My pre-season projection for National Boys Teams is listed below ... I do this each pre-season for my own interest.
Purpose ... There is one purpose ... Get a general idea where the NY State and other teams rank overall ... I am primarily concerned about teams likely to compete in NXN (teams that have shown interest, have competed or may be expected to compete).
To a large extent, the team listing below is an extension of the 2014 XC season into 2015 with a few modifications ... IF data for 5 runners on each team was not readily available (or guess-able), that team was probably NOT included ... This could exclude some good teams, but it does not matter because actual race results will identify those teams ... Once the real season starts, I tend to ignore the pre-season.
My first criteria for this pre-season list is to consider teams that competed in the NXN Regional races ... Performance in NXN (both Regional & National) plus State Meets is the major focus (plus a few other major meets) because I am considering "championship" performance.
Initially, I combined all potential teams in a single race scenario and began eliminating teams with the highest scores in an iterative process until I had about 30 teams remaining ... The scores are listed below along with the teams just behind the top 30 scoring teams.
Remember ... this list is just an
informational starting point ... Real 2015 race results are what count.
Also Remember ... Most top boy's
teams contain a fair number of seniors, and those seniors graduate ...
Significant graduation from last year means projecting many of the teams
below requires guessing -
occasionally it's a "shot -in-the-dark guess"
.
Pre-Season Projection - BOYS National Team Contenders - 2015
School State Score NXN Region
-------------------- ----- ----- ----------
1 American Fork UT 270 Southwest
2 Christian Brothers NJ 275 Northeast
3 Sandburg IL 305 Midwest
4 Lafayette MO 315 Midwest
5 Dana Hills CA 320 California
6 Carmel IN 325 Midwest
7 Great Oak CA 330 California
8 Davis UT 335 Southwest
9 North Central WA 345 Northwest
10 Ventura CA 350 California
11 La Salle Academy RI 360 Northeast
12 Madera South CA 365 California
13 York IL 370 Midwest
14 Wayzata MN 380 Heartland
15 St. Anthony's NY 385 New York
16 Desert Hills UT 390 Southwest
17 Rockford MI 410 Midwest
18 Tahoma WA 420 Northwest
19 The Woodlands TX 430 South
20 Hopkins MN 435 Heartland
21 West Torrance CA 440 California
22 Brea Olinda CA 445 California
23 South Oldham KY 450 Southeast
24 Lowell MA 455 Northeast
25 Broughton NC 460 Southeast
26 Edina MN 465 Heartland
27 Fayetteville-Manlius NY 470 New York
28 Kamiakin WA 475 Northwest
29 Southlake Carroll TX 480 South
30 Summit OR 480 Northwest
The next group is basically in order following the
list above ... Many are very close and the order
could be shuffled ... some could be above as well.
Mountain Vista CO Southwest
St. Ignatius OH Midwest
Don Bosco NJ Northeast
East Aurora NY New York
Liverpool NY New York
Cherry Hill East NJ Northeast
Marietta GA Southeast
Neuqua Valley IL Midwest
Dulaney MD Southeast
Pittsford Mendon NY New York
Canyon/anaheim CA California
Cambridge Rindge Latin MA Northeast
Saint John's MA Northeast
Timpanogos UT Southwest
Shenendehowa NY New York
Lake Zurich IL Midwest
Crater OR Northwest
West Lafayette IN Midwest
Mountain View ID Northwest
Severna Park MD Southeast
Lake Braddock VA Southeast
Brentwood TN Southeast
Burroughs/burbank CA California
Auburn AL Southeast
Carroll (Fort Wayne) IN Midwest
White Lake Lakeland MI Midwest
Frisco Wakeland TX South
Belen Jesuit FL Southeast
Robbinsville NJ Northeast
Weddington NC Southeast
Hilton Head SC Southeast
Downingtown West PA Northeast
Albuquerque Academy NM Southwest
McHenry IL Midwest
*** I may have missed a team or two going through
my databases as quickly as I did
)
... Speed
ratings were scarce for some teams, so I used my imagination (but so what, this is pre-season).
Note ... Boys Pre-Season rankings are generally harder to generate than Girls rankings ... The reason is that boys teams are generally more senior-dominated than girls teams, so a higher percentage of boys graduate ... therefore, fewer boys teams are "identifiable" as being strong going into the following year.
Hopefully, the boy's list above
identifies many of the top teams entering the 2015 XC season in a reasonable order ... If
it does, I made some decent guesses
... As a point of reference for last year, my 2014 pre-season
projections with corresponding results from NXN 2014 are
shown in a table below ... Of the 22 teams at
NXN 2014, I did not identify 3 teams (they were unranked in the top 30
teams and not listed in the extra team list) ... 15 of the 22 NXN teams
were ranked in my pre-season top 30 teams ... The top 5 teams at NXN
were all ranked in my pre-season top 8 teams.
General Comments for the Coming Season:
The top pre-season teams are typically highly-ranked teams from the previous year that return a solid core of good runners ... and many of these teams are teams that have qualified for NXN on multiple occasions ... This year is no different.
American Fork UT has finished 8th or better in the last six NXN championships ... American Fork was 2nd at NXN 2012, 7th at NXN 2013 and 5th last year ... They return 2 of their top 3 NXN scorers and 3 of their top 5 ... American Fork is deep in talent, and their prospects look good entering the 2015 XC season ... Although Christian Brothers NJ has a slight advantage in speed rating scores, American Fork gets the call as a very slight favorite based on a better performance at the new Glendoveer course last year.
Christian Brothers NJ was my pre-season favorite the previous two years ... CBA (who finished 11th at NXN last year and 2nd the year before) returns 5 of their 7 NXN runners, including 3 of their top 4 scorers ... CBA is deep in talent and could easily be considered the pre-season favorite once again.
Sandburg IL finished 15th at NXN last year ... They return 6 of their 7 NXN runners, losing their top finisher from last year ... The NXN experience from last year could be very helpful for Sandburg ... They are a serious contender to make the podium and possibly win NXN 2015.
Lafayette MO finished a very good 4th at the NXN Midwest Regional last year ... They were an impressive winner at the Missouri State Meet ... and Lafayette returns all five scorers from the NXN regional and State Meet ... another serious contender to make the podium and possibly win NXN 2015.
The California Teams ... The Top 30 List above includes 6 California teams (Midwest - 5 teams ... Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, Heartland - 3 teams; New York, South, Southeast - 2 teams) ..... Not much separates Dana Hills, Great Oak, Madera South and Ventura ... Ventura is the only team of these that competed at NXN last year, and Ventura finished a very good 7th ... Normally I would move Ventura up a bit (compared to the other CA teams), but decided to leave the positioning "as is" based on projected speed ratings for 2015 ... Dana Hills has been to NXN six time before ...... I was going to remove Brea Olinda from the top 30 (and place below) based on speculation that Austin Tamagno would run Footlocker again, but decided not to.
Carmel IN ... finished 16th at NXN last year, and return 6 of their top 7, including their top 3 with top national runner Ben Veatch.
Davis UT and North Central WA are fixtures at NXN National ... Davis UT has been to NXN the last fives years (6th last year) ... North Central WA (3rd last year) has been to NXN 8 times.
La Salle Academy RI ... La Salle won the NXN Northeast Regional impressively over Christian Brothers NJ, and then finished 18th at NXN ... they return 3 of their 5 scorers from NXN.
York IL has been to NXN 9 times ... York finished 3rd at the NXN Midwest Regional last year and return their top 6 runners.
Wayzata MN finished 2nd at NXN last year (and has been to NXN 6 times) ... Wayzata did lose 3 of their 5 NXN scorers to graduation, but they have a deep team.
The New York State Teams .... Last year, I had both Fayetteville-Manlius and Liverpool in the top 8 pre-season teams ... Unfortunately, New York does not look as strong this coming season ... More info on the NY teams and runners is available from my NY Pre-season Boys Team Projections and Top NY Boys Profiles ... Overall, New York has some uncertainty with respect to the boys teams this coming season.
... St. Anthony's finished 8th at NXN Nationals last year, but lose 3 NXN scorers to graduation ... St. Anthony's has good team depth.
...
Fayetteville-Manlius
... Even though
Fayetteville-Manlius is not in my top two picks within NY State,
I decided to pick them as the second NY team to qualify for NXN ...
Fayetteville-Manlius has been to NXN 9 times with 4 podium
finishes including winning last year (that's a pretty good start) ...
They lose 5 NXN runners to graduation, but return Peter Ryan who was15th
at NXN last year (New York's top runner at NXN) ... whether FM
can reload sufficient remains to be seen.
Pre-season ranking is part data and
part "educated guessing", and at the national level, I use significant
amount of guessing ... margins of error and uncertainty is large
... My "guesses" are just one guy's opinion
.