Boise, Idaho | Saturday | Girls 2:30 MT/4:30 ET | Boys 3:05 MT/5:05 ET
Projected team scores
States: WY, WA, ID, OR, MT, AK, HI
Boys Race Preview
Flo50 individuals: bubble Brody Smith
Top returning boys: Smith, Michael Slagowski, Eric Fykerud, Ty Jordan, Alex Martin, Phillip Fishburn, Ryan Gregory, Noah Horsburgh, Justin Janke, Chris Henry
Washington and Oregon have had serious hegemony over the two auto-qualifying spots in this race. Since the dawn of regionals, a Washington boys' team has finished in the top two every year, and Portland's Summit, Jesuit, and Central Catholic--once each!--are the only non-WA teams to crack the top two since 2007. Could this be the year the Washington dominance, or at least the WA-OR bipolarity, ends?
The Bozeman, Montana boys are primed to do it. With the Washington powerhouses getting hit unusually hard by graduation, Bozeman's tight pack could become the first Montana team to crack the top two at NXN-NW. They'll need to have all five of their normal scorers on point on Saturday, though. At the Montana state meet, their fifth man was less than thirty seconds behind usual No. 1 Riley Collins--but their sixth man was eighty-seven seconds behind Collins.
If Washington and Oregon do keep their stranglehold on the auto-qualifying spots (reminder: each of the nine regional meets gets two AQ teams and then four more at-large teams are selected to fill out the twenty-two team NXN field), then three meets hint at which teams will do at. At Bob Firman in September, four Northwest teams were separated by just twenty-one points. That invite went: Crater (OR) 236, Bozeman (MT) 248, North Central (WA) 255, Tahoma (WA) 257. Though it was just a September meet, Crater and Bozeman beating North Central was serious news--NC has won seven of the last eight NXN-NW championships, and automatically qualified for NXN every year since the regional system was implemented.
Whatever happens on Saturday, North Central has already extended one of its prestigious streaks this season. At our second meet, the Washington state championship, the North Central boys won their tenth straight 3A title with the exact same 15:48 top five average that Tahoma posted in winning the 4A race. The Oregon state meet didn't create much more separation, with Summit edging Crater 32-36 in the 5A race and Central Catholic looking like a credible contender with a 16:16 average (about ten seconds slower than the 5A top two) in winning 6A.
The team battle will have major implications on the race for the five individual spots. North Central's Janke and Summit's Eric Fykerud and Alex Martin are among the favorites for an individual Q, but they could be joined by a pack of teammates. If those three all make it by dint of the team race, six individuals to watch are Wyoming's Brody Smith and Chris Henry, state champs Ahmed Muhumed (Oregon), Michael Slagowski (Idaho), and Ty Jordan (Alaska) plus Washington runner-up Nathan Beamer. Those six can run hard and not worry about blowing up and having it hurt their teams.
Prediction: 1. Bozeman (MT) 2. North Central (WA)