Following Week of Saturday, October 1
The main focus of the third week of the rankings was the McQuaid meet, as the results of the meet's seeded AAA, AA, and A races produced a few changes in the four classes' ranks. The leaders for each of the classes remained the same following the McQuaid action, and the John Killian, St. Anthony's, Auburn, and a fruitful Brewster 2 race also factored into the rankings.
As with the Pre-States results last week, a bracketed number following a McQuaid result in the Last Week's Action column indicates a merge place. In a number of cases, teams switched order with each other in a race result versus merge results, and in that case the race result is given more weight. Results based on performances against teams of roughly the same size are better indicators of strength than merge results that bring in large to tiny schools in in one big result, but the merge does have some baseline value. Note that there was an error in the merge that combined the West Seneca East and Seneca teams, so I have reduced all merge places from 9 to 30 by 1.
Some teams had a reduced squad in a McQuaid varsity race and instead put many of their strongest runners in the Sophomore competition. Some other teams were running partial squads or had a top runner missing possibly due to SAT testing, and we have tried to balance off strong performances at Pre-States versus lesser ones at McQuaid. But as always in the very messy sport of XC, the many different team stories lead to some chewy ranking debates that really have no right or wrong answer at this point of the season.
Cheers to all, and get out to the Manhattan at Van Cortlandt Park for action that just can't be beat..
