Bob Firman compared to how they run at Clovis and the difference is even greater than 25 seconds? You also think that Nevada runners collude to do the same (102 of the runners were from California teams and 98 were from Nevada teams).

You also think I knew about your perception that California teams run poorly at Clovis compared to Bob Firman and that I am trying to "use it against you/California teams" for some unknown reason.

And you ALSO think that a sample size of 200 data points covering spanning multiple seasons that were all pretty consistently saying the same thing is somehow the same as saying that one single team's race at one meet is a baseline for an entire region?

Heck people in California don’t know how good this team was. Preseason rankings had them ranked 6th in DIII after winning state the year before. A lot of the talk on these boards overlooked them. This is probably due to the fact that they are from a small football town that no one in the xc world ever heard or took notice of until just a year or two ago. This was a once in a lifetime team not only for Oakdale but for any team within almost the entire northern central valley of California. No other team in that area has or ever will again accomplish the things these boys did. This was in all likelyhood their last chance to achieve something incredible and make NXN. Guaranteed if GO was 4th and Oakdale 3rd then GO gets in. They were a unique team with an unconventional coach. A McFarland esque type circumstance, but with a story that got cut short and one that won’t be told.

It’s a damn shame this team got snubbed.

No

Niwot is lowkey approaching Rocky Mountain levels of being annoying. I hope they get spanked at NXN.

I’ve seen a lot of posts that say that Niwot boys team didn’t race their best at NXR

I wonder what happened to Lone Peak. They finished third at the UT state meet