MileSplit NY is once more kicking off the previews of another XC season like no other with an in-depth series of articles that will continue through the month!
Following
on a 2020-21 year for cross country that was shortened or missing
entirely for teams in New York and was held in the fall in some places
and the spring in others, this year the outlook seems more promising for
an extended schedule that will culminate with state and national
championships. Still, in mid August we are keeping our XC fingers
crossed that all the sections and conferences can be restored to the
traditional fall slate of action.
We begin coverage of this year's XC season with previews that will try to pull together the somewhat murky info from last year's XC meets along with more insights from the track season's long distance races. In 2020, only Section 5 and 6 and the CHSAA held championships that fairly closely resembled their usual local competitions, though many of the other sections held large end-of-season alternatives in November or April. In the NYC area, however, the NYAIS independent schools had no XC season and the PSAL public schools had neither XC nor track and field competition. So yes, this year we begin the XC campaign with a lot more questions than in past years.
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The
previews and rankings for the XC runners and teams will as usual be
based as much as possible on the speed ratings posted by Tully Runners
rather than the raw "best times" generally used in other states. Speed
ratings for XC runners are composed from comparing the times from
individuals on a wide variety of courses under varying conditions and
are much more informative than the "best time" lists.
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The toughest task is writing the previews for the "Federation" group of conference teams from the PSAL, NYSAIS, and CHSAA schools mainly in the NYC area along with a few around Buffalo. The PSAL public schools and NYSAIS independent schools had no XC season in the spring or fall, and the PSAL also had an extremely limited track and field presence in 2021 while the NYSAIS also had a much reduced slate of action. The CHSAA in both NYC and Buffalo did have maybe the most normal XC seasons of any association in the state, if you can call the absence of big invitationals like the Manhattan and McQuaid and the Federation championship as anything close to normal.
So there is little to go on for previews here. Even the NYC group of the CHSAA has limited data because 11 of the top 20 finishers in last year's conference championship were seniors, and all of the top teams got hit very hard by graduation. It may be the Monsignor Martin championship group out west has the clearest picture going ahead because 17 of last year's top 20 are expected back.
Overall, not much to go on for the Federation group of teams, and this year should be a time of huge changes and hopefully a big wave of newcomers to talk about.
Check out the preseason previews below.
PREVIEW OF RUNNERS | PREVIEW OF Teams |
|---|---|
CHSAA Individuals | CHSAA Teams |
PSAL Individuals | PSAL Teams |
NYSAIS Individuals | NYSAIS Teams |