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Nike Cross Nationals NXN 2013

How Wayzata and Gig Harbor Won NXN

How Wayzata and Gig Harbor Won NXN

Dec 11, 2013 by Mitch Kastoff
How Wayzata and Gig Harbor Won NXN


Predators, front-runners, and crazy splits at Nike Cross Nationals

Before we leave Portland Meadows and head to our last stop at Balboa Park, I wanted to take a quick look at how Nike Cross Nationals was won. After all, it’s not that hard to figure out who won. Here’s a link to the results. See? That’s it.

Even though Nike provided some incredible coverage via lead and chase carts (no quadcopters and drones, though), there’s still plenty of the NXN story left untold. Yes, Fayetteville-Manlius finally lost which will provide an excellent redemption narrative next fall, but how did they lose. More specifically, how did Wayzata win?

That’s just the girls race. In the boys, the results reveal some interesting tidbits about the varying strategies of Gig Habor, Christian Brothers Academy (CBA), Carmel, and Edina.

And in everyone’s favorite game, we’ll see who moved through the field like a hot knife through butter and who went for it from the gun (also known as the “who bit off more than he or she could chew” award, but it’s all about perspective).

Fayetteville-Manlius went out hard, but Wayzata were the real predators

Unlike other major sports, it’s hard for a team to have a “style.” Some individual runners are known for running from the front or relying heavily on their kick, but finding a theme for an entire team is rare.

When someone were to ask us about FM’s pre-race tactics, we’d probably say something along the lines of “They’ll probably try to control the race from the front. That’s what I think they usually do, anyway.”

We say that because during last year’s blowout, FM’s runners found great positions in the mud and just let and everyone try and comeback on them. Or they maybe they tried to die the least. It’s probably a combination of the two.

We don’t have all of the splits, but last year they were winning by 175 points when they came over the “whoop-de-doos” for the first time. By the time they had finished their second loop, the gap had “shrunk” to 140 points.
 
So this year when FM was winning by 76 points by the first split, we weren’t super surprised. What got our heart racing was the Wayzata girls, who were stalking the perennial champions. Below are the team scores at the four different intervals and the finish.


 Fayetteville-Manlius Wayzata
Split #1 72 (1st) 209 (6th)
Split #2 77 (1st) 144 (2nd)
Split #3 101 (1st) 127 (2nd)
Split #4 111 (1st) 118 (2nd)
Finish 120 (2nd) 108 (1st)

Notice a trend? Every time Toni Reavis announced the team scores, Wayzata must’ve had a big boost of confidence. The gap was narrowing and thankfully (for those from Minnesota), they didn’t run out of real estate. It took all 5000m to end FM’s streak at seven consecutive national championships.

If you really want to get specific, here are splits for each team’s runners. You’ll notice two opposite strategies that resulted in similar, but not the same team scores (hint: The team that went out slow won).

Wayzata

Split #1 Split #2 Split #3 Split #4 Finish
Anna French 8 7 7 8 8
Annika Lerdall 75 60 61 61 54
Mary Franke 60 64 64 63 63
Michaela Keller-Miller 117 88 79 69 65
Alayna Sonnesyn 113 90 85 83 73
McKenna Evans 116 89 83 82 77
Annika Halverson 118 92 81 80 78

Fayetteville-Manlius

Split #1 Split #2 Split #3 Split #4 Finish
Annika Avery 9 11 17 21 20
Alana Pearl 10 10 22 27 29
Jenna Farrell 28 43 51 57 57
Jessica Howe 29 50 68 72 81
Megan Menez 81 82 86 86 86
Samantha Levy 83 120 140 149 151
Reilly Madsen 153 174 172 173 173


"I can't feel my face!"

CBA simply couldn’t handle Gig Harbor

While Wayzata came from behind, the two favorites in the boys championships race went toe-to-toe. While we were watching the live stream, our first observations were that CBA and Gig Harbor were fairly even at almost every interval.

But before we continue, can we give a shout-out to Record Timing for their splits and quick results? In this day and age of instant gratification over the internet, they supplied the results almost as soon as the last runner crossed the finish line--though they likely had the technology to print them before the race even started. In all seriousness, all courtesy goes to Record Timing.

Back to the top two teams. Just how FM probably felt the title slowly slip from their grasp, CBA most likely knew it was over before it was actually over, too.


 Christian Brothers Academy Gig Harbor
Split #1 117 (1st) 150 (2nd)
Split #2 122 (1st) 134 (2nd)
Split #3 128 (2nd) 125 (1st)
Split #4 134 (2nd) 118 (1st)
Finish 139 (2nd) 111 (1st)

Again, here are the specifics for each team’s runners.

Though those two teams displayed fairly average race strategies, there were teams that really went from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Christian Brothers Academy

Split #1 Split #2 Split #3 Split #4 Final
Michael McClemens 24 22 15 13 14
Thomas Rooney 52 48 51 48 42
Francis Bogan 65 54 57 57 56
Blaise Ferro 61 66 70 72 70
Nicholas Trigani 85 74 73 77 84
Gregory Paugh 80 85 94 99 101
Michael Cassidy 77 96 123 119 128

Gig Harbor

Split #1 Split #2 Split #3 Split #4 Final
Wolfgang Beck 22 20 8 5 6
Logan Carroll 31 29 20 15 12
Tristan Peloquin 32 27 23 18 16
Mahmoud Moussa 101 79 67 62 51
Michael Hammer 100 110 111 108 103
John Shields 176 171 155 151 148
Jordan Oldenburg 118 175 184 183 182

Those were the two contenders, but what else jumps out from the splits? We have to give props to both Carmel and Edina, who were 19th and 22nd at the first interval. If you’re wondering if that’s good or bad, we’ll say that there were 22 teams in the field and then let you decide.

Though they went out controlled (some would use the word tactical, but we think that’s a silly description), you should look at their team scores. It’s a risky maneuver, but Carmel finished 5th and Edina came in 10th, which is pretty incredible considering how many preps they had to hurdle on the way to the finish.


 Split #1 Split #2 Split #3 Split #4 Final
Carmel 381 (18th) 258 (6th) 231 (5th) 221 (5th) 225 (5th)
Edina 627 (22nd) 424 (21st) 310 (13th) 257 (8th) 263 (10th)

If you want to see Carmel and Edina’s splits - along with everyone else in the two championship races - we'll have the full splits up on the homepage later tonight or tomorrow morning.

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