Photo by Marleen Van den Neste
The Project
As we approach 50 years of the girls state meet (and many more on the boys side), it seemed striking that there was not a historical database for team performances and finishes that could be referenced. The MPSSAA record book lists only the first- and second-place teams of historical state meets, but there is so much more to be learned by going back and looking through decades worth of results.
One of the most motivating and rewarding aspects of high school running can be trying to help build one of the best teams in school history. However, calculating something like this can be a tedious task for schools that have existed for decades. My hope is that coaches, spectators and especially athletes will be able to use this database for years to come. Want to know when the last time your team qualified for the state meet was? Who the highest finisher in the 3A classification has ever been? The database will help answer these questions and more. In a sport as connected to its history and team pride as cross country is, these tools can be great sources of motivation and inspiration.
The Sheets
At the bottom of the file you will find a list of the different sheets. In every sheet you will find the complete history of each team's finish throughout the history of the state meet (whenever results are available - meets without full results will be noted on the far left-hand side) and a summary of each team's top finish by classification. The differences in the sheets will show at the bottom, where we list the both the school's top 20 individual finishes and top seven individual finishes by classification. To try and account for differences in era and meet size, we have split up some of the different time periods (for example, 1997-present, 1989-present and more to come).
In the sheets titled Boys Teams and Girls Teams these lists will be comprehensive going back as far as individual results will allow. In the sheets titled Since 1997, these lists will only include performances since 1997; the same is true with the sheets titled Since 1989 and any more that will be added in the future.
Ongoing Work
As mentioned above, the matrix of team finishes is as complete as the MPSSAA fall record book (found at mpssaa.org) and results found at both Mocorunning.com and Carrollcountyrunning.com will allow. If you have proof of a team performance that is not listed (for example, from a local newspaper article), contact us at snarksports@gmail.com and we can add it to the list. The individual performances section is still being compiled and will hopefully be completed by the beginning of the 2020 cross country season.
Have any suggestions on more features we can add to the database? Send us an email!