After a few months break to rest our fingers after a long and successful cross country season, we are back to write about the Winter Track County Championships for the boys and the girls.
Last year, there was a surprise winner in the Large School Girls County Championships -- Northport. Northport scored 75 points on the back of their distance team to win by 23 points over perennial threat, Bay Shore. The Small School meet was much closer; eventually it was won by Bayport-Blue Point by 10 (59-49), but the top six teams had 40 points or more.
We will not find out who is in what events until the seeds are released, but both sections seem to have very tight battles for first place.
A big change to the team scores will be the movement of West Babylon to the Large Schools this year. They finished second last year in Small Schools and their race walkers, along with the rest of their very well-rounded team, will prove to take points from certain teams and add points to West Babylon's score. It would be extremely impressive to join Large Schools and win the entire meet. However, after their dominant League 3 victory, I would not bet against them.
Looking at the expected scores, if a Large School team gets to 70 points, they will definitely win and will have had an incredible meet. Last year's total of 75 will most likely not be reached. You have to go back to 2018 to find a meet where above 75 points was scored to win and it appears that streak will continue this year.
Once the seeds are released, it will be much easier to give a definitive preview. Therefore, in this article we are going to focus on the major storylines/question marks that we predict will ultimately decide the County Champion on February 4th.