Most and Least Competitive Sections in NYS?

Sprints? Distance? Boys? Girls?

For distance running its NYC's Public School Athletic League but they've been doing pretty well lately.

Distance boys and girls.

Section 3 is probably the most competitive for distance followed by section 2.

Sections 2 and 3 are the best in cross country. Sections 2 and 11 tend to be the most competitive for 1600/3200 in track. Section 5 is deep but rarely has the best runner. Section 4 has had a lot of good top-end teams and individuals, but little depth. Sections 7 and 10 are by far the least competitive, in any event or season. Separate from NYSPHSAA, the CHSAA tends to have pretty strong distance, while the PSAL and AIS tend to be pretty weak.

Most of this is just dictated by a very small number of teams though. Section 2 has Saratoga, Section 3 has FM, Section 4 has Corning, Section 11 has Northport, CHSAA has St. Anthony's, etc. 2, 3, and 11 have a few other teams like Liverpool, Burnt Hills, Shen, and Smithtown which makes them particularly strong. Sections 5 and 6 would honestly be very strong if they just had a couple large schools with consistently great programs.

2 and 3 best in cross country, but Lord knows about Saratoga Springs after the recent news. You can usually look to schools in these sections to dominate the top 10 at State and Feds in xc.

The Catholic schools tend to be very hard working with Xavier and Fordham prep standing out and often making it into the top group.

PSAL (NYC public schools) are generally not strong with the exception of Hunter, Brooklyn Tech and, maybe, Stuyvesant. Hunter looks exceptionally strong this year.

NYSAIS (mostly NYC private schools) has individuals who excel sometimes but many programs that are barely alive. In general, it's the least competitive league when you compare their Van Cortlandt times with the Catholic schools With all the $ in this federation, you'd think they would be better.