XC Scoring Explained

In cross-country it takes five good runners to win, but seven runners make the team great! The team score is the top five places added together for a team score. The team with the lowest score wins!

Example #1

Team A: 2-4-5-7-9= 27

Team B: 1-3-6-8-10= 28

The #6 and #7 runners do not add their place into the team score. They can affect the other team scores if they place ahead of any of the opponent’s top 5. When this happens, they effectively displace the other teams scoring runners, and increasing their score. At Jordan we call this a push and it has happened often. In fact, our boys' victories against ECH and Northern were because of pushes.

August 24, 2010 @ JHS v. ECH

1st place – ECH {1

2nd Place – Darrin LaForge (1)

3rd Place – ECH {2

4th Place – Aaron Taylor(2)

5th Place – ECH {3

6th Place – Sam Peters (3)

7th Place – Austen Rios (4)

8th Place – ECH {4

9th Place – Alex Catotti (5)

10th Place – Jimmy Wyngaarden (6*)

11th Place – Sean Long (7*)

12th Place – ECH {5

Jordan: 2-4-6-7-9=28

ECH: 1-3-5-8-12=29

In this particular meet, Jimmy Wyngaarden and Sean Long displaced or pushed ECH's 5th runner back thus adding to their overall team score. Without both runners beating that guy, JHS would not have won.

Often there are cases where competitors may not be part of a “full team” (at least 5 runners). If a school doesn’t have at least 5 runners, then they are running as individuals and don’t count for team scores. This is often the case in championship races and invitational meets. Therefore, when scoring, there are two sets of places for runners.

The individual placing, which includes all runners, and the team placing, which ranks only those runners that are part of a complete team.

Another way to win a duel meet is to take the top 3 spots and go 1-2-3 on a team; the 4th and 5th runners just need to finish the race if the top 3 spots are grabbed. This is called a sweep and both our teams have benefitted from it and suffered from it.