Following Week of Saturday, September 30
The biggest action by far during the last Saturday in September was at the McQuaid Invitational in Rochester where ranked teams from all 11 NYSPHSAA sections plus the CHSAA from New York City were running. The rankings for the small schools in Classes C and D were largely set up at McQuaid, but Class A's Shenendehowa finally swept away the unrated cobwebs with a huge debut in the meet's AAA race, and Class B's leader East Aurora also gave the blue devil its due with a convincing win in the AA race. Because of the big mix of teams in seeded and unseeded races at McQuaid, the merge results have also been used to compare teams, though race head-to-head results take precedence when team placements get switched in a merge.
Although McQuaid was the headliner, the EJ Herrmann, John Killian, Maine-Endwell, and NYC Mayor's Cup had some big impacts in-state, and the Six Flags Wild Safari, Paul Short, and Flrunners.com meets out-of-state also contributed to some significant movements in rankings and ratings. With so many teams in action, speed ratings were rocketing upward as most teams were finally able to put together full squads. It was also one of those weekends where teams that were not running were often taking big tumbles in the rankings as the active teams surged ahead.
More changes are coming next weekend as the action spreads out to approximately seventeen meets in the state and region in the weekend before the huge Manhattan Invite.