End of Season Finale
The XC season for the guys was wild and exciting, which means of course that trying to find any consistent threads to base rankings around is very tough. In the post season teams bobbed around in relative placement to each other between, sectionals, state championships, Federation meet, NXN-NY qualifier, and even a final flip for the two state teams at Nationals. The sorting out for the 155 ranking spots for the four classes in the final rankings could be done in an infinite amount of perfectly logical ways for a state that has no meet that brings all of the top teams together. So we've taken a stab trying to put all the pieces together, but there is no total consistency for teams with varying schedules, some of whom packed it up after a run at sectionals and others of whom like Guilderland continued to run strongly in the weeks afterward and greatly improved on the sectional showing.
If the final rankings had appeared in mid November, Corning would have been rated #1 after a season when the Hawks were the top team at Pre-States, McQuaid, and States. But the NXN-NY regional now serves as that final in-state meet where all of the top 10 teams run. NXN-NY pushed Corning back to #3, and the final position for the top two teams was decided last weekend at Nationals as Liverpool repeated as the state's top team with a 9th place finish and Fayetteville-Manlius was again 2nd in NY with a 19th place in Portland. A Class C team again made its presence felt near the top as Watkins Glen followed up on its big Federation triumph with a 4th place at NXN-NY. The order for Warwick Valley and Saratoga in the overall 5th and 6th positions could be switched since the Blue Streaks topped the Wildcats at NXN-NY, but Warwick Valley was 2nd at States to Saratoga's 4th. Class B champ Burnt Hills was a clear pick for 7th overall, a surprising Smithtown team was 8th, Mount Academy struck another blow for the little teams at #9, and Ithaca rounded out a great year for Section 4 teams by claiming the 10th spot. CHSAA champ Xavier was 11th at NXN-NY.
The rankings are based for the most part on how the teams performed in their final meet of the season, which for the great majority of teams was their section's state qualifier meet or the Federation championship for the New York City schools, but for the top schools also includes the state championship or the NXN-NY regional meet. However, some teams like St. Anthony's competed in the Federation championship without one or two key runners, so we have tried our best to balance out the performances for teams that participated in more than one post season meet.
After a really wild and crazy XC season, I'm really hoping that the teams can all be consistent and well-behaved next year so that rankings are a snap to do. Cheers to all.
