1690 enrollment and they're only able to get 15 runners on their roster? That's less than 1% of their school.
Yeah it looks suspect. They never won a XC state title until this year. Maybe there will be more interest in coming out for the team and recruitment within the school, unless the training / coaching is as brutal as at Manlius
1690 enrollment and they're only able to get 15 runners on their roster? That's less than 1% of their school.
Yeah it looks suspect. They never won a XC state title until this year. Maybe there will be more interest in coming out for the team and recruitment within the school, unless the training / coaching is as brutal as at Manlius
It’s also worth noting that the #5 guy at Oakdale was a football player until this year. He ran a sub-5 in the 1600. They recruited him from football because one of their junior returners got hit by a bus in the summer so they needed to find a #5. Heard he will come back strong next year. If he wasn’t hit by a bus they would have made NXN. Next year they will have 4 studs so I’m sure they will recruit a 5th, and maybe a 6th and 7th from somewhere and possibly make NXN.
Ventura and Trabuco Hills will be the best 2 CA teams, and that at-large spot will be up for grabs
Lol I always got a kick out of it in college when someone would say they’re from a small school and then proceed to say their graduating class had 100+ kids. It’s all relative. I had 11 in my graduating class and know of plenty schools that would regularly graduate classes fewer than 5. Once you get to the western Great Plains and mountain states, small school takes on a new meaning.
To answer OP, that is very impressive and I can’t think of any examples from my state that can match it. Small class schools can have individual outliers, but it’s very rare for them to have any depth.
Best from Illinois was likely Eureka's '99 team. They were a Class A team with a school population ~500 students that won state 5 times with two 2nd places from '98-04.
In '99, they won Class A with 32 points with times that would have put them in a very close battle for 2nd in Class AA behind one of the all time great York teams. They would have had a very good chance of making it out of a Nike regional if that was a thing then.
The best runner that team produced was Sean Houseworth with a 63:low half. The most famous athlete, however, was Ben Zobrist. The MLB star was the 6th man for them at state in '96 as a freshman.
Can you really count as a "Small School" when you can recruit anyone and everyone ?
Private schools don't count as small schools.
Public schools should have fewer than 1000 students 9-12 to be considered small. That is the max. Probably should be even smaller.
I agree, any school in a big city is not a small school, regardless of enrollment. If they have a good program, they have thousands of kids who have an opportunity to attend that school. I see that Bernards school is just a few miles from Newark, not a small school.
To me, a small school is 400 or less (grades 9-12). If you have 100 kids in a class, you should be able to have some good teams, both boys and girls. Anything smaller, you start to have numbers problems.
Staples-Motley MN in 1999 went 1-2-3-4 at the class A state meet. Their top 5 average that year was 30 seconds faster than the AA winners, Hopkins.
I heard rumors that they were a massive volume team (100-120mpw) that did every one of their miles on the track.
They did do high mileage but did not train on the track, they ran in a park.
Staples-Motley has been back the past few years, qualifying for state the past five years or so, despite declining enrollment. They now have less than 70 kids per class. They don't do the high mileage any more.
gosh i am envious of what many of you consider small. i coach at a school with around 220-240 from 9-12. there is not a lot of meat on the bone after football and soccer take their kids in the fall.
spring is a little better, but then you are getting kids who are only runners for 10 weeks out of the year.
gosh i am envious of what many of you consider small. i coach at a school with around 220-240 from 9-12. there is not a lot of meat on the bone after football and soccer take their kids in the fall.
spring is a little better, but then you are getting kids who are only runners for 10 weeks out of the year.
Ya, these 1000 student schools are not small. Only by big city standards could they be considered small. My hs had 250 at the time I graduated. This thread should be about schools that size. A 1200 student school won't have any trouble fielding an xc team. That's more students than my college had while I was attending.
CDA is a public school with less than 1500 kids, though. I don’t think private schools should matter in this conversation bc they can just recruit like crazy.
BK was awesome last year with 800-ish kids.
Boise includes freshman bound for their school in their enrollment numbers but they actually have ~1400 kids on campus as a public school.
