Should the California state meet feature a Sweepstakes Race?
The late date of the California state meet means that Golden State runners are competing for all-state honors on Thanksgiving weekend while the rest of the United States runs in Foot Locker Regionals and NXN Regionals. The Foot Locker West Regional Championship is in December for this reason, but the NXN qualifiers are selected by committee based on performance at the California state meet. Officials merge the results of the five divisional races to determine the top two teams that earn an automatic NXN berth.
Runners compete in a total of 10 races (five per gender) throughout the course of the entire day, resulting in varying weather and course conditions depending on race time. The varied conditions have resulted in controversial decisions in the past. Last year, the nationally ranked Great Oak boys won the DI Championship, which is the largest division and most competitive race, but were not selected for an auto berth because they did not win the overall merge.
If a Sweepstakes Race were to be created, then teams could 'opt in' to compete for the overall California state title. This would be more analogous to the outdoor track and field model for the state meet, which crowns one overall champion per gender for each event. A Sweepstakes Race would also create an objective way to select NXN individual and team qualifiers.
EDIT: Defending DI state XC champion Philip Rocha of Arcadia writes us, "OR should the Foot Locker West Regional be scheduled cooperatively [with] the CA State Meet? So CA gets a fair chance of NXN + FL?"
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Should the California state meet feature a Sweepstakes Race?
The late date of the California state meet means that Golden State runners are competing for all-state honors on Thanksgiving weekend while the rest of the United States runs in Foot Locker Regionals and NXN Regionals. The Foot Locker West Regional Championship is in December for this reason, but the NXN qualifiers are selected by committee based on performance at the California state meet. Officials merge the results of the five divisional races to determine the top two teams that earn an automatic NXN berth.
