With over 2000 athletes competing at the 2015 version of Nike Cross Regionals Southwest, the meet will likely once again go down and the largest of the eight Nike regions in terms of participation.
A lot of factors go into that. A warm location when the rest of the nation is starting to turn cold is one big reason, but there are others as well. Among them: cross country is kind of a big-deal sport in our region, the course can handle large numbers, the course is very fast (and everyone wants to run fast at the end of their season), and the meet is well organized.
The Grande Sports World course is fundamentally the same course as the Toka Sticks course--a flat golf course circuit with a pair of dips and the occasional bump to run over. In that sense, it's probably reasonably fair to compare times between the two courses. Both courses are clearly faster (and more spacious!) than the original layout at Kiwanis Park in Tempe.
One thing that is a definite improvement of Grande Sports World over Toka Sticks is the parking, but that is immaterial where the race itself is concerned.
This year, the Southwest region became the first region to divide open races up by size of school. That created a few issues with registration, but those issues are being looked at, and there's reason to hope a better solution might be forthcoming for next year.
In the meanwhile, it's both fair and safe to say that dividing up the open races by size of school makes far more sense than dividing them up by alphabetical order. And, a small school championship race opens up a whole new world of possibilities for the small schools of the Southwest region. No longer are the small schools simply relegated to the margins of the meet. Small-school participation should definitely be on the uptick in years ahead.
This was not, however, the first year Nike Southwest had a small school division. There was also a small school division in the debut year of 2007, but participation in the small school races that year was so meager that the idea was quickly scrapped.
This year, however, the story was much different. Several of the regions top small-school teams proved the concept by participating in the small-school championship race. That helps to build expectations for next year. And soon, we hope, it will be as big of an issue for Nike Southwest to figure out how to manage the numbers in the small school races as it is with the overall championship races.
There was a significant glitch in scoring for NXR-SW 2015. Nobody ever wants to see a glitch in scoring, least of all the timer. Nobody ever sets out to make one happen. But, as long as there is a human element in anything we do, there's opportunity for this sort of thing to happen.
Making the best of a difficult situation was a classy handing over of the award by the Davis girls to the Xavier girls. If you missed it, here's a clip of that:
It's a situation that could have ended much more poorly than it did. But, sometimes people rise to the occasion even when it's a difficult occasion. I'm prone to believe cross country people are reliably like that.
In addition to everything else we saw this year at NXR-SW, this was likely the most competitive Nike Southwest regional seen to date. The boys region separated the first three places by a single point, and American Fork was not much further back in fourth. Curiously, Lehi and Davis struggled to reprise their very solid state meet performances. Desert Hills struggled to replicate a very solid set of mid season performances.
As much as it stinks to stay home when you figured you had a great shot at going, it's probably good for the region as a whole that we're seeing some new representation at NXN this year. Mountain Vista makes their first trip to NXN this year. Should Lone Peak get an at-large bid, that's an added dose of new representation.
The girls race wasn't nearly as tight at the top as the boys, but the two-point margin between second-place Xavier and third-place Davis could easily have gone the other direction with just a slight change in placings here and there. Davis keeps their fingers crossed at keeping their string of appearances at NXN intact.
For those with Insider access and an interest in seeing how the various states broke out if we merge all their complete (five or more runners) teams into a statewide merge, I've compiled those below:
I left off Nevada simply on account of very small representation from the Silver State.
And, all the best to American Fork, Xavier College Prep, Mountain Vista, and Timpanogos (plus, possibly one or two more) as they advance to Nike Cross Nationals. Pending at-large bids which could change a thing or two, the Southwest region's individual representatives will include Katie Rainsberger, Lauren Gregory, Amanda Mayoral, Brie Oakley, Courtney Wayment, Casey Clinger, Alek Parsons, Paul Roberts, Isaac Green, and Henry Raymond.