I'll preface this article by stating that there are a lot of sick kids out there. Some teams passed around the flu early in the season and are getting healthy at the right time. Those teams may be unranked because of their "poor" performance as perceived by fans early in the season. Other teams are completely decimated by sickness right now. Some coaches are reporting that up to five of their seven varsity runners will sit out with the flu or run in a weakened condition this Saturday.
What the Coaches Thought
Mocorunning.com conducted an email coaches poll to determine who your coaches believed the favorites are. 17 out of 18 coaches selected the Walter Johnson boys to win the county title while 1 coach selected Damascus. 17 out of 18 coaches selected the Northwest girls to win the county title while 1 coach selected Walter Johnson. The average predicted winnings scores were 78.3 for the girls and 62.9 for the boys.
What the Fans Thought
MoCoRunning.com conducted an open online poll between October 13 and October 18 for anyone to rank their top ten boys teams in the county. 65 valid boys team votes and 56 valid girls team votes were collected and tabulated to form the rankings you see below.
Rank
Boys Team
Poll Points
1
Walter Johnson
647
2
Churchill
491
3
Damascus
483
4
Northwest
373
5
R. Montgomery
368
6
Sherwood
239
7
Whitman
212
8
Q. Orchard
164
9
Poolesville
139
10
Wootton
132
Fun Facts: Walter Johnson boys have finished in the top 7 at the county championship for the last 13 years, but did not win a county title until last year. If Walter Johnson wins this year, they will be the fourth team in the last nine years to win back to back county titles. Since 2001, Northwest, Gaithersburg, and Quince Orchard have each won back to back county titles while Sherwood won a single county title in 2005. The 2002 Northwest team won the county title with 48 points, the lowest county championship point total of the last ten year, but only 16 boys teams showed up that year because the meet was moved to Poolesville after weeks of suspended practice due to the DC sniper.
62 out of 65 fans predicted Walter Johnson to win the county meet in this poll, but even WJ may have one varsity runner out due to illness.
Rank
Girls Team
Poll Points
1
Northwest
522
2
W. Johnson
462
3
Wootton
358
4
Churchill
303
5
Whitman
283
6
B-CC
210
7
Damascus
180
8
Clarksburg
151
T-9
Q. Orchard
149
T-9
Sherwood
149
Fun Facts: The Northwest girls have won five out of the last six county titles. The Germantown school, which only opened in 1998, has won a boys or girls county title in seven out of the last eight years. Prior to Northwest's first girls county title in 2003, Walter Johnson won the previous five girls county titles.
Let's put that in perspective: Ten out of the last eleven girls county titles have been won by Walter Johnson or Northwest.
The Northwest girls are still rolling, but Walter Johnson is back. WJ's top four is every bit as strong as Northwest's if not stronger, but Northwest has what WJ doesn't have: a fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth runner not far from their #4 runner.
42 people predicted Northwest would win while 11 people predicted WJ would win in the fan poll. 3 people picked other teams.
More fun facts: The 2007 Churchill girls were the only team to break up the streak of WJ and NW girls winning the last 11 years.
The Quince Orchard girls team has finished in the top five at the county championship meet every year since 1990. This year's QO team (ranked #9 in this poll) falls into the category of being hurt by the flu.
Name
Comments
Saturday, October 24, 2009 01:23:27 PM
WJ and NW girls had a good race, with WJ edging out NW by 4 points to take the county title.
NW boys did not do well. Very good race by C Miller and a good run by Steve could not carry NW. Jacob Brennan, out with the flu since last Thursday made a game effort but had his worst race of the year. He, like several other kids busted their but, but could not over come weeks of flu driven bad health.
Congrats to all the teams. Each kid, all schools worked hard and should be proud of their efforts.
Congrats to the to county champs and good luck to all at the reg. and state meets. Let's go make MoCo proud.
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Saturday, October 24, 2009 05:51:34 PM
Whitman boys did very well, possibly top 3 at states if drew katz runs like last year
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Sunday, October 25, 2009 12:05:43 PM
Whitmen got lucky, they should not have beaten NW, and Churchill is overrated!
