Following Week of Saturday, September 17
The first New York State XC rankings of the 2016 season follows a great weekend for big action at the Wayne, East Aurora, Suffern, and Queensbury invitationals and a satisfying menu of events that also included the New Hartford, Bob Pratt, Regis, East Syracuse-Minoa, Peconic, Section 7 Invite, Owego, Fort Plain, Jordan-Elbridge Kamikaze, and the inaugural Dan Purdy meet at Pawling..
The first rankings
week is always the toughest for a variety of reasons. Many teams have
not run yet, or have used only partial or JV type squads, or have held
back their top runner for maybe their first big run this weekend at
Pre-States or another meet. Although Class A and B teams have shown some
semblance of the squads they will be running with in mid October, many
of the smaller teams are just at the beginning of the journey to
November.
We are starting off the year with class rankings for 100 teams broken down on a 30-25-25-20 basis for A-B-C-D. That number will grow by the end of the season as more teams show their stuff, but right now that's about the right number for these murkier times. These rankings are also an unusual mixture that includes both this year's team performances along with a carry-over of the expectations from the returning runners from 2015. For the most part, teams that came into the season with high projections but that have been largely invisible so far get a pass to Week 2, when everything gets down to business of what we're seeing in 2016. We do have to give the nod to some of the early season head-to-heads, however, so it's a tricky juggling act. Teams that already have shown themselves to be high flyers get a boost from their preseason projections. We're pretty confident that the action this weekend will clearly reveal where everybody stands.
An incredible menu of choices for XC fans looms this weekend as the McDaniel-Baxter Pre-States at Chenango Valley absorbs a lot of NYSPHSAA teams, and Bowdoin, EJ Herrmann, Baldwinsville, Xavier, Suffolk Coaches, Gressler, and LeRoy kick off in NY and Six Flags Wild Safari, Ocean State, and Carlisle are jusr some of the major options for teams looking to cross the border.
As always, we include the Tully Runners speed ratings average (asterisked if using 2015 numbers) for the teams' top 5 runners plus the most recent results, but in the crazy and imperfect world of early season XC, the numbers and places shouldn't be given too much weight.
A season like none other before is blasting off all around us. Get out and catch it.
Cheers to all.