Doug Soles, on , said:

I think you've overreacted and mischaracterized, Doug.

Number one, I didn't mention Saugus in either of my posts in this thread. You've decided to battle a straw man.

Two, I have no direct connection to the Saugus program beyond living in the area and having been a competitive runner and fan for decades. My kids attended Valencia and I don't remember the last time I had a conversation with Rene that lasted longer than a minute or two. I actually have a more concrete connection to Great Oak as I ran for years with your former colleague Doug MacLean.

Three, I must have missed all this vitriol against your program from Saugus fans. I haven't seen it (and I do read DD nearly every day).

Four, you have a great team. I stated that in my first post in this thread. I expected that your team (even without your two injured girls) would defeat Simi Valley at Woodbridge. I continue to expect that they will win state and probably advance to NXN.

Five, no matter how you want to revise history, you placed the girls you thought were your first seven in the sweepstakes race at Woodbridge. Several of them didn't have a good race, and your varsity team finished seventh in the sweepstakes.

Six, my overall point was about ranking based on varsity team performance as against individual performance. Great Oak is an incredibly talented and deep team. Your girls' performances in the other three races is a testament to that. Unfortunately, only a team's first seven girls are actually considered varsity runners in any standard cross country race or meet (and the same is true of a by grade meet).

Seven, I was surprised that Destiny Collins didn't appear in the MileSplit individual rankings, given that she finished Woodbridge only eight seconds behind Marissa Williams, who is ranked 12th.

I just read that my rankings have a NorCal bias, which is exciting because that means I've successfully disguised my identity as a Southern Section parent

Greg,

Not sure what the hostility is from the Saugus community of fans towards my program since we competed there, but I have to say I'm quite disappointed. I hold Coach Paragas and the Saugus team in very high regard, but have to say that the consistent comments from Saugus fans (here & Don's Diary) have left a bad taste in my mouth about the area as a whole. I'm sorry a couple of my girls got hurt. I would rather have had the healthy and on the line to race. It is my fault they did not, and I accept that. At no point did I personally try to take anything away from the Saugus girls and their victory over us. I can't control the media or their rankings and believe we have underperformed to our ranking consistently this season.

On one point I do disagree with you though. We ran 4 varsity teams at Woodbridge. Each was prepared and raced as a varsity team, not JV. Their performances stacked up well vs. other varsity competition and their times should count for our overall performance. It can be very difficult, especially with a young team to know exactly which girls would be ready for that level of race. Obviously some were more adept at handling the pressure than others and have since moved up into our top 7. We are still defining and refining our team and hopefully by Mt. SAC we will give the Saugus girls a better race.

Thank goodness they didn't rank Destiny Collins ahead of Samantha Ortega. I can't even imagine the venom that would have flown if that would have happened.

Doug

there are a few schools of thought when it comes to rankings. Do you rank the teams based on how good they are? Do you rank the teams based on how good they have been on average? Or do you rank the teams based on their wins and losses? Three different ways to look at things, and all three can yield notably different rankings.

Scott Joerger, on , said:

Sorry not to be clearer. Obviously, the top 7 in grade level competitions would have to be considered as the "varsity" for any meet. For most teams in most circumstances, when a varsity has been designated, the same should not be true for standard invitationals.

The problem with basing rankings on the top five performances over the course of a season (or a portion thereof) is that those single races might not be reflective of how the team has performed. It doesn't matter if a team had five boys run 15:00 if no two of them ever ran that fast in a single race and especially if the boys' races were too often considerably slower than 15:00 (on equivalent courses).

My argument is that team performance from week to week should outweigh individual performances for the purposes of team rankings.

Greg Beal, on , said:

Actually, I'm ranking based on the top 5 performances this season, regardless of division, race etc. In truth, the majority of meets have been grade level competitions to date (Seaside, Fastback, Laguna Hills, Mt. Carmel, etc.). Not combining divisions would give teams that ran those grade level only competitions an unfair advantage.

As for injured runners, I am reducing their performance for runners that are expected to return within a few weeks. In Great Oak's case, their ranking is based on actual performances this season of 4 runners who ran varsity on Saturday, plus an injury & preseason penalized projection (about a minute) of a 5th.

I think Great Oak is one of the best girls teams in California. I actually expected they would win Woodbridge over Simi Valley.

Unfortunately, their varsity squad has not been consistent from meet to meet. Yes, they are a deep team, but I think ranking them on the basis of what their combined varsity and JV girls ran at the Classic is a mistake. Rankings should be based on varsity performance, rather than on what might have been had a different group run the race. Great Oak finished seventh in the sweepstakes race; that performance should outweigh what their combined squad ran.

Of course, it could be that you're also ranking Great Oak on their potential when the two projected varsity scorers recover from injury. I think that too would be a mistake. Teams should be ranked on the basis of performance, not on the basis of potential.


On another front, if Simi Valley had the best single race of any team in the country thus far this season (and that seems to be the estimation of several raters), does that mean that Simi Valley should move to number one nationally? I understand why FM was ranked first in pre-season despite arguably not having the best returning team on paper. Now that the season is underway, shouldn't performance be the most significant factor in determining rankings?