The final week of the regular season is a bit of a lull in XC action. Several teams take the week off to rest, and this year's Saturday morning meets ended up being much hotter than usual, dragging times to the slower end of things and making improvements difficult to see. That, combined with the fact that we already had 5 weeks worth of data a week ago, led this week's rankings to have few changes.
The picture in the larger classes is quite clear, with multiple head-to-head matchups providing concrete information throughout the season. In the smaller classes, head-to-head has been almost useless. The top teams in 1A and 2A hardly see each other, and the top teams in 3A keep beating each other unexpectedly (Exhibit A: Riley County losing to Council Grove after I talked them up last week). Thankfully, these disputes are about to get settled. All that remains is the postseason: League, Regionals, State. Things only get more clear from here.
This Week's Notable Changes:
Cheney's girls are moving up to #6 in 3A after back-to-back wins.
The Central Heights girls get their 5th runner back, moving them up a couple spots in 2A.
Pretty Prairie's girls are done winning small meets and are now contending against bigger schools, they move up to #4 in 1A.
Royal Valley's boys are missing their captain. Not sure what the problem is, but the Panthers need him if they want to compete, they slid 3 more spots this week.
