XC State Meet Questions

Florida

State separated into 16 districts

Top 3-5 teams from each district (depending on district size) and any top 15 individuals who aren't on a team qualify for regionals

Each region contains 4 distirct (so there are 4 regions in the state)

Top 6 teams from each region plus any individuals in the top 15 who aren't on a team qualify for state

Don't really know about the lane draws (but I think they might be random)

Four classes 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, total of 8 races (one for each gender of each class) (aka yes they run separately)

Classes based solely on a school's student population

California

1. 10 sections are allocated a number of team entries based on section size and past performance (7 teams per division is maximum).

2. Starting positions are drawn.

3. each of the 5 divisions races separately (10 races total)

4. Each section divides/decides on placement into 5 divisions. Division 5 has a maximum enrollment--the sections can divide larger schools however they see fit (The largest, Southern Section, divides strictly on enrollmemt--others divide by strength of program).

Great thread it is interesting to see how different states do it.

Maryland-

1. 4 classes 1A-4A are divided into 4 regions each(N,S,E,W)

The top 50% of the teams in each region go to the state meet- some regions have more teams than others so qualify more obv- it is generally between 4 and 7 teams per region to give approx 22 or so teams at state in the 3 larger classes- 1A often has less.

For individuals top 15(or top 25% if that is larger) non-team qualifying placers move on.

Private Schools separate- they have their own championships MIAA/IAAM for Baltimore area and WCAC for DC area which includes MD and VA schools together and then a combined state meet two weeks later although not all of the schools attend that its a bit of a new add-on.

2. Random

3. Yes all separate at state meet 8 races 3A,4A in morning, 1A,2A afternoon. At MIAA I know they have A,B and C all run together and then score separately which I think is dumb. Although the C race would be pretty small I think.

4. School size only as of now reclassify every 2 years. I think I heard on the next cycle they might put in some kind of performance(or really participation) caveat where if certain schools dont field a large enough number of sports they move down to 1A and redo it based on that. There are some imbalances definitely across some of the sports that maybe they are trying to fix.

Hold on now wrote:

Ohio

1. 3 divisions based on school size---

4. School size is the only determining factor in divisions.

This is misleading. The divisions are not truly based on size. Ohio has 3 EQUALLY sized divisions. On paper they have 214 schools per division. This causes the largest division to have schools ranging from just over 300 students of each gender in 3 grades to those with almost 1500. Division I (largest division) has schools participating against opponents that are 4-5 times larger in enrollment.

Instead of having divisions of different sizes to help schools compete against like-sized opponents, they insist on the same number of schools in each division because "that is the way football does it." Of course football has 7 divisions to keep the size of opponents similar. This is fine for XC individuals but very unfair for many teams.

Mississippi:

No qualifier - - - Any school that wants to send a team and as many athletes as a team wants to bring. Top seven count in the scoring. Divisions A-6A

Private schools - same with A-4A.

Nobody is left out and everybody's self-esteem is wonderful. Surprised they don't give out participation medals...

PATHETIC comes to mind!

New York

Someone will jump in and correct/clarify, (a) because it's confusing and (b) because we're from New York.

New York has two state meets. The first is the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship (NYSPHSAA).

NYSPHSAA has eleven regions called Sections. It covers all of NYS except for NYC, which is separate (more later). Private/independent, parochial, and non-parochial religious schools *typically* compete in separate leagues Downstate (with some exceptions) and some compete in the NYSPHSAA Upstate (again with exceptions).

Each Section determines its own standards for qualification to the Sectional Championship/State Qualifier. All State Qualifier races are organized by school size into classes (currently 4: A, B, C, D, but it's been five, it's been three, etc.). This works out well in many Sections that have large numbers of schools of all sizes, but in some Sections the largest schools race or the smallest schools race may be non-competitive or non-existent. NYS needs to account for the range of the school sizes across the state, but it's so internally diverse by population density and school size that locally the classifications don't always make as much sense as they do statewide.

At each Sectional Championship/State Qualifier, the top team in each class advances (7 runners) plus the top 5 runners not on the top team. These runners then compete at the NYSPHSAA meet where for many years they wore color-coded t-shirts instead of singlets and competed not just for their team but for their Section as a whole.

On the same day as the NYSPHSAA championship, there are three other championship races of varying competitiveness: the CHSAA (Catholic High Schools, mostly but not exclusively Downstate), the PSAL (NYC public schools), and the NYSAIS (mostly but not exclusively NYC/NYC area independent schools).

These four championship meets determine who will advance to the Federation Championship held the next weekend. NYSPHSAA automatically advances 9 teams (selection across classes can become convoluted), CHSAA Upstate automatically advances 1 team, CHSAA automatically advances 3 teams, PSAL automatically advances 3 teams, and the AIS automatically advances 1 team. Once those teams are determined, NYSPHSAA Section officials and coaches select an additional 7 teams (these can be the next-top-placing teams at the NYSPHSAA meet or top-quality teams that didn't advance out of their State Qualifier because the top team in the state was their close-in-size neighbor). The CHSAA, PSAL, and AIS split 3 at-large teams between them (at least two usually go to the CHSAA). By this point there are 27 teams for boys and girls entered in the Federation meet.

Now onto individuals. Individuals not on any of the qualifying teams are proportioned accordingly for a total of 70 individuals:

NYSPHSAA: 40

CHSAA Upstate: 3

CHSAA: 12

PSAL: 12

AIS: 3

For the CHSAA, PSAL, and AIS it's usually just the top individuals at each of the championships, but it gets more complicated at NYSPHSAAs across all four classes, and usually there is some effort to make sure that at least one individual from each Section advances if they had not otherwise qualified, so sometimes that's the top runner at a State Qualifier meet even if they weren't the top finisher at NYSPHSAAs.

The Fed meet has been hampered of late because it's held late in the season and close to both NXN New York and Footlocker Northeast, so many top teams have begun to skip the meet to rest up for the following weekend. Unlike the NYSPHSAA meet that moves across the state, Feds is always held in the same not-really-that-central location every year, so for teams that are proximate travel is easy, but for public school teams that may have already traveled from Buffalo to Westchester for the NYSPHSAA meet, it can be difficult to justify the travel time, travel cost, and travel fatigue to drive all the way back to Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls (north of Westchester but similarly far east).

Louisiana

1) Qualifying was introduced this year, but only for 5A (the largest class). 5A has 9 geographic districts. Districts 1-3 are one region, 4-6 are another, 7-9 is the third. There is a regional meet for each region. Top 8 teams from each region qualify, plus any individuals finishing in the top 25 who weren't on a qualifying team. So the 5A meets will have 24 teams plus any qualifying individuals. For all other classes (there are seven classes total: 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A,1A, B, C), the meet is open to any team with no qualifying. The boys 5A meet had 45 teams and 300+ runners last year.

2) I assume it's random, but I don't know.

3) Yes, 14 races total (7 classes boys & girls) over two days.

4) Louisiana's divisions are determined by school size, but some schools play up to a larger class for either competitive reasons, easier travel, traditional rivalries, etc. You cannot play down to a lower division.

oregon oldtimer,

I was surprised to see Arkansas and Mississippi have provisions for all teams to bring runners to state as well. In ND, even with two divisions and all teams allowed to bring 10 runners, we don't break 170 runners in the big school division and 250 in the small school division. Some states literally HAVE to allow everybody to run or else there would be too few runners and it wouldn't even be a big deal.

prefan wrote:

Pennsylvania

1. PA is divided geographically into 12 districts. Each district holds its own state qualifying meet where individuals and teams qualify for states. The more schools a district has that offer XC in a particular division (school size) the greater the number of qualifiers (both team and individual) to the state meet. There are no at-large bids. If a district happens to have the 2 best teams in the state in that district/division yet there aren't many teams in that district/division, such that there is only 1 team that qualifies for states, then the #2 team is out of luck and stays home from states.

2. No idea, but it appears to be random drawing.

3. Yes.

4. PA's is determined by school size.

fyi, there have been 1 or 2 times where 5 runners from a team have qualified as individuals under this system in PA.

Snoach wrote:

Texas

6 Divisions 1A-6A

4 Regions in each division (1-4)

8 districts in each region

Top 3 teams from each district to region

Top 10 individuals from each district to region (doesn't matter qualifying team or not.

Region To State:

Top 4 teams

Top 10 individuals on non qualifying team

Not sure about boxes. At region it was alphabetical order with individuals in boxes 1-4.

I believe that boxes are drawn randomly. I wish that there would be some sort of ranking system that could benefit the stronger regions such as Region 1-6A and Region 3-6A as region 2 and 4 are terrible.