Pennsylvania School Wins State Team XC Title With 5 Individual Qualifiers

New York has a similar concept, but the example is more extreme. The state is divided into 11 geographic sections, and 4 different class sizes (A-D). Each Section sends the top team in each class to the NYSPHAA meet, and the top 5 non-team individuals qualifiers in each class.

Typically the top 5 non team athletes are from separate teams, maybe you'd get 2 or maybe at the most 3 individual qualifiers from the same team.

But it's theoretically possible to qualify 5 individuals.

I'm not sure if this actually happened, but I believe sometime in the late 90s in Section 2, when the Colonieand Saratoga girls teams were both top nationally ranked teams, Colonie won the Section, but Saratoga may have sent 4 or 5 individual athletes. The meet was essentially a dual meet. I believe Saratoga went on the win the all-state Federation meet that year. I think it was 1997? or 1999?

Post Script: I can't find the exact results, but in 1999 Colonie beat Saratoga 30-32. To score 32 points and finish second, Saratoga must have had at least 3 or 4 girls qualify as individuals.

Since they did not qualify as a team, they should not score as a team. In Indiana, we have the same rule to advance individuals: top 10 on a non-advancing team advance to the next round. From that point on, they are individuals and do not factor into the team scoring.

It shouldn't matter how they qualify, if they get 5 runners to the meet, they should be able to compete for the championship.

Oh? wrote:

Fred Gwynne wrote:

Coach: PA has a strong AAA XC programs. Single A is a complete joke.

1A schools are MUCH smaller than 3A schools. It's not surprising that 3A schools tend to be better. However, the top few 1A teams were better than the last few 3A teams yesterday, even on the girls side, and on the boys side even the top half of 1A was roughly on par with the bottom half of 3A.

Considering the situation, I wouldn't call the PA 1A scene a 'complete joke'

I’d actually argue that many PA 1A and 2A schools would be very competitive with small schools in other states. Of course most big schools are better. But that’s not really the point. And anyone who is basing anything off of times at the state meet: the course is hilly, challenging, and relatively slow. It was also pretty water logged Saturday.

Fred Gwynne wrote:

coach wrote:

Pennsylvania has strong XC programs. I'm surprised that this was pulled off at its state meet.

Coach: PA has a strong AAA XC programs. Single A is a complete joke.

How fast have you run?

Schools of 500 would likely be 2A in PA. 1A schools are SMALL. For instance, a local team that got 7th in single A I believe has a graduating class of roughly 40 kids.

Let them compete wrote:

It shouldn't matter how they qualify, if they get 5 runners to the meet, they should be able to compete for the championship.

Also, this is the only correct answer.

Sounds like Maine is a pretty fair state. Three class (A, B , C) state meets. Two regions (north and south) per class. Top half of the teams qualify from each region rounding up along with the first 30 finishers automatically advance whether their team made it or not. So this scenario would not happen. Obviously maine doesnt have the same depth as a lot of states. Also New England has a championship meet and Maine sends the winner of each class plus the next three best teams after combining all classes and rescoring the meet. Individual champions advanced plus the next 22 best runners as well.

Whats the big deal; don't be a douche, They won it fair and square. You got somefin' against Catlicks, punk?

Individual athletes should be removed from team scoring.

Butler Fan wrote:

Since they did not qualify as a team, they should not score as a team.

Why not? I'm not saying that to be a jerk, just curious as to the rationale.

Saratoga qualified 4 girls as individuals in 1999. Looks like they clearly would have been second at state that year.

A big hell NO.

The team didn't qualify for state, the individuals did. How does the team win state they were not there according to the qualifying rules.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

Let them compete wrote:

It shouldn't matter how they qualify, if they get 5 runners to the meet, they should be able to compete for the championship.

Also, this is the only correct answer.

Agreed, the team with the lowest score won. Or you could award it someone who qualified legitimately and they can live with being state champs with a big old * to the title.

Fred Gwynne wrote:

coach wrote:

Pennsylvania has strong XC programs. I'm surprised that this was pulled off at its state meet.

Coach: PA has a strong AAA XC programs. Single A is a complete joke.

That's just ignorant. Even AAA schools have trouble recruiting runners to complete a deep roster. Except maybe the top 10 schools. Competition for athletes with other sports draws many potential runners away.

There have been very good A class runners. Depth can be a definite problem. Although some of these small schools don't have much more to offer than XC as far as other sports. Parents of promising runners may move to other districts that can offer more competitive teammates and track in the spring

Question: Does New York really qualify just five individuals now? In my day - many decades ago - it was seven.

And the top ten runners from each Section (out of 14: 7 from the winning team plus the seven individuals) determined the Sectional winner and places.

It seems PA qualifying policy has a need for at-large bids. We have a system where you can advance if your team time is faster than automatically advancing teams in other divisions. Good for that team!

epicTCK wrote:

lease wrote:

I think something like this happened, many moons ago, in the NCAA.

IIRC Williams College had a policy (at the time) of not advancing teams to NCAA D3 championship competitions. But in the Regional meet, five women from Williams qualified individually. So they ran as a team in the National meet.

I believe the NCAA and/or Williams took action to make sure this could not happen again.

Why would the college have such a policy?

Until 1993, the NESCAC prohibited member schools from sending teams in any sport to compete at nationals. Different schools had different rules for whether or not individuals would be allowed to compete.

NESCAC still doesn't allow football teams to compete in the Division III tournament.

bruce denton's gold medal wrote:

Butler Fan wrote:

Since they did not qualify as a team, they should not score as a team.

Why not? I'm not saying that to be a jerk, just curious as to the rationale.

Exactly like I said. Under their rules, the top 2 TEAMS advance. They did not run well enough as a team to finish in the top 2 at their regional (or whatever it was). Since their TEAM did not advance, they are individuals from that point on.