by Chris Pfaff, Xavier Sportswriter

A “hypothetical meet” in Athletic.net, using only the Division 1 teams actually running in the State meet, and using each runner’s season best time, ranked Xavier at #10 with 270 points.

In real life, Xavier took 4th place with 168 points, 102 points better than the hypothetical meet. No other team in the top-ten even came close to Xavier’s margin of improvement. Only half of the top-ten teams improved; the next best improvement was 39.

Xavier’s journey through the 5K Race. Notice the 18-point improvement over the last 1.1 miles.

• After one mile: 3rd place – 173 points.
• After two miles: 6th place – 184 points.
• At the finish: 4th place – 168 points.

Xavier’s five scorers and their scoring places:

• 11th JR Ella Wadsworth
  – improved by 23 seconds from last year’s State meet
  – improved by 11 places from last year’s 22nd-place finish
• 21st SR Kaitlyn Markham
• 30th SR Maggie Mostoller
• 42nd SO Chantel Newman
• 64th SO Katie Castle

Based on the aforementioned hypothetical meet, Xavier’s #3, #4, & #5 runners — Mostoller, Newman, & Castle — really came through. All 102 points of improvement in the team score from the hypothetical meet came from these three runners.

The following list shows their hypothetical finishes compared with their actual finishes:

• Mostoller: 73 to 30
• Newman: 79 to 42
• Castle: 86 to 64

Also competing for the Gators were SR Ellie Hilsabeck (76th out of 156 runners) and JR Nova Rodriguezcrespo (88th).

Some runners qualify to run in State as individuals, not as part of a team. Therefore, runners who are part of a team have two finishing places: an overall place and a scoring place. For example, Wadsworth finished 13th overall and 11th for scoring purposes. Because she finished in the top 21 overall, Ella earned a medal. In the image below are the twenty-one medalists. Ella is in the middle wearing a white tee shirt.

The transfer of leadership from head coaching legend Dave Van Sickle to the co-headship of off-campus coach Daniel Wong and Xavier teacher Nissa Kubly has proved to be very successful. The cross country coaching staff and student athletes represented Xavier well this season, and their fourth-place performance at State testifies to that.

Complete results on FinishedResults.com

A little race footage: the start of the race and around 10 minutes into the race.