Xc scoring: any tactical considerations??

Pack running. 5th and 4th men are really who win the race, so you force your team to run as a pack so your fast runners don't go out too fast and blow up costing the team a lot of points. Most useful when you should win a race.

One high school in our area was known to have goons, similar to hockey goons. You didn't want to be around them in wooded areas of the course.

SomebodyHadToDoIt wrote:

Pack running. 5th and 4th men are really who win the race, so you force your team to run as a pack so your fast runners don't go out too fast and blow up costing the team a lot of points. Most useful when you should win a race.

Lol, no.

Saying the race comes down to the 5th guy is like saying the field goal kicker wins the game for the team on the last play. Every runners position counts and blaming a loss/poor result solely on the 4/5 runners is a cop out.

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Saying the race comes down to the 5th guy is like saying the field goal kicker wins the game for the team on the last play. Every runners position counts and blaming a loss/poor result solely on the 4/5 runners is a cop out.

This isn't really true, since field is much more spread out at the front of the race (usually) than at the middle.

If your #1 guy is 20s off his best, he might drop from 4th to 10th for example. If your #5 guy is 20s off his best, he might drop from 40th to 60th. This isn't always the case, though. Depends on the race dynamics.

Much more happens at the 5th spot. Your 1st guy may only lose 1 spot by being off by 15 seconds while the 5th guy may lose 30 spots by being off by 15 seconds.

Mantz won but would have been 3rd had he run 13 seconds slower.

BYU's 5th however, would have lost 40 spots had he run 13 seconds slower.

You beat me to it.

Anyone can lose the race. No one is more important then the others. Need everyone going 100% not hanging out with teammates.

coachy wrote:

Anyone can lose the race. No one is more important then the others. Need everyone going 100% not hanging out with teammates.

Yes, in a way. The team’s top four define who number five is so that is true. Not sure what you mean about hanging out with teammates? I assume a reference to pack running?

If your 1&2 have a poor race and are off by 20-30 seconds it might only cost you a few points. Your 4th & 5th are off and you can be looking at dozens of point added to the score.

This happened to us recently. We won a major championship with our 1&2 having a sub par race while 3,4, and 5 had a career day. The prior week it was the reverse for us and we lost to an inferior team.

In our state race 10 years ago a team took 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th and the team lost when their 5th came in 40+. Pretty tough deal for that kid. He ran a good race for him but he just was not at then same level as his teammates. I have never heard of a more classic example of how important a 5th runner is.