Nike Cross Nationals - Live Webcast Tomorrow!

11th Nike Cross Nationals Finals

Glendoveer Golf Course
Portland, Oregon

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Hey Cross Country fans!

Anyone who is interested can watch a LIVE Webcast tomorrow for the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) Finals! Come back to this post tomorrow and CLICK HERE to watch the LIVE webcast, which will begin at 11:30 AM Central Time. You can also click the banner that has a link to the NXN Finals webcast on the main page when it pops up.

Here is the schedule of events for this year's NXN Finals -- all times are Central Time:

• 11:30 AM - Webcast begins
• 12:05 PM - Girls Championship Race
• 1:35 PM - Boys Championship Race

Awards will follow each race.

If you are interested, keep reading for a preview of this year's NXN Finals and a brief history of NXN and Illinois teams at NXN...

Illinois and Midwest Teams Aim High at LOADED 11th NXN Finals

This year, after running at Portland Meadows for the first decade of its history, Nike has moved the NXN Finals to Glendoveer Golf Course, also in Portland Oregon. Nevertheless, the competition will be intense. There are three Illinois teams that are looking to do some damage tomorrow at NXN.

For the ladies, there are two teams and one individual representing Illinois at NXN: The Huskies of Naperville North and the Pirates of Palatine. Naperville North are the Class 3A State Champions and they earned an automatic bid for NXN by finishing 2nd at NXN-Midwest the week after State last month. Palatine finished as State Runner-Up to Naperville North -- the first girls team ever in Illinois history to put all seven runners under 18 minutes on the historic Detweiller Park course. Palatine finished just six points behind Naperville North at NXN-Midwest for third place, easily earning an at-large berth to run this weekend. Both teams are strong and could do some real damage at NXN with another great race.

Carmel Indiana was the NXN-Midwest Champion. All three of these teams are capable of strong top ten finishes tomorrow. All three teams are actually ranked next to each other in the top six in DyeStat's national rankings. If any one of these three teams puts together an outstanding race, they could soar much higher -- perhaps into the top five or even a podium finish? There's only one way to find out: Run the race!

The individual that is representing Illinois at this year's edition of NXN would be two time defending Class 1A State Champion Anna Sophia Keller. The sophomore finished third at NXN-Midwest last month to earn a second trip to NXN. She qualified last year in 6th place as a freshman, but did not make the trip. Way to represent the small schools against the big guns, Anna!

On the boys side, one team and three individuals are representing Illinois at NXN: The Eagles of Sandburg. Last month, they rebounded from a poor start at Detweiller Park to finish second in state to the now two-time defending State Champions Hinsdale Central. The following week, the Eagles got out to a great start and never looked back, easily winning the NXN-Midwest Championship on the strength of an incredible eight second 1-5 split and become the seventh different boys team from Illinois to qualify to NXN. If Sandburg has a runner up front start their scoring in the 20s and has a similar split at NXN, they could finish in the top ten or higher.

Three boys are representing Illinois as individuals: Jesse Reiser of McHenry, Matt Pereira of Lake Zurich, and Ryan Clevenger of Downers Grove North. Reiser is the Class 3A State Champion as well as NXN-Midwest Champion. Reiser also qualified last weekend for the Footlocker Cross Country Championships. Pereira finished third at State and followed that up with a fourth place finish at NXN-Midwest. Clevenger finished fourth at State and then finished fifth at NXN-Midwest.

Looking outside of Illinois teams, in the girls team race the big question is: Will US #1 Fayetteville-Manlius reclaim the national title they lost to Wayzata (Minnesota) last year? The seven-time defending national champions lost by twelve points last year. Their second place finish was their eighth consecutive podium finish in eight tries. Can they return to the top? Who will challenge them -- California? Another New York team? (Saratoga?) An Illinois team? Carmel Indiana? Someone else? Should be a barnburner of a race for the ladies at 12:05 PM Central on Saturday.

On the boys side, this race is going to be very competitive. However, the Fayetteville-Manlius boys are also ranked #1 in the nation. Could this be the year that Fayetteville-Manlius sweeps the NXN crowns? They almost pulled it off in 2010 when the girls scored a record 27 points and their boys finished 2nd. Behind them, there's a slew of teams that would like to deny Fayetteville-Manlius the sweep, starting with two Utah teams: American Fork and Davis. They're both ranked in the top three in the nation. That action starts at 1:35 PM Central on Saturday.

Glendoveer Golf Course is going to christen itself with two worthy national champions tomorrow. Tune in to the webcast to find out who gets crowned!

A Brief History of Nike Cross Nationals and Illinois Teams at NXN

A complete and detailed history of NXN finishes for NXN-Midwest and the NXN Finals can be found by clicking HERE!

Prior to 2004, the only national championship for high school cross country runners had been the Footlocker Cross Country Championships, which have been held every year since 1979. Marc Bloom's The Harrier was the standard for national rankings of high school cross country teams, and for years there was much debate over who were the best teams in the nation. Teams had met each other at major invitationals across the country, but never had the top teams raced each other in one race to determine once and for all who was the best team in the nation that year.

Enter Nike.

Ten years ago, in 2004, Nike conceived the idea of hosting a team national championship for high school cross country runners. That year was the first ever hosting of the Nike Team Nationals (NTN), held at the famous Portland Meadows in Portland, Oregon. Teams are not allowed to compete for their school directly, so they compete as clubs. That year, Nike selected 20 of the top teams from throughout the country to head to Portland Meadows in the first weekend of December to compete in the first ever Nike Team Nationals. No individuals were selected to compete, it was only teams. That year, our nearby neighbors of the vaunted Long Green Line of Elmhurst (York) were selected to represent Illinois and the Midwest at the first NTN -- and they claimed the first ever team national championship. York had claimed numerous national championships before 2004, but with all the chips down at Portland Meadows, York won it all. On the girls side, another vaunted national program claimed the first ever girls NTN title -- the famous Saratoga Streaks of Saratoga Springs, New York.

The selection committee method continued for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. In 2005, York returned to NXN and claimed another podium finish, finishing second. Naperville North made the first appearance for an Illinois girls' team in 2005, earning a 4th place finish with a score that in most other years would earn them podium finishes. In 2006, York earned a third consecutive trip to NTN, finishing 10th and Hinsdale Central became the second Illinois girls' team to earn a trip to NTN, where they finished 17th.

The first three years of NTN were a great success, so in 2007, Nike introduced eight regionals to qualify teams to NTN. Illinois became a member of the Midwest Regional, along with Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio. The top two teams in each region would qualify to NXN, along with four at-large teams from those that finished 3rd or 4th place in their regions. There are currently eight qualifying regions: Heartland, Midwest, Northeast, Northwest, South, Southeast, Southwest. Two states have their own regions: New York (you'll see why at the end of this section), and California, which hosts their state finals the week before NXN, so the top two teams for both boys and girls from the CIF Finals earn automatic bids to NXN.

In 2007, Neuqua Valley won the first Midwest Regional, and went on to become the second team from Illinois to win a national title, winning by a razor-thin margin of two points. York also qualified out of the Midwest Regional and finished ninth that year. No Illinois girls teams qualified to NXN.

2008 saw two changes for Nike Team Nationals: The first was that individuals were allowed to compete in the regional meets. As a result of this change, Nike Team Nationals changed their name to Nike Cross Nationals, which is what it continues to be called to this day. In 2008 for the boys, York and Naperville North dueled all season: Naperville North beat York by one point at state. York then won NXN-Midwest, and Naperville North finished second to both qualify. York and Naperville North then went on to finish 2nd and 3rd at NXN to claim two more podium finishes for Illinois. To date, those are the last two podium finishes for Illinois teams at NXN. The Geneva girls also won NXN-Midwest and finished 17th at NXN.

The following year, four Illinois teams qualify to NXN: York (yet again), Neuqua Valley, and Loyola Academy finished 1-2-3 at NXN-Midwest, so Loyola earned an at-large bid. The Palatine girls finished second at NXN-Midwest to earn a trip to Portland. At NXN, Loyola Academy missed out on a podium spot by one point to finish 4th. Neuqua Valley finished 12th, York 13th, and the Palatine ladies finished 18th.

In 2010, four Illinois teams again earned trips to Portland Meadows: For the boys, York and Neuqua Valley both made return trips to Portland, and finished 12th and 14th respectively. For the ladies, Palatine earned a return trip by virtue of winning NXN-Midwest, and earned an 8th place finish at NXN, only the second Illinois girls' team ever to finish in the top 10 at NXN and the first since the 4th place finish of the 2005 Naperville North team.

The next year, in 2011, the Palatine boys earned a trip to NXN where they finished 5th, the seventh top five finish for an Illinois boys team in NXN history, and York continued their NXN streak where they earned a 13th place finish. For the girls, New Trier ran their best race ever to earn a third place tie with a school from Delaware, but they lost the trophy on a sixth runner tiebreaker. Regardless, New Trier's third place tie in 2011 is the best finish ever for an Illinois girls team at NXN.

2012 saw York continue their NXN streak, qualifying for a ninth consecutive season and running to a 6th place finish. Two Illinois girls teams qualified that season: New Trier, making a return trip after their third place podium finish last year, finished 11th, and Naperville North, making their first appearance since 2005, finished 15th.

Last year was the first year since 2006 that there weren't multiple Illinois teams represented at NXN for either gender. The two lone Illinois teams were the Hindsale Central boys, who finished in 22nd, and the Naperville North girls, making a return trip to finish 13th.

Throughout the first decade of NXN in the boys team race, the competition has been intense: Only one team has ever won multiple national titles -- Arcadia, California, won titles in 2010 and 2012. Illinois and Washington state are the only other states to have multiple national champion teams on the boys side. The Midwest Region as a whole has done very well at NXN, earning multiple individual national titles as well as six podium finishes and the two Illinois national titles.

The girls team competition tells a different story: Until last year, no girls team from outside of New York had won an NXN title. The first nine national titles were claimed by New York teams until Wayzata, Minnesota won the title last year. Saratoga won the inaugural NXN. The next year, Hilton beat Saratoga for the national title. The year after that, Fayetteville-Manlius won the first of seven consecutive national titles, including their 2010 national title where they scored just 27 points and would have beaten the other 21 teams if they had been combined into one team. Last season, they finished second in the nation. They've had eight trips to NXN and eight podium finishes with seven titles. The stats tell the tale -- the New York ladies have been utterly dominant in NXN competition: Nine national titles, a further six runner-up finishes, and one third place finish. Several years ago, New York had four teams in the top eight for girls alone. No other state in the country can claim such dominance.