Thursday, October 3, 2013

New National Team Rankings posted

Posted this morning on DyeStat.com: New National Team Rankings for Boys and Girls!

I'm sure there are plenty of surprises in there - it is early in the season, and teams haven't exactly sorted themselves out all that well yet. But it looks like it'll be a competitive year for the national titles on both sides. Join the discussion on the message boards if you have any questions, I will try to answer them.

Also, three things you can expect in the next update:

I have a feeling the South will rise again. The South (mostly Texas) isn't really represented that well this time around, but this weekend is the big weekend in Texas with the Nike South invitational and McNeil's state preview. Expect some teams to make a bigger push after those results are in.

The South will rise again (Part II) - The Great American Festival is this weekend. It's the NXN-Southeast Preview meet, and includes teams from the Northeast like Saratoga Springs NY, Bishop Hendricken RI and Cardinal O'Hara PA. If the Southeast teams run well there (and plenty of good Southeast teams are entered), they could move up a notch or two in the rankings. Good competition leads to good times, which leads to better rankings!

Utah is good (again), and their girls rankings will get even stronger. One of the best teams in the state, Park City, is ranked with a caveat: one of their frontrunners, McKenzie Bothner, hasn't run since the Murray Invitational on September 6. Once she runs again, expect Park City to move significantly up the rankings (though they are already sitting at US#22!)

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Links to some ratings

For those looking for ratings of recent races...

Bill Meylan, as always, has posted several of his own on Tullyrunners.

As for my ratings, here are a few links to my posts on the Dyestat forum:

Mountain West MT - Bozeman girls and Makenna Morley broke course records

Bellevue WA - Nothing nation-worthy, but good Washington/Northwest races with teams like Eisenhower, Tahoma, Nathan Hale. Plus I believe the first posted ratings for frosh standout Sophie Cantine.

Nebo UT - Fast/flat 3 mile at altitude featuring American Fork, Bingham, Lone Peak, Orem, Riverton, etc. (lots of the best in Utah, and therefore among the best in the Southwest)

Colorado Results including Cerake Geberkidane and the Monarch girls at Pat Patten, as well as Mountain Vista at Dave Sanders. I'll try to add in some more, at least the TCA Titan Thunder meet, at some point this week.

Nike Pre-Nationals OR Danner Boys and Danner Girls - races have to be done separately, because it was as wet as is typical at NXN (rain storm came through here a couple months early), and windy to boot.

Stanford CA - great individual showdown with Joe Hardy (Seattle Prep WA) travelling down to square off against Blake Haney and Estevan DeLaRosa (among others). Oh, and don't forget Arcadia boys and Anna Maxwell in the girls race!

McQuaid NY - Unionville rises to the occasion in their match-up against Pre-Season US#1 and 7-time defending NXN champions Fayetteville-Manlius. Some very good individuals on both side as well, and a solid boys matchup including three of the best teams in New York.

Palatine IL - York boys win again (St. Xavier KY also at the meet), while Palatine girls take out Assumption KY.

Culver IN - Lots of Indiana's best, as well as Mason from OH. As usual, Carmel held out some of their girls, but they still dominated with 23 points!

I'll be posting the Griak results, once they are up on Raceberryjam (to do the ratings the quickest and easiest way, it helps A LOT if the results are in the same format as others I am comparing them to... and for the Heartland, that's Raceberryjam's format since that is what is by far the most prevalent in both Minnesota and Iowa). Wayzata girls looked EXTREMELY good in that meet, if you haven't checked the results yet, running an 18:47.92 average on a tough 5k course and utterly smashing (58-162-182) a pair of teams that will be nationally ranked (probably in the top 30 if not top 20) on Thursday.