Behind the Rankings - National - October 11, 2019

By Michael Newman

DyeStat TFX National Coordinator

[email protected]

It starts to get interesting in October when we get closer to state series meets and some of the bigger national meets snuggle close to those state area races.

In doing the Illinois rankings for over 10 years now, we pretty much have an idea of who the top teams will be in the state. This is my third year in compiling national lists. The one trend that I have noticed is that the fluency in the national lists will not slow down until the end of the month if that.

I check my lists and compare what other people that are doing this have. They don’t have any influence in what I do. Some of the practices that I apply to my lists include:

1 – Never compare raw times from course to course. I know its Cross Country 101 when it comes to state or national rankings. I’ve heard parents try to use this analogy in comparing team to team. When I first started, I tried that method and came up horribly inaccurate. The emergence of speed ratings over the past five years has made it a little easier nationally and in states. Speed Ratings Get you to Point A. Knowing the teams, top five splits and gaps between the runners gets you to Point B.

2 – Leave the pre-season hype in your notebook. You do research all summer to get you to your initial list. Then when you start the season, you get stuck in the hype and keep a team in a higher spot than they deserve. I’m always looking at the results and see if a team is warranted to be as high as they could be or lower.

3 – Don’t fall in love with a team. There is a team in Illinois that always finds their way in the hunt for a state title in November. Their program slowly works to that stage by racing in training flats until a certain time. Every year, I see them move up the rankings and I know it is spike time. But, I do not use that reasoning to move them up early. I hate using subjective reasoning to build my lists. Be objective, trust your numbers. Keep feelings out of the configuration but trust your head that what you have is close to accurate. There is no accurate lists. The only accurate lists are when the results are announced in November / December.

4 – Don’t be afraid to check your numbers again. I would usually give Joe Newton of York High School how the Illinois State Meet would fall the day before the meet. Two days before the state meet, I gave my list to Mr. Newton. He looked it over and said “you think we are going to score 30 to 33 points? That’s incredible.”

His response had me re-do what I did staying away from my initial notes. I came up with almost the same numbers. I told him that when met after the kids went to bed the night before state. I thought I was so off. Those numbers could not be accurate.

The next day, York set an Illinois State Record scoring only 24 points.

Always check when you think you did something wrong. But sometimes believe in the impossible that you know what you are talking about.

That gets us to the Boys and Girls lists. Ladies first.

GIRLS NATIONAL

10/10 National | 10/10 Regional

The one thing that I heard in the past week is that there was no way that Beavercreek OH could beat defending National Champion Bend Summit OR. Beavercreek had over a two minute split on their top five. They could not match up.

So, forget the title. Summit ran a fantastic race at NXN last year. Their trend last year is similar to what we are seeing this season as they are improving a little bit every race showing that this group should peak around December like last year. Yes, Summit is deep. Incredibly deep.

I have them at #4 nationally. I have Beavercreek at #1 but the margin between the four schools (Cherry Creek at #2, Fayetteville-Manlius at #3) is extremely slim. We could see some bouncing going on in the lists over the next few weeks.

When I saw the first meet where Taylor Ewert ran with Beavercreek at the Spartan Classic on September 13, their top four split was tight, but the gap between four and five was about at 2 minutes. Roland Hopkins, who is the editor of ILXCSpeedRatings.com in Illinois, and I agreed that the gap was too big but should be something to watch for over the next few meets. Ewert did not run the next meet at the McQuaid Meet. Their split from three to four was 90 seconds. Beavercreek OH looked impressive when they dominated the Nike Valley Twilight Invitational last Saturday. The split from fourth runner Juliann Williams to fifth runner Kendall Hobbs had shrunk to 75 seconds. As they head into their conference meet and their state series, we will have to keep an eye on if this trend continues. If it does, the Beavers could be tough to handle in the Nike Regional qualifying meets in November.

For fun I looked at the results from the races last weekend that Beavercreek and Summit ran and played with the stats as a dual meet. Beavercreek won that imaginary dual meet 28-29. Then again, national titles are not decided by dual meets or on paper.

It will be interesting to see what Fayetteville-Manlius does this Saturday at the Manhattan High School Invitational this Saturday. They did not compete at the Eastern States race at this meet last year, but I have a feeling they will have the race that will move them into a top spot where they are familiar at being at.

Naperville North IL was a team that was ranked among the top 10 at the beginning of the season but dropped to the 10 to 20 range in the national lists. They popped up to #6 this week after an impressive performance at the Naperville Twilight Invitational on their home course. It was their best race of the year and was accomplished without one of their top five runners from last year Campbell Petersen who has yet to race. She is scheduled to run in her conference meet a week from this Saturday.

The Clovis Invitational in California and the Hole in the Wall Invitational in Washington are the other top meets this weekend besides the shindig in the Bronx.

We are in a Golden age of Girls High School distance running in the nation. It is tougher to get into the top 35 lists than it was a couple of years ago. A point total by one school this week would have put the squad in the top 20 two years ago when I started.

The next couple of months will be fun to watch.

BOYS NATIONAL

10/10 National | 10/10 Regional

The two California teams that were on top of the list flip flopped this week. Great Oak’s performance last week at the Great American XC Festival in North Carolina puts them slightly ahead of Newbury Park. Even tough Newbury Park slammed Great Oak at Woodbridge three weeks ago, the numbers put Great Oak slightly ahead. Newbury Park, led by Nico Young, will have a chance to respond on Saturday at Clovis. Two-time defending national champion Loudoun Valley was impressive in finishing second behind Great Oak and dropped just one spot to #3.

The Manhattan HS Invitational may shake up the top 10 on the Boys list. Fayetteville-Manlius NY fell to #10 this week and have not raced since the East Syracuse-Minoa Invitational on September 14. #22 Christian Brothers NJ has hardly raced this fall and will be in the spotlight in this race. The two schools will be challenging Rhode Island squads #7 Bishop Hendricken and #8 LaSalle Academy who finished third and fourth at the Great American XC Festival last Saturday.

St. Charles East IL maintained their #5 spot in this week’s list after a strong run in winning the Peoria Central Invitational behind the individual win from Bob Liking.Their performance was better than the race at the Richard Spring Invitational run on the same Detweiller Park course on September 22. In the October 5 race, the Saints put all of their scorers under 15-minutes for the 3-mile Detweiller course with a 34 second split.

York IL started the season in most everyone’s top 10 lists. It took two clunker type races to move them out of those lists all together. The Dukes showed the potential that everyone thought they had in winning the Nile Twilight Invitational with only a 34 second split off their top runner Daniel Klysh. York received a big boost with the return of two-time national meet qualifier Ethan Kern running his first race of the season. Once Kern returns to his fitness level and towards the front of the pack, it could give York a tighter pack than they already have. York jumped back into the rankings at #6. Carmel IN, who finished second behind York, moves into the rankings at #19.