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Below are fun facts noted while updating Mocorunning's XC County Championship Meet Record Book for next year. See this year's record book (which reflects last year's results). Ideas for next year's record book are always welcome.
Team Tidbits
Montgomery Blair High School won the school's first Montgomery County team title in meet history. Blair's 120 point score was the boys team's second lowest point total in meet history. In 2019, Blair scored 102 points in a runner-up effort. Blair joined the 2016 Northwest High School team as the only boys teams in meet history to win without a top ten finisher. The 2024 Blair team and 2016 Northwest team were each led by a 13th place finisher. Blair recorded a 29 second spread for its top five boys. Blair joined a club of 6 MCPS schools that have won titles any time in history in boys cross country, boys indoor track, and boys outdoor track. The other schools to win all three county crowns any time in history are Northwest, Gaithersburg, Quince Orchard, Winston Churchill, and Walter Johnson.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School won its fourth girls XC county title in meet history. It had been 11 years since B-CC's three-peat in 2011, 2012, and 2013. B-CC scored 62 points without two runners who had finished top 7 in last year's county championship meet and led their team in the early part of this season.
This caught my attention so I dug into it...
The Northwest High School girls team scored 488 points at the 2023 county championship and 129 points at the 2024 county championship. The 359 point drop from 2023 to 2024 was the biggest point drop year-over-year by a girls team in meet history. Northwest placed 19th at the 2023 county championship and 2nd at the 2024 county championship. Their 17 place move from 2023 to 2024 was the biggest move year-over-year by a girls team in meet history. The next closest comparable improvement was the Seneca Valley girls team that moved from 15th to 3rd in 1995, scoring 412 points one year and 127 points the next. A comparable drop on the boys side was the 2016 Poolesville team which went from 24th to 8th place, scoring 620 points in 2015 and 221 points in 2016. This analysis was made easy by Mocorunning's Team Place and Score Matrix in the annual meet record book. 4,968 calculations were done in excel to subtract the points and place of 27 teams in 46 meets. This analysis only includes teams that were complete for two consecutive years (does not include teams that went from incomplete one year to complete the next). There have been cases where teams went from incomplete one year to top 10 the next year, but it has not happened since the early 90's when there were fewer schools and results were not always reported to include every school.
Blake High School tied its highest girls team finish in meet history (12th). Northwest had its highest girls team finish since 2010 (2nd). Seneca Valley had its highest girls team finish since 1998 (14th).
Several girls teams maintained long streaks finishing in the top ten at the MCPS Championship: Whitman (40+), Wootton (22), B-CC (17), Walter Johnson (12).
Thomas S. Wootton extended a streak of 15 consecutive meets finishing in the top ten boys teams.
Individual Accolades
Nathaniel Swanson became the 7th boy in meet history to win back-to-back county titles. This came a year after he became Churchill High School's first individual XC county champion in meet history. His time of 15:49 was 17th best on the Bohrer Park course.
The meet has had very good trios of top three boys in its history, but this year's fourth place finisher ranks well against all other 4th place finishers in history. Ayaan Ahmad was the fourth fastest fourth place finisher at the county meet on the Bohrer Park course. Clarksburg had had only one male All-County athlete since the school opened in 2006. Ahmad became the second.
James Blake High School earned two All-County honors for the first time in Semir Kemal and Zachary Oh. Blake had had only one male All-County athlete since the school opened in 1998. Kemal's 6th place finish was the highest ever by a boy from Blake High School.
Jefferson Regitz' 9th place finish was the highest by a Rockville boy since 1990. The Rockville boys team's tenth place team finish was the highest by the Rams since 1990 when it was also tenth. Rockville's boys finished top ten almost every year in the 1980's. 2024 is the 40th anniversary of Rockville's lone county title (1984) which was mentioned in this year's county championship record book by Mocorunning.
Megan Raue became the fifth individual female county champion from Walter Johnson High School. She was the tenth female county champion from Walter Johnson when counting repeat champions. Her two second victory over Madeline Quirion of Sherwood was tied for the third slimmest margin of victory in meet history. Raue's time of 18:41 was 16th fastest on the Bohrer Park course.
Quirion's time of 18:43 was the sixth fastest time on the Bohrer Park course by a meet runner-up. Quirion tied the highest finish by a Sherwood girl at the Montgomery County Championship Meet (2nd).
Emma Colavito (Richard Montgomery) and Celestine Delannay (B-CC) ran the second fastest times in meet history for places 4 and 5, respectively, at 18:50 and 18:52. It was a very fast top five at this year's girls county championship, and that happened with two pre-meet favorites who did not run.
Katie Greenwald of Walt Whitman High School became the first three-time All-County XC athlete of the post-COVID era (first since 2018). She became the 41st girl in meet history to accomplish that feat and fourth from Whitman.
Got it Wrong...
The biggest positive movers in Mocorunning's Week 7 Boys Rankings after the County Championship Meet were:
1. Benjamin Burckle (Blair, Jr.)
2. Zach Pritts (Whitman, Jr.)
3. Aiden Liu (Blair, Jr.)
4. Jonah Greszler (Whitman, So.)
5. John Taylor (Blair, Jr.)
The biggest positive movers in Mocorunning's Week 7 Girls Rankings after the County Championship Meet were:
1. Bonita Eckford (Whitman, Fr.)
2. Shreya Modur (Northwest, Jr.)
3. Annie Sun (Wootton, Sr.)
4. Lilah Rich (B-CC, Jr.)
5. Aubrey Green (B-CC, Jr.)
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