) ... and
so on. It's a strictly a matter of opinion, and that makes it
interesting because there may be no definitive answer.Best High School Girls XC Team Ever ??
Bill Meylan ... (July 10, 2008)
It's a common debate in all sports ... Who's the best
of all time?? ... Who's the best football team?? ... Who's the best
basketball player?? ... Who's the best American middle distance runner?? (Jim
Ryun) ... and
so on. It's a strictly a matter of opinion, and that makes it
interesting because there may be no definitive answer.
The advent of Nike Team Nationals (NTN) in 2004 has done a great deal in determining the best high school cross country team in that particular year ... But interested observers love to compare different years and even era-to-era when possible ... So, "Who is the best team ever in high school girls cross country??".
The Fayetteville-Manlius girls have been very successful in recent years ... the FM girls were the NTN champions in both 2006 and 2007, and FM will be the pre-season favorite to win again in 2008. I have a rooting bias for FM in these national competitions ... Fayetteville-Manlius is located in the eastern suburbs of Syracuse, NY ... Tully is located about 20 miles south of Syracuse (It takes only about 25 minutes to drive from Tully to FM high school) ... Coach Bill Aris has done an outstanding job in preparing the FM runners and has been very gracious in his conversations with me ... So I'm biased.
But ... The "horse-player" in me is forced to look at statistics ... and for this type of question, the "horse-player" always asks - "If you are almost broke and forced to bet the rent money, Who you gonna bet??".
I would bet the Saratoga Girls of 2004 ... The
results below demonstrate their ability .... This
team ran some incredible races, but one result really jumps out - At the
2004 Footlocker Northeast Qualifier, Saratoga took four of the top six places
against a very good field of runners
... That is incredible!!! ... and Saratoga's 5th finisher was 28th
(results shown below):
 |
| Saratoga Girls at Footlocker Northeast 2004 ... Awards Presentation Stand ... from left-to-right, Caitlin Lane, Hannah Davidson, Lindsey Ferguson, and Nicole Blood ... |
Footlocker NE (Nov 27, 2004 at Van Cortlandt Park)
Place Name Grade City St Time Speed Rating
===== =================== ===== ================ == ======= ============
1 Blood, Nicole 11 GANSEVOORT NY 17:41.8 163.7 164 ***
2 Ryan, Aislinn 11 Bellvale NY 17:46.8 162.1 162
3 Davidson, Hannah 9 SARATOGA SPRINGS NY 17:52.1 160.3 160 ***
4 Lister, Nichole 12 Rodman NY 18:10.6 154.1 154
5 Ferguson, Lindsey 11 GREENFIELD CTR NY 18:16.2 152.3 152 ***
6 Lane, Caitlin 9 GANSEVOORT NY 18:18.3 151.6 152 ***
7 Cummings, Laura 12 BAYSHORE NY 18:19.0 151.3 151
8 Dicamillo, Kathleen 12 GARDEN CITY SO NY 18:23.2 149.9 150
9 Dron, Chantelle 12 Candia NH 18:30.0 147.7 148
10 Sedberry, Brittany 11 Beesleys Point NJ 18:33.0 146.7 147
11 Clausen, Jennifer 11 JACKSON NJ 18:34.9 146.0 146
12 Mccurdy, Mary Liz 12 BRIGHTWATERS NY 18:46.7 142.1 142
13 Tauro, Danielle 10 MANAHAWKIN NJ 18:47.4 141.9 142
14 Spence, Neely 9 Shippensburg PA 18:47.6 141.8 142
15 Hintz, Cassie 11 STILLWATER ME 18:47.8 141.7 142
28 Delay, Karyn 12 SARATOGA NY 19:09.5 134.5 135 ***
|
I can not imagine that ever happening again (runners from one team winning four Footlocker qualifying spots in a single race); and I'm ignoring any conflict with NTN (NXN) qualifying races ... And by the way, Aislinn Ryan (who finished 2nd) was the Footlocker National Champion in 2004.
Saratoga ran remarkably well at NY Federations in 2004:
NY Federation Championship (Nov 20, 2004 at Bowdoin Park)
PLACE NAME GRADE TEAM TIME Speed Rating
----- ---------------- ----- ---------------- ------- -------------
1 Nicole Blood JR Saratoga 17:27.3 166.9 167 **
2 Aislinn Ryan JR Warwick Valley 17:40.2 162.6 163
3 Hannah Davidson FR Saratoga 17:58.4 156.5 157 **
4 Nichole Lister SR South Jefferson 18:09.9 152.7 153
5 Kristen Reese FR Carmel 18:12.4 151.9 152
6 Laura Cummings SR Bay Shore 18:14.5 151.2 151
7 Katie DiCamillo SR Holy Trinity 18:15.3 150.9 151
8 Lindsey Ferguson JR Saratoga 18:21.3 148.9 149 **
9 Caitlin Lane FR Saratoga 18:36.7 143.8 144 **
10 Karyn Delay SR Saratoga 18:38.3 143.2 143 **
|
Only five girls have ever run sub-18:00 at Bowdoin Park ... three of them did it in this race (the times by Nicole Blood and Aislinn Ryan are the best ever at Bowdoin ... the other two girls to run sub-18:00 are Emily Lipari (Roslyn, 17:58.0) in 2007 and Erin Davis (Saratoga, 17:56.6) in 1993 ... Bowdoin's All-Time list is available from the Section 1 web-site). The Saratoga Team average time was a remarkable 18:12.4.
Saratoga won NTN 2004: ... Saratoga's team score at NTN 2004 (51 points) is the
lowest team score of all four years at NTN (boys or girls) ... All five Saratoga team
scorers were in the top 23 at the national championship meet ... Wow
.
NTN Championships (Dec 4, 2004 at Portland Meadows, Oregon)
NAME TEAM TIME Speed Rating
---------------- ----------- ------- -------------
3 Nicole Blood Kinetic RC 18:20.72 156.1 156
6 Hannah Davidson Kinetic RC 18:34.66 151.4 151
7 Lindsey Ferguson Kinetic RC 18:36.40 150.9 151
12 Caitlin Lane Kinetic RC 18:58.57 143.5 143
23 Karyn Delay Kinetic RC 19:37.27 130.6 131
55 Ashley Campbell Kinetic RC 20:20.37 116.2 116
74 Alysha Mc Elroy Kinetic RC 20:38.51 110.2 110
|
At the Great American XC Festival (in North Carolina), Saratoga put all five scorers in the top 14 (and DyeStat posted "Saratoga -- best ever?").
Saratoga won the Eastern States Championship (Manhattan Invite) in 2004: ... Saratoga set the Van Cortland Park Team Average Record for the 2.5-Mile course (14:39.8) ... The 2nd-Best ever Team Average was run by Fayetteville-Manlius in 2007 (14:48.8).
One reason I wrote this article was to illustrate just how good Saratoga 2004 performed at the championship level ... But a quick comparative look at Fayetteville-Manlius 2007 should be a helpful starting point in assessing Fayetteville-Manlius 2008 (the pre-season favorite to win NXN 2008).
Fayetteville-Manlius 2007
 |
| Chittenango Invitational at Jamesville Beach (Sept 15, 2007)... Fayetteville-Manlius Girls were in the top five positions at the mid-point of their first invitational race of the season |
Fayetteville-Manlius 2007 was a really good team and not that far behind Saratoga 2004 ... and Fayetteville-Manlius 2008 could very well be better than the 2007 team.
As noted above, FM's team average time at the Manhattan Invitational (14:48.8) was only 9 seconds behind Saratoga's course record and the 2nd-best ever at Van Cortlandt Park (the 3rd-best team average time at VanCortlandt Park is 14:57.6 by Saratoga 2003).
Below is a table of selected results for FM 2007 as a point of reference ...
At NTN Championships 2007, FM placed four
runners in the top 19 overall finishers (only Saratoga 2004 and Hilton 2005 have
accomplished that ... No Boys team has done it as yet) ... With respect to
NTN speed ratings - Speed Ratings at NTN are Not as Important in
comparison to speed ratings from most other races ... As long as NTN is run on a
wet, muddy, deteriorating course (messed up by preceding races and deteriorating
within any single race [meaning runners in mid-pack and back-pack run on a
course messed-up, in part, by front runners in the same race]), speed ratings
will have less relevance with regards to level of performance at NTN itself and
predictability prior to NTN ... [...I may write an article discussing speed
ratings and their "lack of importance" in various handicapping situations
].
Fayetteville-Manlius 2007 ran very well at both the NY Federation Championship and NY State Class AA Championship ... At Federations, FM had all five scorers in the top 15 overall runners which is exceptional (several top teams skipped Feds, but that's not FM's fault) ... FM's average team time at Feds (18:38.8) is 2nd-best ever at Bowdoin Park (Saratoga 2004 is 1st [18:12.4] and Saratoga 2003 is 3rd [18:44.1]).
For 2008, Fayetteville-Manlius is "setting the bar" for the rest of NY State and the Nation to shoot at ... and that bar is at a very high level ... But there could be some teams up to the challenge (but that's another article)...
NTN Championships (Dec 1, 2007 at Portland Meadows, Oregon)
NAME TEAM TIME Speed Rating
---------------- --------------- ------- -------------
8 Chapman, Courtney 11 Manlius XC Club 19:23.6 142.1 142
9 Luber, Hannah 10 Manlius XC Club 19:25.1 141.6 142
10 Carter, Mackenzie 10 Manlius XC Club 19:30.8 139.7 140
19 Malone, Molly 10 Manlius XC Club 19:47.9 134.0 134
37 Buchan, Kathryn 09 Manlius XC Club 20:15.2 124.9 125
48 Buchan, Kristen 09 Manlius XC Club 20:30.5 119.8 120
49 Richards, Jocelyn 08 Manlius XC Club 20:30.6 119.8 120
NY Federation Championship (Nov 17, 2007 at Bowdoin Park) ... Team Avg Time: 18:38.8
NAME GRADE TEAM TIME Speed Rating
---------------- ----- -------------------- ------- ------------
2 Courtney Chapman FR Fayetteville-Manlius 18:03.8 154.7 155
4 Mackenzie Carter SO Fayetteville-Manlius 18:36.1 144.0 144
6 Hannah Luber SO Fayetteville-Manlius 18:44.6 141.1 141
7 Molly Malone SO Fayetteville-Manlius 18:46.6 140.5 140
15 Jocelyn Richards SR Fayetteville-Manlius 19:02.6 135.1 135
37 Kristen Buchan JR Fayetteville-Manlius 19:31.1 125.6 126
46 Meaghan Anklin JR Fayetteville-Manlius 19:40.9 122.4 122
NY State Class AA Championship (Nov 10, 2007 at Norwood-Norfolk)
NAME TEAM TIME Speed Rating
---------------- -------------------- ------- ------------
1 1 Hannah Davidson-12 Saratoga Springs 17:46.2 150.6 151
2 Shelby Greany-11 Suffern 17:53.9 148.0 148
3 2 Courtney Chapman-9 Fayetteville-Manlius 17:55.4 147.5 148 ***
4 3 MacKenzie Carter-10 Fayetteville-Manlius 18:06.0 144.0 144 ***
5 4 Hannah Luber-10 Fayetteville-Manlius 18:06.6 143.8 144 ***
6 5 Molly Malone-10 Fayetteville-Manlius 18:08.2 143.3 143 ***
7 6 Cassie Gootos-10 Saratoga Springs 18:08.6 143.1 143
8 7 Lillian Greibesland-10 Warwick 18:19.0 139.7 140
9 8 Kate Rosettie-11 Corning 18:21.1 139.0 139
10 Cara Janeczko-10 Shenendehowa 18:23.4 138.2 138
11 9 Jocelyn Richards-12 Fayetteville-Manlius 18:26.8 137.1 137 ***
12 10 Suejin Ahn-12 Ward Melville 18:29.0 136.3 136
13 Nicole Rosario-12 Pine Bush 18:32.4 135.2 135
14 11 Tori Pennings-12 Warwick 18:33.0 135.0 135
15 12 Kristen Buchan-10 Fayetteville-Manlius 18:34.5 134.5 135 ***
16 Morgan Roche-12 Shenendehowa 18:38.7 133.1 133
17 13 Caroline O'Hea-8 Ward Melville 18:45.0 131.0 131
18 Kristin Reese-12 Carmel 18:47.9 130.0 130
19 14 Shelby Herman-12 Hilton 18:51.6 128.8 129
20 15 Kathryn Buchan-11 Fayetteville-Manlius 18:52.2 128.6 129 ***
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