McGinn is #17 in the nation on TullyRunners rankings. Do you guys really think he’s gonna be that good this year? Yeah he did qualify for NXN individually, but his 3200 PR is 9:19. This is good, but more than 40 returners in the nation went sub-9. He also lost training partners Martinez and Otis to graduation so he will likely have to train alone this year unless someone else at that level comes in.
I think #17 is pretty optimistic, to be honest. He was about the 30th returning finisher at NXN (not a good race for him, admittedly) and seems to have plateaued - his track times are garbage compared to all the other guys profiled, including the rising Freshmen that Meylan threw in at the end. Still, he's got a great coach and zero team pressure, so maybe he'll pop a big season. We'll see.
McGinn is #17 in the nation on TullyRunners rankings. Do you guys really think he’s gonna be that good this year? Yeah he did qualify for NXN individually, but his 3200 PR is 9:19. This is good, but more than 40 returners in the nation went sub-9. He also lost training partners Martinez and Otis to graduation so he will likely have to train alone this year unless someone else at that level comes in.
I think #17 is pretty optimistic, to be honest. He was about the 30th returning finisher at NXN (not a good race for him, admittedly) and seems to have plateaued - his track times are garbage compared to all the other guys profiled, including the rising Freshmen that Meylan threw in at the end. Still, he's got a great coach and zero team pressure, so maybe he'll pop a big season. We'll see.
Is he even going to be the best runner in NY? There are many returners in NY that ran faster than 9:17
It's an inexact science. He also had Burnt Hills 3rd, F-M 4th, and four Section 3 teams higher than Auburn. Shows how impossible it is to predict this stuff accurately. That being said, his rankings are better than anybody else's.
It's an inexact science. He also had Burnt Hills 3rd, F-M 4th, and four Section 3 teams higher than Auburn. Shows how impossible it is to predict this stuff accurately. That being said, his rankings are better than anybody else's.
To be fair, he put FM as 3rd not only due to their ability to reload in the past, but because they had a good season in 2021 and he had some other returning varsity scorers besides Otis/McGinn which include Perry, Cooper D and Weires, but they were injured at times during track / xc, and Cooper D was out all season so they needed to rely on younger kids new to varsity to fill in for the 4th and 5th position (Ditre / Patrick), but they both made a big jump from the year before.
Burnt Hills returned 4 guys and lost 3 scorers from 2021 but their top guy Rounds was sick a lot that year so he couldn’t perform to the best of his ability, which really hindered the team’s performance.
Monroe Woodbury lost 4 guys (their 4-7) from 2021 but returned their 1-3, and their 4th and 5th guys who were youngsters stepped up and helped elevate the team. That’s why they finished 3rd at NXR rather than 7th (which is where they were ranked on preseason rankings).
To be fair, he put FM as 3rd not only due to their ability to reload in the past, but because they had a good season in 2021 and he had some other returning varsity scorers besides Otis/McGinn which include Perry, Cooper D and Weires, but they were injured at times during track / xc, and Cooper D was out all season so they needed to rely on younger kids new to varsity to fill in for the 4th and 5th position (Ditre / Patrick), but they both made a big jump from the year before.
It's also fair to say that there was no indication that their returning 3-4-5 guys had made any substantive improvement going into last season. Perry hadn't really improved since his freshman year, and the other guys had never run a 150 SR and had no track performances indicating that they would - and they didn't, as it turned out. Still, after so many seasons of excellence, it's easy to expect them to be up there... heck, MileSplit had them ranked as a top-5 team fairly late in the season last year, when it was obvious they were nowhere near that.
Their girls team is in a similar situation going into this season - a top runner, a couple of scorers, an awesome pedigree, and... ??? The pre-season rankings should be interesting.
To be fair, he put FM as 3rd not only due to their ability to reload in the past, but because they had a good season in 2021 and he had some other returning varsity scorers besides Otis/McGinn which include Perry, Cooper D and Weires, but they were injured at times during track / xc, and Cooper D was out all season so they needed to rely on younger kids new to varsity to fill in for the 4th and 5th position (Ditre / Patrick), but they both made a big jump from the year before.
It's also fair to say that there was no indication that their returning 3-4-5 guys had made any substantive improvement going into last season. Perry hadn't really improved since his freshman year, and the other guys had never run a 150 SR and had no track performances indicating that they would - and they didn't, as it turned out. Still, after so many seasons of excellence, it's easy to expect them to be up there... heck, MileSplit had them ranked as a top-5 team fairly late in the season last year, when it was obvious they were nowhere near that.
Their girls team is in a similar situation going into this season - a top runner, a couple of scorers, an awesome pedigree, and... ??? The pre-season rankings should be interesting.
Dereszynski ran a 156 speed rating in 2021, but he had to quit after the first 2 races because of an injury or something
FM’s 3-4-5 in 2022 were going to be: Perry (162 SR in 2021) Dereszynski (156 SR in 2021) Weires (142 SR in 2021)
All 3 of them were in their top 7 in 2021
This is probably why FM was #3 in the preseason, besides the fact they were able to historically reload
But what actually happened during fall 2022: - Dereszynski didn’t not race at all except for the first 2 meets - Perry didn’t improve much like you said - Weires was injured most of the season so he couldn’t improve much. Only one track result during spring 2022 as well
Dereszynski ran a 156 speed rating in 2021, but he had to quit after the first 2 races because of an injury or something
FM’s 3-4-5 in 2022 were going to be: Perry (162 SR in 2021) Dereszynski (156 SR in 2021) Weires (142 SR in 2021)
All 3 of them were in their top 7 in 2021
They couldn't all have been in the top 7 in 2021 - none of them were in their top-5 at the State Meet or Feds. 😉
We're getting way into the minutia here... but Dereszynski's 156 was at the first race of the season, where the ratings are least accurate, and was a big outlier. He had a consistent season of low to mid-140s performances, and no improvement through the course of the season. That's way different than popping a 156 at the end of the season.
Nothing wrong with the Fairport pick here, but I think St Anthony’s will be better.
Meylan doesn’t take track times into account much. Not a bad idea and I know that XC is different than track but solid track times after a not-so-great XC season can show that someone made a big jump from the year before, or that someone may have been sick or injured the fall before track season.
St Anthony qualified for NXN last year and return 3 scorers from NXN. They return: Morelli - 175 - 12 McLaughlin - 173 - 12 MacPherson - 168 - 11 Wigutow - 9:29 3200 - 12 Melloy - 9:59 (someone posted on the track 2023 thread that he ran a 9:39 in a time trial last fall) - 12 That’s a solid top 5 already.
They also have these guys to add depth: Kennedy - 10:05 3200 indoor - 12 Curley - 10:17 3200 - 11
FM boys team not in the top 31 for preseason for boys. First time this happened but no surprise here because they really returned only 5 guys from last year’s roster
Team wise Northport will be strong with 3 freshmen sub 4:45 and Brandon Cruz and should be able to compete at the state wide level for yet another year.
As a suffolk guy, Cruz should be awesome. Word around town is he's looking at top 5 in state/region. Rest of the team has potential, but their fastest non senior is an 800 guy, might have some trouble extending to 5k. Northport always finds a way though, last 2 years they've been ranked way low and ended up as top 4 teams.
Team wise Northport will be strong with 3 freshmen sub 4:45 and Brandon Cruz and should be able to compete at the state wide level for yet another year.
As a suffolk guy, Cruz should be awesome. Word around town is he's looking at top 5 in state/region. Rest of the team has potential, but their fastest non senior is an 800 guy, might have some trouble extending to 5k. Northport always finds a way though, last 2 years they've been ranked way low and ended up as top 4 teams.
FM boys team not in the top 31 for preseason for boys. First time this happened but no surprise here because they really returned only 5 guys from last year’s roster
They return only one guy above a 150 SR, and maybe 3 guys above 130. Meylan got burned assuming they would reload out of thin air last year; looks like he's sticking to hard data this year.