MoCoRunning






County Championship Projections - Girls
By: Kevin Milsted
Sunday, October 16, 2022
webmaster@mocorunning.com

Below you will find projected finish times for each of Mocorunning's ranked runners as of Week 7 (10/16/2022). Scroll to the bottom to read how the projected times were determined.

Projected County Championship 5k Times
========================================================================================================
Pl        Name                  School                      Year            Projected Time      Points
========================================================================================================
1         Varri Higgins         Bethesda Chevy Chase        2024            17:45.4             1
2         Grace Finnegan        Richard Montgomery          2024            17:52.8             2
3         Avery Graham          Sherwood                    2025            17:55.1             3
4         Alexa Avila           Montgomery Blair            2023            18:15.2             4
5         Daisy Dastrup         Poolesville                 2024            18:26.8             5
6         Katie Greenwald       Walt Whitman                2025            18:31.4             6
7         Madeleine Simmons     Walter Johnson              2025            18:53.6             7
8         Hallie Muniz          Winston Churchill           2024            19:02.2             8
9         Maya Gottesman        Thomas S. Wootton           2023            19:04.7             9
10        Noor Aly              Winston Churchill           2025            19:07.3             10
11        Victoria Ketzler      Thomas S. Wootton           2024            19:08.8             11
12        Charlotte Chang       Thomas S. Wootton           2026            19:14.3             12
13        MacKenzie Raue        Walter Johnson              2024            19:19.8             13
14        Rebecca Vasconez      Thomas S. Wootton           2023            19:21.4             14
15        Meilani Rodgers       Thomas S. Wootton           2024            19:26.2             15
16        Whitney Duhon         Northwest                   2025            19:42.5             16
17        Maya Ducker           Northwood                   2023            19:43.5             17
18        Carolyn Hultman       Walter Johnson              2024            19:59.6             18
19        Maya Colavito         Richard Montgomery          2023            20:00.2             19
20        Emily Zanni           Sherwood                    2023            20:01.7             20
21        Nina Forstner         Bethesda Chevy Chase        2023            20:02.1             21
22        Anna Bodmer           Poolesville                 2023            20:02.5             22
23        Elisa Ciriaci         Bethesda Chevy Chase        2025            20:12.9             23
24        Caroline Easley       Walt Whitman                2024            20:14.4             24
25        Zuzana Huserova       Walter Johnson              2024            20:18.9             25
26        Aanya Tiwari          Thomas S. Wootton           2025            20:28.3             26
27        Lauren Gotting        Richard Montgomery          2025            20:36.0             27
28        Roma Diak             Poolesville                 2025            20:36.3             28
29        Audrey Wychulis       Northwest                   2026            20:39.6             29
30        Sophie Harjes         Bethesda Chevy Chase        2025            20:41.0             30
31        Aubrey Green          Bethesda Chevy Chase        2026            20:46.0             31
32        Natalie Merberg       Walter Johnson              2024            20:47.0             32
33        Abigail Hill          Winston Churchill           2023            20:50.4             33
34        Emilie Creighton      James H. Blake              2025            20:53.0             34
35        Phoebe Dainer         Walt Whitman                2023            20:55.4             35
36        Chiara Mood           Northwest                   2023            20:56.1             36
37        Zara Kanold-Tso       Winston Churchill           2024            20:56.3             37
38        Christa Sadd          Clarksburg                  2024            20:58.1             38
39        Emma Bergfalk         Montgomery Blair            2025            20:58.8             39
40        Madeline Quirion      Sherwood                    2026            21:00.3             40
41        Peri Nelson           Poolesville                 2023            21:01.2             41
42        Kelsie Miller         Winston Churchill           2023            21:06.0             42
43        Olivia Woitach        Walt Whitman                2025            21:07.4             43
44        Alyssa Forrester      James H. Blake              2023            21:07.7             44
45        Audrey Inglese        Richard Montgomery          2025            21:08.9             45
46        Elola Eckford         Walt Whitman                2024            21:09.5             46
47        Morgan Kirsch         Bethesda Chevy Chase        2025            21:11.6             47
48        Sabrina Chou          Winston Churchill           2024            21:13.8             48

Projected Team Scores (Teams with 5+ ranked runners)
=================================================
   School                       Projected Points
=================================================
1. Thomas S. Wootton                    61
2. Walter Johnson                       95
3. Bethesda Chevy Chase                 106
4. Winston Churchill                    130
5. Walt Whitman                         154

Teams with Four Ranked Runners: Poolesville, Richard Montgomery
Teams with Three Ranked Runners: Northwest, Sherwood
Mocorunning's ranking formula is explained HERE. The ranking formula compares runners in every race throughout the season and year after year. The finish times only matter to the extent that finish times of all ranked runners will be compared and scored against all other ranked runners in that race. The most important thing for mobility within the ranking is beating other ranked runners by as many seconds as possible.

The projections you see on this page exactly match the names on the week 7 ranking published on 10/16/2022 with a couple notable changes. Private school runners were removed and the points were replaced with projected finish times for the county championship course at Gaithersburg. Do the points convert directly to 5k times? No, not exactly, but the points do convert to a time scale. 1 second = 2 points. Therefore, if the top ranked runner had 200 points, he or she would be ranked 200 points or 100 seconds above the ranking cutoff. You can assign that top ranked runner any 5k time, and he or she would be 100 seconds (1:40) above the ranking cutoff. Take any two runners and subtract their point totals, divide by two, and you will know how far apart they are expected to finish according to the ranking.

To assign the projected times to all the runners, you really only need to assign a projected time to one runner. Once one runner has an assigned projected time, the point scale dictates the finish times for every other runner within the ranking. It is not the first or last ranked runner that you want to key off of. It is the runners in the middle range that will be the most consistent year after year. The great thing about the county championship is that we have the same exact number of teams entered in the meet at the same time of the year, every year. The caliber of the middle tier varsity runners will not fluctuate very much from year to year, at least, that was my thesis before the COVID-19 pandemic. The sport clearly had a lack of depth in 2021, and the effects of low participation during the pandemic are still lingering.

The chart below shows the county championship varsity race finishers plotted for each year since the course was modified in 2011. With ten years of history on the course, the average line is well-defined. You can see that there have been some slow years (2018 and 2021) and some very fast years (2015 and 2017). Weather played a roll in 2018 and 2021 when the course was particularly wet. The pandemic clearly affected the depth of the varsity race in 2021. Most other years have been dry, and the athletes dictated the speed of the course.

I decided to make the assumption that we are back to "average" even though the data still points to lingering effects of low participation during the pandemic. Under the assumption that 2022 will be an average year, meaning that this year's middle tier "top 100" varsity high school runners are no better or worse than a typical year, I want my RED projected dots to land on the blue AVG line as closely as possible. I cannot manipulate the curvature of the red dot curve. The curvature of the red dot curve is dictated by the ranking system. I can only move my red line up or down vertically to match the historical results profile of the county championship meet. I adjusted all times up and down until I felt that I had the best overlay with the 10-year average. I aimed to line up the 20th to 40th ranked runners as closely as possible to the average line, paying little attention to the top ranked runners. Doing this exercise ensured that the projections are in line with the history of the meet on this course.

Moving right to left on the chart below, the red curve bends sharply downwards such that it breaks away from the historical average. This tells me that the top 15 runners have separated themselves from the #16 through #48 runners this season more than what is typical. I was left with a choice. Should I line up the top 15 with the historical average trend and let #20-48 rise much higher than the historical average? Or should I line up the #20-40 runners with the historical average and let the #1-19 runners land much lower than the historical average? I chose the latter to keep consistent with my methodology from past years, which is the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic case is that this is NOT an average year because the sport as a whole and each individual program is still recovering from low participation due to the COVID pandemic. We will find out on Saturday.






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