Well, we're about halfway there.
For those whose seasons roll right into mid-December, the start of Championship Season is where things begin to matter. It's time to take a lay of the land.
As we enter this critical point in the season, here are the things on our minds at MileSplit NY.
Federation Shakeup
After 17 years, the Federation meet will return to its' former glory, as the one race to rule them all. For years, top teams and individuals would sit out from the meet, opting to save their legs for a potential trip to Nationals. It diminished the quality of the meet, and created much consternation from those of the outside Federations looking to take on NYSPHSAA's best. Now, the Nike Cross Regional and the Federation meet are back to a single entity, as it was in 2007 and prior. It's a win-win for all involved, and long overdue. Not only does it encourage all teams invited to participate, it provides an extra weeks' rest between the qualifier, and the National Championships, for those it applies too. It also allows for NY athletes to compete in both post-season regionals.
Foot Locker
While the Nike Regional has moved one week earlier, Foot Locker has remained the same, albeit now in Boston. It allows New Yorkers (and those in the NE NXR region) to double at both qualifiers. That's good news for what could be one of the weakest years in the FL-NE Region for female athletes. Nike allows 5 individual qualifiers for the NY Region. Foot Locker allows for 10 across the Northeast. Looking at the competition, New York girls could account for more than 75% of those slots, if they choose to double. Below are the top speed ratings for the relevant states, removing those athletes who will qualify for NXN with a team. No state/area has a second athlete within six points of their below listing.
Girls - NJ - 137, CT -141, PA -142, ME/MA/RI/VT/NH - 140 , DE/MD - 129
For perspective, New York currently has eight female athletes over 140 this Season.
Strength of the State
In order to remove bias, we remove ourselves from the State Ranking process, and utilize outside methods to craft our State Rankings, based largely on Speed Ratings, with some head-to-head delineations added afterwards. The use of 5-man averages is imperfect, but effective in giving a general outline of the action. Sometimes, more in-depth analysis is needed.
Given the newly resurfaced importance of Feds, and the major shuffling we've seen in the rankings, especially on the boys' side, I wanted to run the numbers, and see what things looked like more specifically. You can find those results and breakdowns on the following pages.
One thing that has become apparent, is the relative lack of depth as compared to years past. There are many teams that have very strong runners through 2-3-or even the fourth position. Only four boys teams in the State have a fifth runner over 160. Only eight girls teams have one over 100.
Individually, it's still much the same as always. Outside of California, we are the deepest state in the country for female running. Boys, not so much.
As New York enrollment continues to shrink, will this trend continue? Only time will tell.