Some tidbits and a Minooka meet recap & state rankings

Apologies for the delay in posting this recap—man, work really gets in the way of all my fun.

How Cross Country is scored

I've been around the sport for a really long time—this is year 9 coaching, and I've been active in the sport since 1995 when I was a freshman at YHS. 

Some things I take for granted, others are perplexed about. This is particularly true with scoring.

How it works:

• In a typical invitational, a team is allowed seven total runners (some invites allow more, but conference and the state series is 7 only). You must have at least five runners compete to be able to score as a team.
• Out of those seven, only five score. 
• Your score is your place in the race. So if you place 10th, you scored 10 points.
• The lowest score wins in cross country. So a perfect score would be 15—that means your team placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th (1+2+3+4+5=15).
• There are a couple things that can change a team's score: People that run that aren't on a scoring team and displacement.

• Individuals: Let's say you get 15th, but the person in front of you is on a team with only four runners—those four will be removed from the team scoring. So while you placed 15th, you score will be 14th. 
• Displacement: I said earlier you have seven runners, but only the first five score. However, when displacement scoring is used (and it normally is in cross country) the sixth and seventh runners can affect other teams' scores. If our sixth runner places 39th in a race, and another team's fifth runner comes in 40th, their score remains 40. In invites where more than seven are allowed to run, anyone eighth and over on their team is removed from scoring a la the individuals above.

Skyler's blog

Our top girl, Skyler Bollinger, was invited to blog on Milesplit, a website dedicated to HS running. Check out her latest blog!

Minooka Flight Meet

Full Results Here > 

One of the more interesting meets we will run, in terms of format, is the Minooka Flight Meet. 

On the varsity side of things, we are allowed to run seven athletes. In a flight meet, our No. 7 athlete runs against all the other team's No. 7, our No. 6 against all other No. 6's, all the way down to the No. 1's. All seven score, so a perfect score in a flight meet is actually 7 (that means winning every race).

At Minooka Saturday, there were a total of 11 races: boys Fr/So, girls Fr/So, the 7 varsity flight races, boys open and girls open. 

Boys Fr/So
Our boys Fr/So fifth out of 15 teams. Cody Hornyak led the way for us with a 16th place in 16:59. Josh Graunke placed 30th in 17:30, Kevin Schleitwiler was 31st in 17:31, Josh Rithaler was 38th in 17:47 and Evan Jaros was 40th in 17:48 to round out our scoring five. Brett Stauffenberg (41st, 17:50) and Dawson Diederich (60th, 18:21) also ran for YHS.

Girls Fr/So
The Fr/So girls placed 4th out of 10 teams. Rebecca Jasutis placed 11th in 20:40, Piper Buyansky 14th in 20:47, Julia Meggazzini 15th in 20:48, Katy Kellogg 26th in 21:59, Sara Lubecke 39th in 22:47 and Kellie Haddon 62nd in 26:53.

Flight Races
Our girls placed 5th in the meet with 33 points, and our boys were fourth with 34. 

Flight 7: 
Freshman Kiley Haug led the race for 2.5 miles before placing 2nd to a WWS senior. Kiley's time was 19:25. Sophomore Jake Firrantello placed fourth for the boys with a PR time of 16:45.

Flight 6: 
Sophomore Sydney Beach struggled after going out with the lead pack, falling back to fourth place in 19:52. Senior Caleb Piszczek placed sixth after trying to stick with the lead pack, running a 16:58.

Flight 5: 
Another tough race for the girls as sophomore Julia Schultz fell back to 7th place in 20:50. Sophomore Thor Hester ran well for the boys, placing 5th in 16:38.

Flight 4: 
Freshman Maddie Dearborn led wire-to-wire, winning by :29 in 18:27. Freshman Alexx Nauman ran a 16:38 to place 6th for the YHS boys.

Flight 3:
Sophomore Trevor Wills finished seventh in 16:27 for the boys. Sophomore Erin Reynolds did not start the race due to an injury.

Flight 2:
Kelsey Leedy won the second flight with a time of 18:09—the second-fastest time of the day behind Skyler. Nolan Tweedy placed a solid third in an ultra-competitive flight wit a time of 15:30.

Flight 1:
Skyler Bollinger broke her own meet and course record set last year by running a 17:16 to win the championship flight wire-to-wire. Luke Hoffert ran a 14:57 to place third in the fastest-ever championship flight of the 40-year meet.

Varsity team scores:
The girls placed fifth with 33 points—since we did not have a runner in the third flight, we were awarded last place in that flight (17 points), which greatly inflated our team score. The boys, running without Jake Hoffert, placed fourth at the meet with 34 points. Jake would have been in our No. 1 spot, so everyone shifted up, including our top Fr/So runner. 

Boys open:
Yorkville runners included: Mason Brant (18th, 17:26), Dan Graunke (47th, 18:13), Cole Fisher (51st, 18:20), Grant Bowers (59th, 18:28), Darien Ramos (64th, 18:36), Lucas Farren (92nd, 19:12), Jacob Martin (197th, 20:46), Hunter Frantz (198th, 20:46), Austin Carney (227th, 21:30) and Jimmy O'Malley (241st, 22:01). Brian Sandor ran for us, placing between Lucas and Jacob, but the chip timer fell of his shoe so he didn't get an official time. There were 314 runners in the boys open.

Girls open:
Yorkville runners included: Kaelyn Scull (7th, 20:15), Olivia Reese (13th, 20:50), Alana Falche (17th, 20:55), Tracy Krukowski (23rd, 21:36), Sophie Bolaños (27th, 21:42), Sara Erskine (38th, 22:09), Rachel Strobel (47th, 22:38), Kate Allen (55th, 23:04) and Dania Nelsen (128th, 26:03). There were 170 in the girls open race.

Coming up:

This Saturday we split the squad—historically we have gone to the Aurora Central Catholic Charger Classic as a full team, but this year, we are sending our top seven boys and girls to the Palatine Meet of Champions Invite. Basically all of the top teams in the state of Illinois (plus many from around the midwest) are at this meet, so the competition will be at a level we have never seen before in the regular season. 

We wanted to keep the ACC meet on our schedule, however, because it is probably the fastest course we will compete on all season, and a great opportunity for the rest of our team to go after what will likely be their season personal best (PR). 

State Polls

We don't put a ton of stock into polls and rankings—all that matters is what happens the day of the state meet—but it's neat to see what others think about our teams.

Girls: 
ITCCCA Coaches Poll: No. 1 (unanimous)
DyestatIL Poll: No. 1
Il.Milesplit: No. 1

I think our girls are still the team to beat, but we are definitely in a little trouble. Injuries have really hampered us of late, and it'll be interesting to see how tough our girls really are as they work to get through it.

Boys:
ITCCCA Coaches Poll: No. 2
DyestatIL: No. 
Il.Milesplit: No. 3

I think our boys are ranked a little high—I think coach Muth and I would both put our boys 5th or 6th right now, especially with Jake Hoffert on the shelf with an IT band strain. I think we proved we can run with the state's best and might be in contention for a top five finish at the end of the year, but we'll need to stay healthy.