National Team Rankings as of Nov. 17, these ONLY include states that have already had their NXN Regional races! That means that of this update, the only regions included are the Northwest, Midwest, Heartland, Southwest and South. I will add to this list as other regions finish up.
(NXN-Midwest teams adjusted since previous post – they felt a little underrated and the new adjustment has a slightly better correlation with the state meets. I also changed the formula to give more weighting towards best performances, lessening the impact of teams running in weaker races vs. teams getting pushed to better performances)
Boys Top 40 Teams –
1. American Fork UT - Utah 5A State Champion; NXN-Southwest Champion
2. Southlake Carroll TX - Texas 5A State Champion; NXN-South Champion
3. North Central WA - Washington 3A State Champion; NXN-Northwest Champion
4. York IL - Illinois 3A State Champion; NXN-Midwest Champion
5. Davis UT - Utah 5A State Runner-up; NXN-Southwest Runner-up
6. Carmel IN - Indiana State Champion; NXN-Midwest Runner-up
7. Highland Milford MI - Michigan Division 1 State Champion -
8. Bismarck ND - North Dakota A State Champion; NXN-Heartland Champion
9. Cincinnati St. Xavier OH - Ohio Division 1 State Champion; NXN-Midwest third place
10. Kamiakin WA - Washington 3A State Runner-up; NXN-Northwest Runner-up
11. Summit OR - Oregon 5A State Champion; NXN-Northwest third place
12. Fort Wayne Carroll IN - Indiana State Runner-up; NXN-Midwest seventh place (s/h)
13. Los Alamos NM - New Mexico 4A State Champion; NXN-Southwest third place
14. Herriman UT - Utah 4A State Champion; NXN-Southwest fourth place
15. Cleveland NM - New Mexico 5A State Champion; NXN-Southwest fifth place
16. Dowling Catholic IA - Iowa 4A State Champion; NXN-Heartland Runner-up
17. The Woodlands TX - Texas 5A State Runner-up; NXN-South Runner-up
18. Columbus North IN - Indiana State sixth place; NXN-Midwest fourth place
19. Lyons Township IL - Illinois 3A State third place; NXN-Midwest fifth place
20. Valparaiso IN - Indiana State third place; NXN-Midwest sixth place
21. Warsaw Community IN - Indiana State fourth place -
22. Hamilton Southeastern IN - Indiana State fifth place -
23. Mountain Vista CO - Colorado 5A State Champion; NXN-Southwest sixth place
24. Seattle Prep WA - Washington 3A State fourth place; NXN-Northwest fourth place
25. Westfield IN - Indiana State seventh place -
26. Edina MN - Minnesota 2A State Runner-up; NXN-Heartland third place
27. Stillwater MN - Minnesota 2A State Champion; NXN-Heartland fourth place
28. Waterford Mott MI - Michigan Division 1 State Runner-up -
29. Mountain View UT - Utah 4A State third place; NXN-Southwest seventh place
30. Fairview CO - Colorado 5A State Runner-up; NXN-Southwest eighth place
31. Bonneville UT - Utah 4A State Runner-up; NXN-Southwest ninth place
32. Ogden UT - Utah 3A State Champion; NXN-Southwest tenth place
33. Perham MN - Minnesota 1A State Champion; NXN-Heartland fifth place
34. Wayzata MN - Minnesota 2A State third place; NXN-Heartland sixth place
35. Palatine IL - Illinois 3A State ninth place; NXN-Midwest eighth place
36. O'Fallon IL - Illinois 3A State Runner-up; NXN-Midwest ninth place
37. Jones Prep IL - Illinois 2A State Champion; NXN-Midwest tenth place
38. Jesuit OR - Oregon 6A State Runner-up; NXN-Northwest fifth place
39. Siuslaw OR - Oregon 4A State Champion; NXN-Northwest sixth place
40. Nathan Hale WA - Washington 3A State third place; NXN-Northwest seventh place
Girls Top 40 Teams –
1. Southlake Carroll TX - Texas 5A State Champion; NXN-South Champion
2. Coeur D'Alene ID - Idaho 5A State Champion; NXN-Northwest Champion
3. Davis UT - Utah 5A State Champion; NXN-Southwest Champion
4. Fort Collins CO - Colorado 5A State Runner-up; NXN-Southwest Runner-up
5. Pine Creek CO - Colorado 5A State third place; NXN-Southwest third place
6. Carmel IN - Indiana State Champion; NXN-Midwest Champion
7. Naperville North IL - Illinois 3A State Champion; NXN-Midwest Runner-up
8. Xavier Prep AZ - Arizona Division 1 State Champion; NXN-Southwest fourth place
9. Camas WA - Washington 4A State Champion; NXN-Northwest Runner-up
10. Park City UT - Utah 3A State Champion; NXN-Southwest fifth place
11. Birmingham Seaholm MI - Michigan Division 1 State Champion -
12. Grosse Pointe South MI - Michigan Division 1 State Runner-up -
13. New Trier IL - Illinois 3A State fourth place; NXN-Midwest third place
14. The Woodlands TX - Texas 5A State fourth place; NXN-South Runner-up
15. Wayzata MN - Minnesota 2A State Champion; NXN-Heartland Champion
16. Lake Park IL - Illinois 3A State Runner-up -
17. Mason OH - Ohio Division 1 State Champion; NXN-Midwest fourth place
18. Glenbard West IL - Illinois 3A State third place -
19. Arrowhead WI - Wisconsin Division 1 State Champion; NXN-Heartland fourth place (s/h)
20. Grant OR - Oregon 6A State Champion -
21. Monarch CO - Colorado 5A State Champion; NXN-Southwest seventh place (s/h)
22. Saline MI - Michigan Division 1 State third place -
23. West Lafayette IN - Indiana State Runner-up; NXN-Midwest fifth place
24. Glacier Peak WA - Washington 3A State Champion; NXN-Northwest third place
25. Ogden UT - Utah 3A State Runner-up; NXN-Southwest sixth place
26. Pleasant Valley IA - Iowa 4A State Champion; NXN-Heartland ninth place (s/h)
27. The Classical Academy CO - Colorado 4A State Champion; NXN-Southwest eighth place
28. Humble Kingwood TX - Texas 5A State Runner-up; NXN-South third place
29. Palatine IL - Illinois 3A State fifth place; NXN-Midwest sixth place
30. American Fork UT - Utah 5A State Runner-up; NXN-Southwest ninth place
31. Mountain Crest UT - Utah 4A State Champion; NXN-Southwest tenth place
32. Neenah WI - Wisconsin Division 1 State Runner-up; NXN-Heartland fifth place (s/h)
33. Eagan MN - Minnesota 2A State Runner-up; NXN-Heartland Runner-up
34. College Park TX - Texas 5A State sixth place; NXN-South fourth place
35. Los Alamos NM - New Mexico 4A State Champion; NXN-Southwest 12th place (s/h)
36. Mountain Vista CO - Colorado 5A State fourth place; NXN-Southwest 11th place
37. Fort Wayne Carroll IN - Indiana State sixth place; NXN-Midwest seventh place
38. Yorkville IL - Illinois 2A State Champion; NXN-Midwest eighth place
39. Prospect IL - Illinois 3A State 12th place; NXN-Midwest ninth place
40. Columbus North IN - Indiana State third place; NXN-Midwest tenth place
Note: For clarification, these are how my rankings are derived:
1. Team finish at NXN Regionals
2. Team finish at State Meet (if the team didn’t run at NXN Regionals)
3. Region ranking (meaning I don’t rank Team A and Team B as #3 and 5 in their region, but then switch order and rank them #13 and 11 in the national rankings)
4. Caliber of performance of the top five athletes over the course of the season (with the greatest weighting on NXN National performance, followed by NXN Regional performance, followed by State Meet performance, followed by BEST results since mid October, followed by BEST results since early October, etc.).
This does not, unfortunately, label the absolute best teams because not every team (and the teams they previously raced against) will run exactly the same at every meet they attend. For example, the Stillwater MN boys did not have a great day at NXN-Heartland, and as such they have to be ranked behind teams that did run well (and beat them), but that doesn’t mean they were not the better team this year – just on that day. If one looks at Stillwater’s season as a whole, you would have a hard time saying they weren’t on par with Bismarck ND, the top finishing team at the Heartland meet.
For teams that are missing runners during the NXN series or at the state meet, I will make exceptions for IF their runners compete in at least one of the championship (State/NXR/NXN) meets. You can see examples of this in the girls Heartland rankings, where Arrowhead WI didn’t run their full varsity squad and didn’t get penalized for it, maintaining their HL#2 ranking despite finishing fourth at NXN-HL. Same with the Fort Carroll IN boys.
Note, also, that once we get to NXN Nationals, I try to keep in line with the finish order there, but if you’ve noticed my rankings in previous years there are some cases in which that doesn’t happen… with NXN as deep and elite as it is, there is often very little difference at the national meet between, say the #5 team and #10 team. As such, a slightly off day or slightly good day can result in significant movement in team scoring, exaggerating the difference between the teams. Because of this extreme situation, it seems more reasonable to not going STRICTLY by the finishing position at NXN Nationals if there is a SIGNIFICANT difference in the teams over the course of the season (again, with most significant weighting of results going back to NXN Nationals, NXN Regionals, State meet, best since mid October, etc.). The most recent examples of that would be the NXN#6 American Fork boys last year: American Fork soundly beat NXN#3 Davis UT at NXN-Southwest, and at Utah State, and their caliber of performances throughout the season indicated they were probably the third best team in the nation. But they finished sixth in Portland as one of their runners had a rough day. The difference was so significant that I looked for a reasonable place to move them up to and came to the conclusion that the two point difference between the fifth place finisher, Palatine IL ( who beat American Fork 255-257 in the race and had a team time of 12 seconds SLOWER than American Fork, and was an at-large team after finishing third at NXN-MW to two teams finishing behind American Fork) wasn’t significant enough to stop me from moving American Fork up a spot, but the gap between American Fork and fourth place Arcadia CA (183-257 in points, 81:00-81:41 in total team time, not to mention Arcadia CA looking like the best team in their region over the course of the season) wasn’t small enough to allow me to jump American Fork over them, leaving American Fork ranked fifth at the end of the year despite looking like the third best team that year, and despite finishing sixth at the national championship race.
