Feds

The New York State Federation Cross Country Championship meet is scheduled for this Saturday at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, NY.  This meet brings together the top teams and individuals from the NYS Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA, not all of which are public schools), the Public School Athetic League (PSAL) from New York City, the Catholic High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) and the Assoication of Independent Schools (AIS), which is made up of various private schools from around the state.

The girls race starts at 12:15pm, followed by the boys race at 1pm.

The teams have been announced for both the boys and the girls.  There are some notable teams missing: Fayetteville-Manlius is sitting out, both their state champion girls, and their runner-up (by a single point) girls. The East Aurora girls, second in Class B and fourth in the merge are staying home, while the boys, also second in Class B, but eighth in the merge, are making the trip.  Rush-Henrietta is the opposite: their girls (third in Class A, fifth in the merge) are going, but the boys (seventh in the merge) are not.  All of the other teams from the top 12 in the girls merge are attending, so it should be a good race.  For the boys, the only other team from the top 13 that is not participating are the Class B champs from Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons.

As to individuals, the top 8 boys from the State Meet are sitting this one out, to prepare for either the Nike or Foot Locker regional meets the following weekend.  The girls seem a little "tougher" than the boys, with four of the top five girls from the state meet entered in Feds.

Section V representatives include the girls team from Penfield, in addition to R-H, and the boys team from Mendon.  The only individual boy is Gabe Rodriguez, coming off his win in Class D at States.  Individual girls include Val, Siobhan Quinn from R-H, and Karli O'Neill from Churchville-Chili.

TullyRunners has a nice preview of the races.  The top 16 girls teams are projected to be from the NYSPHSAA!  The boys race is slightly different, with three non-NYSPHSAA teams expected to crack the top 13.

Finally, the course map is available here.