Robbery In The 3A Degree: Three Top 10 Teams Get Robbed of Post-Season
In a season that has saw very little controversy or drama, things got crazy in a hurry this Wednesday at Christiansburg High School for the Conference 32 Championships. Due to a change in the rules for the new classifications, only the top three teams advanced from this conference regardless of their ranking in the state.
Complete Results - Photo Coverage
This rule can be both unfair and fair at the same time. Going in everyone had to play the same game and sometimes the cookie crumbles a way that doesn't benefit your team. That being said, it is still robbery for our sport and for these kids that because of the elimination structure that many top athletes from some of the best teams in the entire state will not be racing anymore.
Things started off on a crazy note during the girls' race. It wasn't a shock at the top of the results with Blacksburg winning with 20 points and Hidden Valley taking second with 57 but after that things got hectic. Coming in third place were both Cave Spring and Christiansburg who both scored 87 points and averaged 22:14.
Cave Spring though was awarded third place based on a 6th runner tie-breaker that had them win by just three points. This was on top of the fact that Christiansburg actually scored four runners before Cave Spring scored three.
Christiansburg will now only advance four runners because of this tie-breaker despite being ranked the 8th best team in 3A. The top five, exclusive of the top three teams, runners advanced as individuals.
Girls' Team Results
Girls Varsity
===========================================================================
Rank Team Score Avg Total Spread 1 2 3 4 5
===========================================================================
1 Blacksburg High School 20 19:44 1:38:37 1:09.5 1 3 4 5 7
2 Hidden Valley High School 57 21:14 1:46:10 2:05.3 6 8 12 15 16
3 Cave Spring High School 87 22:14 1:51:06 3:46.5 2 18 21 22 24
4 Christiansburg 87 22:14 1:51:10 2:23.7 11 13 17 20 26
5 Patrick County 119 23:38 1:58:06 4:14.4 14 19 25 29 32
*Tiebreakers
Cave Spring High Sch2 18 21 22 24 *28
Christiansburg 11 13 17 20 26 31
If that wasn't crazy enough, in the boys' race one of the 3A state favorites, Ben Fleming hit the ground and did not finish. Karl Thiessen capitalized on that falter and took home the crown. This made for quite the shake up on the team front too. Tyler Kuchan of Christiansburg also had a great race and finished second behind Karl.
Due to those odd events happening the way they did, first through fourth place for teams were separated by just five points. Meaning the difference between not advancing to regionals and winning was just a few seconds.
To put this in perspective as to why we are calling this robbery, Blacksburg is ranked #1, Christiansburg is ranked #2, Abingdon is ranked #6, Cave Spring is ranked #4, and Hidden Valley is ranked #3 in 3A. That now means that the #3 and #4 teams in the entire 3A classification have been eliminated.
Obviously it should be noted that you while you're upset at this, you have to take your hat off to the stellar performance from the Abingdon boys. They capitalized big time and if Karl had not won and instead took third place, they would be on the outside looking in.
Boys' Team Results
Boys Varsity =========================================================================== Rank Team Score Avg Total Spread 1 2 3 4 5 =========================================================================== 1 Blacksburg High School 61 17:22 1:26:50 0:46.3 4 9 14 16 18 2 Christiansburg 63 17:26 1:27:10 1:15.7 2 5 11 20 25 3 Abingdon High School 64 17:21 1:26:45 1:54.1 1 8 13 15 27 4 Cave Spring High School 66 17:29 1:27:24 0:58.3 3 6 17 19 21 5 Hidden Valley High School 76 17:31 1:27:32 0:54.2 7 10 12 23 24 6 Patrick County 168 19:16 1:36:20 1:46.3 26 31 34 38 39
Editor's Notes: It should be noted that Karl actually had a lead when Ben Fleming fell. The poll was added to this piece on Halloween and the title was previously "Robbery In The 3A Degree: Three Top 10 Teams Get Robbed of Post-Season"