Run-Down Forums

[Dan]

I've mostly kept mum on the topic, despite Paul's insistences. Tomorrow is the Oregon High School Cross Country State Championship meet down in Eugene. We (McKay HS) will be fairly well represented with 9 runners (more than any other team in our league) qualified -- the 7 boys and 2 individual girls. It is only the third time in school history that a XC team has qualified to State.

Last year, our boys were picked 10th out of 10 in the league in the preseason rankings. We ended up finishing 7th. With the state-wide reclassification this year, our league is now down to 7 teams, so I felt fairly confident coming in that we would do at least as well... We had our #2 and 3 runners returning, both of them coming off their first year of running XC, plus our #5 or 6. We graduated our #1 who was the individual league champ and a full two minutes ahead of our next guys, so we obviously weren't taken as a very serious threat. We were picked 4th out of 7. However, we had a freshman coming in who I knew would be right with the top two returners, and we got a transfer the last week of the summer that instantly solidified our pack up front. We had two other freshmen that would've been good contributors, but unfortunately, our league does not currently allow athletes to play two sports simultaneously, and soccer was their first love. We had a 5th runner lined up (the entire top-5 looked to be an interchangeable order), but he had a medical condition coming into the season that didn't get cleared up in time to contribute.

In the end, the boys placed 2nd at the District Championships, with the top two teams going to State. We were a distant second, but we had a fairly lousy day and were somewhat lucky to qualify.

The girls were 3rd in the league last year, having had a very disappointing District meet and missing a trip to State. This year, our #3 and 4 girls decided not to run, which left us with some huge holes to fill. We managed to scrape together three new runners and occasionally field a scoring squad, although we only had 4 finishers at Districts and got an "Inc" next to our name... A freshman (younger sister of last year's #2 boy) greatly exceeded everyone's expectations in the #3 spot, running 1:30 faster than figured and placing right about the middle of the league standings. She would have been the answer we were looking for at the #5 spot, had the #3/4 girls come out, giving us a very good chance of qualifying the girls to State. Oh well, we'll get 'em next year.

For tomorrow, our two girls will be looking to place well individually, building some momentum toward hopefully having a team accompany them at the State meet next time around. If things go well, our #1 could be in the top-10 and our #2 in the top-25. The first 14 finishers qualify for the OR-WA Borderclash meet on the Nike campus in two weeks. It's one of the bigger honors around.

Of the twelve boys and girls on the team, we have only two seniors -- the #5 and 6 boys. We have some promising prospects for next year, but we'll see what materializes.

Results will be posted at:

http://www.osaa.org/crosscountry/
http://oregonxc.com/

Dan
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