While much of the rankings picture remains unchanged in this week's coach's poll, there is a shifting between 4th and 5th with the Wayzata girls moving up and bumping Willmar down to 5th.
Wayzata girls last raced on September 26th, splitting their team between Griak and Milaca. Wayzata girls placed 7th at the very competitive Griak meet, with other ranked teams placing ahead of them including, Edina (2nd), Marshall (4th), and Minnetonka (6th). Wayzata's second group raced to a 3rd place finish in the 4A division of the Milaca Mega Meet behind North Dakota's #1 team, Grand Forks Central and MSHSL Class A perennial contender, Perham.
Willmar girls raced in their home invite, taking 2nd behind Marshall and posting an impressive 42 points with a 19:40 5k average for their top 5 scoring runners. The Willmar girls posted a win against Wayzata in the Hutchinson meet but it looks like Wayzata's top 7 did not race in that meet. When comparing the two teams based on the results in the MileSplit MN database, it looks like Willmar wins when comparing 5k times, but Wayzata takes the prize when looking at a composite score. The composite score applies a score to an XC team by weighting several different categories:
- XC 5K Team Rank (normal)
- XC 5K 1-5 Split
- XC 5K 1-5 Average
- XC 5K 1-4 Rank (normal)
- XC 5K 1-4 Split
- XC 5K 1-4 Average
- XC 5K 1-3 Split
- XC 5K 1-2 Split
- Outdoor 1600m Top 4 (normal)
- Outdoor 1600m Top 4 Average
- Outdoor 3200m Top 4 (normal)
- Outdoor 3200m Top 4 Average
Willmar will be in Alexandria on Saturday, along with Marshall and Red Wing who are also ranked in Class AA. Wayzata will be racing on October 6th at the Victoria Lions Invitational. We may not see both teams race side-by-side again until the state meet!