Saratoga Springs Ripped off by NTN

Sounds good. I would have just liked to see a system that allowed the actual 4th best team (Colts Neck)in the country to qualify somehow to give them a shot (even though their 4th place proves they didn't deseve to be there in the first place.

To be fair, we could select the two NE autos. They proved by their mid season efforts and their 1st and 2nd at NTN they belonged. Let's just forget that Midlothian and Roosevelt beat them at Man. Invit. Push Colts Neck to 20th ranked. Now since Colts Neck beat all the

other actual NTN teams, except Carrol, we should scrap all those autos and at large for the rest of the country to eliminate the dead wood. You, Sagacious, could fill in the rest of the teams between the deseserving #2Hilton and the back door, fishy, pet selection of Colts Neck at 20th with 17 at large bids. That guarantees Radnor, Torrey Pines, Saratoga, the rest of the ranked NE teams a legitimate spot. If Colts Neck finished 20th, you still could argue that maybe they were a still a ludicrous selection.

Hey,it's not perfect, but it at least gets your theoretical selections in and then some. And it also addresses the obvious mis-selection of Colts Neck. I don't think anyone can argue with this solution and that should be the end of this discussion.

radnor graduates 4 of their top 5. they'll probably never have a team like theres again, and for that, i feel terrible that they weren't invited. granted, its not reason enough to invite a team because they are all seniors, but they also backed it up with some solid performances.

and everybody, this is an open board, people can say what they want so stop hating on sagacious -sagacious has some valid points... relax people.

nike will have some competition with this new national meet next year. seems like this one has a better idea on how to select teams. people were finding the nike committee thing a little sketchy this year, it should be interesting to see how that turns out.

Those poor girls. They'll never recover from this snub. The local news channel will do "Radnor XC Girls 2006: Where Are They Now?" in 20 years and the results will be astonishing. Two will be dead, three addicted to drugs, one turning tricks on Radnor's main drag, and the last one leading a life of quiet desperation to a man she never loved.

As of three years ago, there was no such thing as a national high school team cross country meet and things were fine. What you had in Portland wasn't a true national championship but an invitational featuring a collection of privileged team who have the financial means to travel during the season. Add to that some shady "back room" dealings some hint at, and you’ve got an event about as far away from the egalitarian world of high school athletics as you can get.

And I know Portland Meadows is close to Beaverton, and at one time cross country runners raced on horse tracks, but for the love of god can't you find another place for the meet? Maybe a course with natural hills, not man-made monstrosities. And while cross country is all about racing in different conditions, turning a fire hose on in the middle of a field to create mud for the sake of mud is ridiculous.

former upstate runner wrote:

Those poor girls. They'll never recover from this snub. The local news channel will do "Radnor XC Girls 2006: Where Are They Now?" in 20 years and the results will be astonishing. Two will be dead, three addicted to drugs, one turning tricks on Radnor's main drag, and the last one leading a life of quiet desperation to a man she never loved.

Oh please - enough with the sarcasm already. How would you like to be Saratoga, the fallen empire?

Or Radnor the never was empire and never gonna be.

This is an awesome post. "Could you imagine" has gone over the deep end and totally lost it. I'd say the Jagermeister is doing the talking for him now. I see no one cares to address the New York Feds meet. Keep dodging the issues and facts and just ramble aimlessly. I'm loving it.

I'd be "4th in the nation" too if you only invited three guys that could beat me and made the rest stay home. In fact, I was first in the nation just today on my training run. I was 2nd in the nation a couple times over the weekend. I won't run against those guys anyomore so I can be first.

Brilliant!

Can't deny that logic.

The Radnor girls article on Penntrackxc.. sorry about the delay in getting the link. http://www.milesplit.com/article/11818

I am very supportive of Radnor and feel they should've been at NTN. That being said, something in this article gave me pause. The top two Radnor runners (including the author) went to watch Footlocker Northeast Regionals. Why didn't they run? Had they run and performed well, it might have helped their case. It almost sounds like they kept hoping other teams' results would help their case. The two girls goint to Footlocker Northeast as spectators instead of runners -- when Hannah Kligman of Conestoga, of District One in PA who lives right down the road from them and competed with them often -- gave it a shot, makes me wonder.

Nice Letter Mr. Grainger. I liked you letter to selection committee as well.

You had a nice team. In September. If you plugged the Sept. "season best" race into NTN you would have gotten 7th. at best. You have to remember that wasn't Hilton's best effort. If they ran that same race they would have barely gotten 3rd. You picked the wrong time to bust a move.

Unfortunately, even if you plugged your "best race" effort from Warrick into the Feds at the end of the season or your State Meet speed ratings at the end you would have 5th or 6th.

If the selection process is a beauty contest, you can't have a smudge on your face at final judging.

Look at it this way, by not going to NTN you can pretend that you could have beaten any team team you want in the country. Just don't plug in your end of the season effort.

This is a very good point. NTN has ignored Footlocker esults in the past, though.

This is not horse racing and speed ratings are not accurate. Just check the predictions against actual race results for NTN. There are better comparisons, see above posts, that give a more accurate reflection of where Radnor would have finished.

The Tully speed ratings are used for running not horse racing. They seem fairly objective. Great starting point for analysis, unless it contradicts the point you are trying to get across. Saratoga would have gotten the nod before Radnor in my mind. Nothing is perfect as a predictor. On any given race kids and teams are all over the place. I'm looking at the above example of Midlothian and Roosevelt. They crushed the NE at Man., had 1st and 4th rankings going into NTN. How did they end up 8th and 10th? Can you respond to that? Some well coached teams peak and others fall at the wrong time. Do you have a better explanation?

Their best (read fastest) races weren't at Warwick or State. Those were just highlight meets of the season. Close finish with Hiton -a very strong Hilton w/ Shelby Herman as #3 before her injury- and a State title. They ran much faster times a week before State, at the district meet, obvioulsy beause the course was less mountainious. An 18:39 team average, with their top 5 girls under 19:00.

That was like Colts Neck breaking their Shore Conference record with an 18:29 average. Flat course,fast times for both.

but colts neck also has a footlocker finalist front runner to lower the team time average. team averages mean nothing. radnor's 18:39 team average without a frontrunner is more impressive than an 18:29 team average that has their best girl(s) about a minute + infront of the other scorers.

49 second spread from #1-5 @ district 1 race. It's called pack running, and not too many girls' teams teams seem to be able to pull it off. Exception, FM girls, and boy does it work. :P It's not that often that a team can get together 5 sub 18:00 runners. It's easier to get two front runners, then fill in the gaps with averageish runners. and you have a 'successfull' team. That's one of the reasons that Radnor was so special this year. And will never have this caliber team again. It was the year that everything fell into place. Call it luck, chance, whatever.

You obviously haven't read the background on speed ratings. They're based on speed ratings for horse races which are at most 8-10 furlongs. 5K is a little more than that. 25 furlongs I believe and not too mant hills on the horse track. Somewhere on this thread or perhaps another one, but it's there somewhere, I stated Midlo and ER would not be the dominant forces at NTN. An educated opinion would tell someone this. It was obvious. Speed ratings were not accurate for NTN. They are not accurate with mutiple courses in the mix. You guys have fun with ths. Too bad for Radnor. Well written essay by Ms. Granger. "could you imagine" multiple personality with multiple screen names, try not to let this keep you up for long. You've got a guilty conscience and it shows in your desperate illogical diatribes. Knock yourself out. they amuse me. I'll keep reading.

Realty Check wrote:

The Tully speed ratings are used for running not horse racing. They seem fairly objective. Great starting point for analysis, unless it contradicts the point you are trying to get across. Saratoga would have gotten the nod before Radnor in my mind. Nothing is perfect as a predictor. On any given race kids and teams are all over the place. I'm looking at the above example of Midlothian and Roosevelt. They crushed the NE at Man., had 1st and 4th rankings going into NTN. How did they end up 8th and 10th? Can you respond to that? Some well coached teams peak and others fall at the wrong time. Do you have a better explanation?