Saturday, September 24, 2016

Early Returns: Sep. 24 weekend

Some good racing already for the NW athletes and teams. Here is a very quick preliminary look at the results so far:

Mountain West Classic MT (200.0 ~ 14:20ish) = Bozeman MT swept the team titles, Amir Ado broke up the Montana boys up front by finishing second (15:01.47) to Bozeman's Chase Equall (14:58.95). Bigger individual race was on the girls side, where All-American Annie Hill opened up a gap in the second mile (coming through in 11:16.22 to Tiahna Vladic's 11:20.10), but it all changed in the last mile as Hill struggled and slipped to 12th place while Vladic pulled with with the win in 17:04.63.

Nike Portland OR (200.0 ~ 14:50ish) = Timpanogos UT swept the team titles, with both individual duels living up to their billings as Joe Benson (Timpanogos UT) edged Tibebu Proctor (Northwest WA) 14:54.16 to 14:56.01 for the boys title and Jordan Oakes (Holy Names Academy WA) ran 17:27.40 to beat defending champ Ember Stratton (Sunset OR)'s 17:34.50.

Bob Firman ID (no report yet)

Roy Griak MN (no girls results yet): Early reports show Mountain View ID running very well, highlighted by freshman standout Lexy Halladay coming away with the win in 18:36 on the slow & muddy course. Mountain View's #2 was also among the top five early on, though no updates have been posted beyond that yet. Girls Top-10 results show that Halladay won by 19 seconds over North Dakota state champ Karly Ackley, though it looks like MV's #2 slipped out of the top 10 after running up front early on. Notable, however, is that Halladay's margin of victory came entirely in the last 2k: great, seasoned racing from the youngster! Wayzata MN have been announced as the boys team champion with 91 points, though Mountain View finished a strong tenth with 379 points and challenging several Heartland Top 15-25 type squads along the way. Charles Paul led the Mavericks with his 10th place finish (16:51.29), my early guess is that that will end up somewhere near a 175 or 176 rating. The big question going into this meet was how Mountain View would fare against Minnesota power and US Top 5-10 squad Edina (too bad Willmar MN didn't also run at this meet, as another Top 10 team would have been even more intriguing!) and also typical Midwest power Naperville North IL and one of the better California teams in Claremont. Team standings show that Mountain View finished second place finish. If Naperville North secures the Midwest's #2 spot at NXN-MW (they are ranked MW#3 by Dyestat at the moment), Claremont claims the California #2 or #3 spot, ad Mountain View ends up third in the Northwest (although as neither Summit or Sunset have looked all that strong, MV is probably the #2 team right now), that could mean very good things for the NW girls At-Large chances.

Bellevue WA (no varsity results posted yet)


(also, a note for you national followers who are also paying attention to Milesplit's tweets... disregard their comments re: The Woodlands results at Rim Rock, as that is actually The Woodlands College Park - another strong Texas squad, but not the US Top-5/10 program that won the Brenham Hillacious meet again this year, sweeping the top four places and putting six guys in the top 8)


EDIT2: Top team (early estimate) averages so far =

Boys Teams at 160+ averages:

182.6 Timpanogos UT (15:41.76 @ Nike Portland OR)
175.4 Bozeman MT (15:30.46 @ Mountain West MT)
172.6 Eleanor Roosevelt CA (16:11.24 @ Nike Portland OR)
171.0 Mira Costa CA (16:15.89 @ Nike Portland OR)
170.1 Henry Jackson WA (16:18.77 @ Nike Portland OR)
169.8 Summit OR (16:19.68 @ Nike Portland OR)
169.7 Camas WA (16:19.91 @ Nike Portland OR)
169.3 South Eugene OR (16:21.02 @ Nike Portland OR)
167.6 Lewis & Clark WA (15:52.92 @ Mountain West MT)
167.5 McFarland CA (16:26.31 @ Nike Portland OR)
167.4 Mission Viejo CA (16:26.57 @ Nike Portland OR)
165.6 Cathedral CA (16:32.19 @ Nike Portland OR)
164.9 Wilson OR (16:34.05 @ Nike Portland OR)
164.7 Joel Ferris WA (16:01.27 @ Mountain West MT)
164.5 Tesoro CA (16:35.25 @ Nike Portland OR)
163.9 West Salem OR (16:37.19 @ Nike Portland OR)
163.1 Sunset OR (16:39.39 @ Nike Portland OR)
162.6 Gig Harbor WA (16:40.91 @ Nike Portland OR)
161.7 Franklin OR (16:43.74 @ Nike Portland OR)
161.5 Warren CA (16:44.32 @ Nike Portland OR)
160.7 Mount Si WA (16:46.50 @ Nike Portland OR)


Girls Teams at 90+ averages:

122.3 Bozeman MT (18:02.88 @ Mountain West MT)
117.1 Sunset OR (18:56.04 @ Nike Portland OR)
114.3 Timpanogos UT (19:04.30 @ Nike Portland OR)
110.5 Billings Senior MT (18:36.55 @ Mountain West MT)
110.1 Summit OR (19:16.80 @ Nike Portland OR)
109.6 Sheldon OR (19:18.31 @ Nike Portland OR)
108.0 Homestead CA (19:22.81 @ Nike Portland OR)
106.3 Holy Names Academy WA (19:27.90 @ Nike Portland OR)
105.9 Bishop Amat CA (19:29.29 @ Nike Portland OR)
105.6 Mira Costa CA (19:30.20 @ Nike Portland OR)
104.9 Camas WA (19:32.09 @ Nike Portland OR)
104.8 Missoula Hellgate MT (18:52.95 @ Mountain West MT)
103.9 Northwest WA (19:35.05 @ Nike Portland OR)
101.8 Tesoro CA (19:41.40 @ Nike Portland OR)
101.5 Central Valley WA (19:02.35 @ Mountain West MT)
 99.8 Mead WA (19:07.15 @ Mountain West MT)
 96.6 Eleanor Roosevelt CA (19:56.83 @ Nike Portland OR)
 96.5 McFarland CA (19:57.07 @ Nike Portland OR)
 95.5 Glacier MT (19:19.56 @ Mountain West MT)
 95.0 North Central WA (19:21.10 @ Mountain West MT)
 93.6 Missoula Sentinel MT (19:25.02 @ Mountain West MT)
 92.4 Liberty-Issaquah WA (20:09.16 @ Nike Portland OR)


EDIT3: Roy Griak boys results posted, reflected in the summary but no ratings estimates yet... boys, if 200.0 ~ 15:35 as expected, should be around a 158 average.

EDIT4: Griak girls team results are out, MV's team average should be around 116 with same qualification as the boys above.



EDIT5: A quick weather comparison with previous years to put the Griak results in perspective....

The last year to have similar weather leading up to Griak was 2010, when 2.42 inches of rain fell in the week leading up to the race (mostly on Thursday, with about a third of an inch on Tuesday and Wednesday) and temperatures were in the mid/high 50s with very little wind during the races. This year, there was 3.60 inches of rain that fell during the week (mostly on Wednesday, with about half an inch on Thursday and a third on Friday) with temperatures in the mid/high 60s with a fair amount of win (10-15 mph w/ gusts around 20). The temperature isn't a big deal (IMO anything under 70 is absolutely fine for racing, though that's not an opinion I've ever tried to defend with scientific proof), though the rain and wind probably made this year a bit slower (by how much, I don't know). Notable results from 2010:

Allie Woodward WI won the girls race in 18:22.3, with Olivia Anderson (Cherry Creek CO) and Shelby Houlihan (Sioux City East IA) the only others under 19 at 18:34.5 and 18:37.2. Woodward went on to finish sixth at the Footlocker National championships that year as well as 14th at Nike Cross Nationals, while Shelby Houlihan was 28th at NXN and Olivia Anderson was 6th in the ever-tough Colorado 5A State race. The top three teams were Dowling Catholic IA (NXN Nationals #17 and NXN Heartland Runner-up) with a 19:56.7 average, Cherry Creek CO (didn't run NXR, though IIRC I had them ranked in the US Top 50) with a 19:50.3 average, and Mountain View ID (NXN Northwest #4) with a 19:57.8 average. This year's top squads averaged 19:49.3 (Edina MN), 19:58.1 (Mountain View ID), 20:05.0 (Naperville North IL), and 20:15.1 (Claremont CA). Heartland #7 Returner Karley Ackley (who ran 10:32 at state this spring) was the only other runner under 19 at 18:57.1.

On the 2010 guys side, Adam Zutz MN won the boys race in 15:52.7 in a close race with Sam Hacker WI (15:53.8), but they had plenty of competition just behind them with Conor Wells IA (15:56.2), Devon Young MO (15:57.3), Marshall Moyer IA (15:59.4), Lukas Gemar MN (16:02.2), Tanner Ahrendt SD (16:06.6), Jake Leingang ND (16:07.4), Josh Thorson MN (16:09.0), and Steve Dado MN (16:09.8) rounding out the top 10. Several of those runners would run in post season meets: Thorston led Wayzata at NXN with his 52nd place finish, Zutz was the second NXN Heartland individual and 23rd at nationals, Moyer was 43rd at NXN, and Leingang was 64th. Madison West WI  (NXN Heartland #6) won the team race that year and averaged 16:39.0, with NXN qualifier Edina MN (NXN Nationals #18) second at 16:51.9, Shawnee Mission Northwest KS (NXN Heartland #3) at 16:49.9, Marquette University WI at 16:53.3, and Wayzata MN (NXN Heartland Champions and NXN Nationals #9) at 16:54.1, and Rosemount MN (NXN Heartland #5) at 17:00.2. This year, Seth Hirsch NE (#9 at both NXN and FLN last year; #4 returner from NXN and top returner from FLN) won the race in 15:44.8 with Patrick Bose IA (16:17.52), Seth Eliason MN (16:22.44), and Khalid Hussein MN (16:22.67) running under 16:30. Bose ran 9:19.29 this spring and Khalid Hussein ran 9:10.97 this spring, and Eliason was 16th at NXN Heartland last fall. This year's top three teams were Wayzata MN (17:04.08), Claremont CA (17:13.71), and Millard West NE (17:13.97)

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