MileSplit CT is kicking off the previews of another XC season like no other with an in-depth series of articles that will continue through the month!
Following
on a 2020-21 year for cross country that was shortened or missing
entirely for teams in Connecticut, this year the outlook seems more promising for
an extended schedule that will culminate with State Open and national
championships. Still, at the beginning of September we are keeping our XC fingers
crossed that all the sections and conferences can be restored to the
traditional fall slate of action.
We begin coverage of this year's XC season with previews that will try to pull together the somewhat murky info from last year's XC meets along with more insights from the track season's long distance races and even from the estimates of who might be returning this year for a team that are based on 2019 XC results. So yes, this year we begin the XC campaign with a lot more questions than in past years. But we also hope to have a lot more race and interview videos, photo albums, and feature pieces to go along with the weekly rankings and wrap-ups that begin mid to late September.
An Invitation: We
are making a commitment to cover all the schools in the state, which
naturally includes the teams from the six classes (LL-L-MM-M-SS-S) of
the CIAC. But we are also trying to give attention to teams from the
other associations such as the Founders League, Fairchester Athletic
Association (Fairfield+WestchesterNY, better known as FAA), and
Housatonic Valley Athletic League. No matter which CT school you are
running for, we'll be watching out for you. Please set up a MileSplit
account for yourself if you do not own one and claim your athlete's
profile if you are a runner or your team profile on CT MileSplit if you
are a coach. Answers to any questions about MileSplit accounts can
likely be found on the support pages. And teams are encouraged to tag MileSplitCT in your social media so we can share your exploits.
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The
previews and rankings for the XC runners and teams will be using not
only the raw times from the meets but also the speed ratings from the
Tully Runners system that are becoming an ever more central part of XC
coverage. Speed
ratings for XC runners are composed from comparing the times from
individuals on a wide variety of courses under varying conditions and
are much more informative than the "best time" lists from performances
on widely ranging course types. In 2020, however, few of CT's teams ran
in meets that were were speed rated.
The
previews for the CT boys start here with an overview of the top individual
runners and teams overall, and they will continue with three more preview articles with special focus on each
of the CIAC's six classes and the rest of the conferences. There are a group of teams from conferences like the ECC that we have little info on, so we are trying to provide very rough estimations from 2021 track and 2019 XC results for some of the traditional small school powers.
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A great season is looming for the guys of CT, but accolades also need to be paid to last year's tremendous group of seniors who helped to really put CT running on the national map last year. Among those moving on are the Northeast XC and East Coast championships winner Nick Bendtsen of Wolcott who is at Princeton, Westhill's Colin McLaughlin who will be posting a 3:50 mile at Carnegie-Mellon if he continues the trend line of last year's incredible time-shrinking act, Conard's Tyler Remigino splits from the Sherry twins for the University of Virginia, Ridgefield's top duo of Charles Namiot and Charlie King head to Williams University and the University of Pennsylvania, Staples' Dillon Harding treks south to Loyola-Maryland, Wilton's Davis Cote goes north to Vermont, and Fairfield Prep's Azaan Dawson becomes all Hokie for Virginia Tech,
Check out the preseason previews below.
PREVIEW OF RUNNERS | PREVIEW OF Teams |
|---|---|
Individuals | Teams |