New York XC tends to start a little slower than the rest of the country. I look around at most other states and they have all of these huge early season meets, while in NY, most teams haven't even opened up yet while others are going to some smaller meets scattered around the state.
Section 2 has the Shaker Invitational and the Guilderland Invitational. Both are medium size invitational but should start to give us a clue as to how deep Section 2 is this year. Section 2 is always the best region in the state and probably the country and this year should be no different. The Blackbird Invitational is also held in Section 2.
Long Island has the Jim Smith Invitational at the stories Sunken Meadow State Park. The NYSPHSAA Champs are there this year so some more teams may be out at this meet this year. That goes for all meets at Sunken Meadow this year, and there is one every weekend. Jim Smith runs seperate races for every grade, which can get confusing for scouting and ranking but is a nice change of pace.
New York City has Van Cortland Park where there are races every weekend. The Regis Invitational goes off for the boys and the Villa Bears Invitational for the girls. There are some college meets in the morning.
Section 1 has two meets. The Red Raider Run on Friday is held at Anthony Wayne State Park in Rockland County and will have about 20 teams, including many from Section 9. The Somers Big Red Invitational will be on Saturday and has 27 teams attending. This meet runs all varsity and JV kids in the same race.
Out of state meets with NY teams include the Randolph Invitational, which is probably the most interesting. It's a night time meet run under the lights and it's a ton of fun. I took my team there a few years back and they loved it. The Spiked Shoe Invitational at Penn State is a big meet and there will be two NY teams there - Bayport and Rush Henrietta. There will also be college races and NY's Columbia, Geneseo, and Syracuse are all scheduled to race.
Other events being contested in Central and Western NY include the Chittenango Invitational, Frankilnville Invitational, Elmira Invitational, Long Point Invitational, Maine-Endwell Invitational, and West Seneca West Invitational.
Links to all of the meets are posted at the right under "Tagged in this Article"
TOP: Craig Weiss of Shaker was 22nd at Feds last year.
RIGHT: Scott Anderson of East Aurora placed 18th at Feds last year and is the 3rd best returner in the state.
pics by Tim Fulton/ArmoryTrack.com