New Heartland Rankings

[watchout]

Potosi moves ahead of Willmar ... thoughts?

1 Potosi XC Club (Potosi) MO Wins Chile Pepper Festival by 17 over SO #1 The Woodlands 2
2 Willmar XC Club (Willmar) MN no meet 1
3 Zumwalt XC Club (Fort Zumwalt South) MO no meet reported 3
4 Eden Prairie XC Club (Eden Prairie) MN Defeats Rosemount in conf meet as top 2 run close to state star Rob Finnerty 9
5 Rosemount XC Club (Rosemount) MN Second by 9 to Eden Prairie in conf meet 4
6 Lee's North XC Club (Lee's Summit North) MO Wins Big 7 meet by 33 over excellent field with 24-second spread 7
7 SLUH XC Club (University) MO Wins Borgia Inv with split squad 6
8 Wayzata XC Club (Wayzata) MN Wins conference meet on tie-breaker over Hopkins with 3rd-place Edina 2 pts back 5
9 Bismarck XC Club (Bismarck) ND Wins conference meet by 60 with 41-second spread 8
10 Marshalltown XC Club (Marshalltown) IA Dominates CIML meet taking 7 of top 11 10

[borgy]

they did have a meet on the 17th, and put 8 in the top 10 (1-5, 8-10)...idk if that got reported or not...with a 31.9 second spread
Brainerd was at the meet, but without their top runner who would have mixed in with the top 5 somewhere

[KenA55]

Potosi ahead of Willmar was probably about a month overdue, though Potosi's race at Chile Pepper was one of their weaker ones as a team for reasons we've already discussed.

I'll leave any MO/KS placements to those more familiar what's up in the far south end of our region and say some things about what I might have stacked differently between the other states.

Bismarck with Reichenberger back in there shouldn't have moved downwards. They should probably be ranked ahead of at least Wayzata now- though the issue will become moot to some extent next wednesday, they're behind 3 section 6 AA MN teams right now and after wednesday's action only two of those teams will still be in the game, at least one will have been eliminated and won't be in our state meet.

On the girls side Minot was dropped and that probably wasn't deserved- they're a team similar to Lakeville North in that they have some strong frontrunners but are too vulnerable in their 4-5 spots to break into the top 5- but in the case of LN its been 3-4-5, Minot's much more solid at #3 so far. I would expect Minot to beat LN head to head if that doesn't change, though we'll never get to see the matchup happen.

That being said, there are also at least 2 more MN teams that look better than LN on paper at least, so far. First Marshall- they will beat LN at state if LN doesn't put together some pretty strong steps forward, assuming that Marshall doesn't experience a disaster like they did in the Griak. Marshall can't afford to lose a scorer, their 6th is way out there. The other team is the Adrian team that broke into the rankings last week- but in fairness they've now run two meets w/o their full squad and until they put a full strength race together again some question marks are in order.

[KenA55]

they did have a meet on the 17th, and put 8 in the top 10 (1-5, 8-10)...idk if that got reported or not...with a 31.9 second spread
Brainerd was at the meet, but without their top runner who would have mixed in with the top 5 somewhere

Borgy, they'll be looking at this weeks results for next weeks rankings update, anything that happened after saturday isn't considered yet.

[borgy]

oh, ok, makes sense then :)

[bismarckxc]

It's really too bad there isn't a Heartland Region meet after all the state meets.

Concerning Bismarck, they are really hurt by the fact that they are from North Dakota, and don't have the luxury of facing top HL calibur teams in their own state. They did make the trip to Griak, but that meet was on September 23, and cannot be a true indicator of the strength of their team today, and at the end of the season. It is now nearly a month later, and they are finally starting to show their true colors with the emergence of Reichenberger, and a 2-5 runner effort that is shortening the spread between themselves and their top runner Joash Osoro(11th at Griak).

After the release of the latest rankings, it appears that no matter how strong the effort of Bismarck is at their state meet on October 28th, it will not significantly effect their HL ranking.

[KenA55]

If I had to pick 2 HL teams that took it in the shorts worst with this weeks update, its the Bismarck boys and Minot girls. That's what I said more or less in my post above, in a more longwinded manner. Hopefully we'll see some movement to correct that next friday.

I agree 100%, though- nothing would be more satisfying than a true head to head regional race format.

[forever green]

Bismarck with Reichenberger back in there shouldn't have moved downwards. They should probably be ranked ahead of at least Wayzata now- though the issue will become moot to some extent next wednesday, they're behind 3 section 6 AA MN teams right now and after wednesday's action only two of those teams will still be in the game, at least one will have been eliminated and won't be in our state meet.

3 of the Heartland ranked teams (rosemount, eden praire, wayzata) are in section 6AA also, so that could change the heartland rankings also

[KenA55]

Very true. Those three ranked teams as well as two on the bubble (Hopkins & Edina who demonstrated near-identical level to Wayzata in the Classic Lake Conference meet) will have at it tomorow and only two will advance to state.

For those looking in on our section stuff from the outside, we have two classes (A & AA), 8 sections in each class, and we advance two teams and 10 individuals per gender from each section.

Most of the section meets are happening thursday, but tomorrow 6AA will have the spotlight to themselves.

On friday the last one will happen up NW, section 8A- an interesting small-class section containing A#1 Perham boys & A#2 Perham girls. The interesting individual matchup there is between Perham junior Kevin Lachowitzer and Warroad sophomore Moses Heppner, ranked A#1&2 respectively- they raced on the 10th in their conference meet, neck and neck until they got tangled up together on a final turn and both went down with only Lachowitzer able to get up immediately to finish for the win. Heppner was slower in recovering and finished 11th. So friday's the rematch, with the final showdown at state of course, where most would place a pair of seniors- La Crescent's Dustin Franta and especially since conference, MA's Will Haffield in the running for the championship as well.

[doggler]

For those looking in on our section stuff from the outside, we have two classes (A & AA), 8 sections in each class, and we advance two teams and 10 individuals per gender from each section.

Ken, how many AA schools are there in MN? I estimate about 120? 16 teams qualify, which lies in stark contrast to many other states. i.e. Nebraska, where 12 of about 30 qualify, or North Dakota, where there is no qualification.

[KenA55]

Yeah, your number of programs is right in the ballpark, a little low if anything.

The more extreme paring of the field in states with larger populations but few classifications/divisions is that incentive is definitely there for the athlete to work harder to try and make state. The downside is that less kids get to go to state. Indiana is an extreme example in keeping state meet quite elite- one class only, in a state significantly larger than ours, and only 20 teams/170-ish runners qualify in each gender.

[runfan]

Iowa has the following XC classification for schools:

Classification # Schools # Runners in District

4A.............48............65-70 (average)
3A.............72............85-100 (average)
2A.............129..........100-120 (average)
1A.............151..........120+ (average..lot's of incomplete teams)

In each Classification, there are 5 regions with the top 3 teams in each district and top 10 runners qualify for State. Is it harder to qualify for State in 4A or 1A? This has been debated in Iowa for quite some time.

[KenA55]

Todays announcement on the NTN open race- while for boys teams the 30 positions were filled immediately and there is a waiting list of some 50+ teams, the girls side looks very different with just 23 teams entered and therefore at least 7 vacancies available, possibly more if any of those 23 get invited or decide they can't make it. Strong girls teams looking like they might end up outside the HL top 3-4 but interested in staying together into December may still wish to consider this, a great time will certainly be had by all. Also, the Kenyans coming will be running this race, not the championship invite.

http://www.dyestat.com/3us/6xc/ntn/open-update.html

I'm a bit surprised that the interest in this ran so much more strongly for the boys teams, apparently by a 80-something to 23 margin! I wonder why that is.

[KenA55]

We have a fairly equal split of progams in our two classes by dividing at 500 10th-12th, but only because we do allow small hs's to coop together into one program when necessary to minimize the # of incomplete teams. Otherwise there'd be a lot more small-school programs, but more would be incomplete. As I look down our coaches polls some of our top-ranked small school programs that are coops of more than one hs are United South Central/Alden-Conger, Lac Qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd, and Mountain Lake/Butterfield-Odin. In order to compete in our small-school class rather than AA, these coops must still have combined enrollments 10th-12th below the limit.

[runfan]

Iowa does allow coop's as some small schools without a team do run for other schools. I'm not sure why more schools don't take advantage of this to form complete teams. I'm not up to date on the rules so maybe someone who is can explain this to me as well

[KenA55]

I don't know where the enrollment dividing line between IA smaller classes falls in, but I do suspect that w/4 classes, coops would move a lot of them up in class as compared to Mn where there are only the two classes.

[KenA55]

An important statement got made in this morning's NTN selection date schedule linked on the front page:

"If a regional top 2 team declines, the invitation goes to the 3rd ranked team in that region. If the 3rd ranked team declines, the slot is added to the at large pool."

http://www.dyestat.com/3us/6xc/ntn/selection.html

What that means, of course, is that the HL would only have one team selected on the 5th if the rankings remain as they look today, assuming both MO teams decline. The slot would then go to the at-large pool which would end up with an extra at large selection, and honestly I don't think the HL would necessarily fare too well on the boys side with some of the other regions.

Therefore assessments of just who is HL #3 and who is HL#4 after the MN & MO state meets wrap up loom very large for the region this year. Below I'll post an assessment of how Fort Zumwalt South's (HL#3) district effort on saturday stacks up with EP's & Rosemount's (HL#4&5) run today.

Goes without saying though, that on the morning of the 5th, it just isn't going to be about this stuff, its going to be all about state, baby.

[KenA55]

The nice thing about a comparison between MO's Class 4 District 5 meet and the MN section 6AA meet is that they both came in with winning times in the mid 15:30's, and they both were won by very good runners who are certainly going to be at the forefront of their states. Since the times are so close I'm simply going to insert the MO times into the 6AA meet unadulterated, and not worry about whether the comparison is perfectly perfect, since this isn't the one that counts in the end anyways, for any of these teams.

FZS 1-5-10-16-51 = 83
EP 2-6-15-19-46 = 88
Rosemount 8-14-17-18-36 = 93

1 Kyle Rood 12 Ft. Zumwalt South 15:33
2 Ryan Little, 12 15:35.5 Eden Prairie
3 T C Lumbar, 12 15:40.0 Edina
4 Tom Burke, 12 15:40.8 Edina
5 Pat Cole 12 Ft. Zumwalt South 15:42
6 Jackson Wiley, 12 15:45.4 Eden Prairie
7 Rob Finnerty, 11 15:49.8 Burnsville
8 Jordan Carlson, 11 16:02.4 Rosemount
9 Chip Sandahl, 12 16:11.6 Burnsville
10 Brandon Funderburk 12 Ft. Zumwalt South 16:12
11 Doug DeBold, 12 16:13.1 Hopkins
12 Jon Lambert, 12 16:15.9 Wayzata
13 Travis Burkstrand, 11 16:20.0 Eastview
14 Obai Hussein, 11 16:27.1 Rosemount
15 John Davis, 12 16:29.6 Eden Prairie
16 Ryan Moore 12 Ft. Zumwalt South 16:30
17 Tim Kojetin, 11 16:30.1 Rosemount
18 Mike Bumgarner, 12 16:31.9 Rosemount
19 Isaac Fitzsimmons, 12 16:32.6 Eden Prairie
20 Jeremy Drenckhahn, 10 16:34.3 Wayzata
21 Peter Holmes, 11 16:34.7 Wayzata
22 Danny Ducharme, 10 16:36.5 Wayzata
23 Chris Wilson, 12 16:39.2 Minneapolis Southwest
24 Michael Mueller, 12 16:43.8 Hopkins
25 Ben Englund, 12 16:47.6 Minnetonka
26 Joe Wells, 11 16:50.1 Minneapolis Southwest
27 D J Lemmage, 12 16:50.5 Apple Valley
28 Dan Grannes, 12 16:51.7 Apple Valley
29 Mason Bacso, 12 16:54.6 Wayzata
30 Aaron Demro, 12 16:54.9 Wayzata
31 Jesse Blanco, 12 16:57.2 Burnsville
32 David Forster, 12 16:57.4 Hopkins
33 Jack Deichert, 11 16:59.3 Hopkins
34 Sam Newcomer, 12 17:00.2 Hopkins
35 Evan Day, 10 17:01.4 Wayzata
36 Chris Massey, 10 17:03.1 Rosemount
37 Matthew Olson, 11 17:05.4 Edina
38 Ryan Bailey, 11 17:05.8 Minnetonka
39 Mike Roth, 11 17:06.9 Academy of HolyAngels
40 Mike Warweg, 12 17:07.2 Rosemount
41 Matt Thooft, 11 17:07.5 Rosemount
42 David Pachuta, 12 17:08.5 Eastview
43 Dominick Rosario, 11 17:09.1 Edina
44 Cameron Stelljes, 12 17:10.6 Apple Valley
45 Jon Andersen, 12 17:11.9 Minnetonka
46 Reed Golden, 11 17:15.5 Eden Prairie
47 Zach McGill, 12 17:17.1 Hopkins
48 Josh Dohman, 11 17:17.6 Burnsville
49 Will Nielsen, 11 17:23.8 Richfield
50 John Goetz, 11 17:27.0 Minnetonka
51 Eric Schulte 10 Ft. Zumwalt South 17:28

They look like very close races, and the projected result would certainly shift about one way or the other if you see the need to adjust the MO efforts one way or the other.

[KenA55]

Now the thing to understand as well is that FZS's 5th has been looking much better in relation to the 1-4 guys in prev races, what they'll have on the 4th, well, we'll see. In the previous run, at least the most recent that results are available on, FZS looked like this instead, at the Rim Rock Farm classic-

2 Rood, Kyle Fort Zumwalt South 5:04.6 15:46.20 2
6 Lawder, Matt St. Louis Uni MO 5:15.3 16:19.60 5
7 Funderburk, Brandon Fort Zumwalt South 5:16.2 16:22.20 6
8 Denny, Kevin Lee Summit N. MO 5:16.5 16:23.20 7
11 Cole, Pat Fort Zumwalt South 5:21.0 16:37.30 10
13 Moore, Ryan Fort Zumwalt South 5:23.7 16:45.60 12
15 McCafferty, Mike St. Louis Uni MO 5:24.3 16:47.50 14
17 Viox, Dan St. Louis Uni MO 5:25.6 16:51.50 16
18 Dixon, Aaron Lee Summit N. MO 5:26.4 16:53.90 17
20 Banet, Nathan St. Louis Uni MO 5:26.5 16:54.30 18
23 Schulz, Josh Lee Summit N. MO 5:27.7 16:58.10 21
27 Lord, Jordan Lee Summit N. MO 5:30.7 17:07.20 25
32 Towers, Scott Fort Zumwalt South 5:31.6 17:10.00 29
34 Hestand, Nick Lee Summit N. MO 5:32.0 17:11.50 31
42 Shortino, Matthew Lee Summit N. MO 5:36.4 17:25.10 39
50 Kuciejczyk-Kernan, David St. Louis Uni MO 5:39.3 17:34.00 47
54 Ford, Caleb St. Louis Uni MO 5:40.1 17:36.50 51
70 Fuchs, Daniel Lee Summit N. MO 5:43.8 17:47.90 67
71 Cookson, Austin St. Louis Uni MO 5:43.8 17:48.00 68
107 Silva, Brian Fort Zumwalt South 5:54.1 18:19.90 104
136 Kamp, Joe Fort Zumwalt South 6:01.5 18:42.90 132

That gap 4th to 5th was a whole lot smaller here, and the question is will Towers be back running state at or better than his showing here, or will they be hurting at the 5th still and maybe even get nipped by one of the other top MO 4A HL-ranked teams?

For the MN runner-up, whomever that ends up being, the challenge will be to turn it up another notch and improve the look of their back end scorers more in order to hope for an NTN assessment at #3 at the end, in order to get an invite.

[KenA55]

And one final thing- remember on friday the NTN committee will update the rankings with their assessment of the MO 4A District results, but the MN 6AA results will not get factored into this friday's update, but rather next friday's.

[KenA55]

New Rankings-
http://dyestat.com/3us/6xc/ntn/5h/rank-week7.html?PHPSESSID=44dc95f79daceb171897c65460a90 9c7

Blue Valley NW KS girls are now at 10th over formerly-ranked Olathe East, who they beat at regionals. No other changes on the girls side.

Boys, no changes among the top 4; Lee's Summit North now above Rosemount as they switch up the 5-6 positions. Similarly at 9-10 Marshalltown now over Bismarck- one of these two teams is definitely going to win their state meet tomorrow and the other could have some real difficulty doing that, we'll see what shakes out tomorrow.

[cm73]

I am sure this has been covered elsewhere, but I don't know the answer- who does the rankings? Is there a committee, etc???

[KenA55]

Yes, a committee- if things haven't changed, the voting rankings committee is Mr's Bloom, Dye, Gonzales, & Truax.

[cm73]

Ok- so another dumb question, how do they keep up with all the regions?

[KenA55]

Each region has a regional editor, ours is Mr. Anthony Bozarth of Olathe East HS, KS. The regional editors gather news in each region weekly, you see those various summaries for the ranked teams only on the front page of this site. News on other good teams is no doubt passed on to the committee as well by the regional editors, assuming the editors receive such reports from those teams.

[cm73]

Thanks. That is what I wanted to know!!

[KenA55]

The new rankings for week 8 are up, no changes for the boys 1-7, Bismarck's stock rises, Pleasant Valley makes the top 10. For the girls no changes in the top 5, Minot's back at #6, The KS Champ Olathe East returns to fill out the list.

http://www.dyestat.com/3us/6xc/ntn/5h/rank-week8.html