Jessica Cunningham and Liz Tremblay finish together at the NXN SW regional, keeping two teams' hopes for an at-large bid alive.
11/30/2008, 12:00 MST: The NXN selection committee has now met and selected Kingwood Park and Vista Ridge, both of Texas, to join Burnt Hills and Adirondack Runners, both of New York, as the at-large selections for the NXN girls race. For Thompson Valley and Davis, it was a case of almost but not quite.
At the end of last Saturday's NXN SW regional championship race, it appeared as if the season had ended for both the Davis (UT) and Thompson Valley (CO) girls--excepting, of course, Laura Tremblay and Candace Eddy.
With two of NXN's four at-large bids all but committed to whatever New York teams finished third and fourth in that region, chances for the SW region getting any at-large bids seemed, to borrow an expression, slim and fat.
Yet, a sliver of hope remained. Going back to the John Martin Invitational on September 19, Thompson Valley had edged the Fort Collins team on a tie-breaker. While it is true that Rachel Viger did not compete for Fort Collins at that meet, the team that did compete for the Lambkins satisfies the NXN criteria for Thompson Valley to earn a head-to-head point.
Complicating the picture for Thompson Valley's head-to-head point against a qualifying team was the fact that Davis (UT) finished ahead of Thompson Valley at the SW regional. Thus, for Thompson Valley to have a chance, there would have to be two open at large slots and TV would push Davis into the first of the two open slots.
And that scenario seemed very unlikely last weekend.
It doesn't seem so unlikely right now. Saugus and Dana Hills won their respective classifications in the California girls state meet. Thus, it appears they and no other CA teams will advance to NXN (no other CA teams have head-to-head points against either Saugus or Dana Hills).
Only in one other region does a third or fourth place team have a point against a qualifying team. That point comes from the South region where a Texas team that also finished fourth in the regional meet owns a point.
So, it would appear that either Davis and Thompson Valley from the SW region advance to NXN nationals or Kingwood Park and Vista Ridge (both TX) from the South region advance. One scenario or the other, but not both. Then again, one begins to suspect this might end up in committee, at which point it is anyone's guess what happens.
This matter may be settled as early as tomorrow. For now, however, there is a ray of hope that Colorado will be represented by three state champions at NXN this coming Saturday and that Utah could have two teams competing at NXN.