What a Day for PA and the Northeast at NTN!

Reflections of a Radnor Runner on their Season, Post-season, and NTN.

The last time I wrote about the Radnor girls' team we had just won State and were very much looking forward to the possibility of a Nike Team Nationals bid. Marc Bloom, one of the NTN selectors, had ranked us #6 in the country, ahead of every other Northeast region team and Radnor was ranked NE#3 by the NTN folks. We seemed to have a good chance. "Win, Lose or Draw" on our selection, I was planning to write the end of season story.

Actually I\'ve been writing this paper for a really long time, ever since we learned Radnor had been passed over for the second alternate bid behind a team from California, Carondelet. But I couldn\'t finish the darn thing, it just didn\'t seem like the End, not until after the actual Nationals race. So I waited.

A State Meet crown and an NTN bid had been the goals we ran towards all season. The whole team knew we were long shots, but it still stung when we were passed by NY, NJ, and CA teams that continued to race after our last meet. After all the NTN hype, politics, and no invite, the story of our season could almost be spun as a loss. Being passed by through no fault of our own was a low blow, however deserving the other teams might have been.

But after the last calls were made, teams were invited, and the race run this weekend, I'm not feeling as bad as I was and I think I speak for my teammates, too. The complete domination in Portland at NTN by the Northeast girls and the Pennsylvania Boys has lifted our spirits significantly.

The NTN results, our team awards dinner, and remembering the support that Radnor received at every race, from so many coaches and even athletes we were running against have made the bitterness recede, if you can still see it here without reading between the lines. From the beginning of the season, everyone from Pennsylvania seemed to be rooting for us. That's what I think I'll remember most about the Radnor NTN "near miss."

Here, though, is the story of that "near miss," at least as I experienced it.

It all came down to the last few hours. It\'d been a rollercoaster ride the last two weeks, after finishing our season and believing that we had a strong shot at getting an NTN invitation. Emotionally, we went up and down, and up again, and down again. It was exciting and even downright draining at times.

At first, of course, it looked real hopeful; we won the State meet after a convincing win time-wise at Districts. Better yet, another perennial power team in the region seemed to be slipping a little.

Then we had to read Marc Bloom\'s little \'confession\' in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. We "weren't a top ten team" in his opinion. Apparently he'd been mistaken all season long. The team that lived down the street, Colts Neck, 0-8 against regional ranked competition was better than Radnor. We rode through that low for a few days. Nike sent our coach and team an apology but with Mr. Bloom saying we were not good enough, the wind was out of our sails. All we could do was stand and watch on the sidelines while continuing to train in the hope that somehow, maybe, his opinion would change..?

Colt's Neck jumped from NE#5 to NE#2 to take the NE Region first round bid with Fayetteville-Manlius, the winner of the NY Federations meet. Assuming Hilton would get the first alternate bid, Radnor had to wait to see if there would be two bids for our region again, and, if there were, if we would be picked over Saratoga Springs.

Liz and I went to Foot Locker Northeast at Van Courtland Park in NY to see the real fast people run, and hoped to run into the Hilton girls at some point. After watching Allison Sawyer and Caroline Shultz from Hilton run great races, placing 8 and 11th at the FLNE race and both qualifying for Nationals, gave us a shot of hope. We thought that maybe the NTN selection committee would see that Hilton wasn\'t a washed-up team from last year. The close race we had with them at Warwick Valley's Invitational early in the season wasn\'t just a fluke. They were great, our team had improved, therefore we deserved a bid, right?

Wrong.

Of all the Invitationals and "big races" Radnor ran this season, Centaur, Bulldog, Warwick Mania, then the Centrals, Delco's, Districts, and the PA AAA State meet, I think the high point of the season may have been the Warwick race against Hilton. Our only loss of the season, we never felt faster as a team than at Warwick Valley. Coming so close to upsetting the defending National champions, and it was even announced as a Radnor upset. What a crazy 10 minutes.

It was a great race on a deceivingly fast course and we really came together for the first time as a team, before and during the race. It was what jump-started the rest of the season for us. We knew we could "win-out" the rest of the way. It was the best feeling ever, even before watching June run away with the JV race there. She turned out to be a major factor in the season's later races, as we got better and better.

While we waited for the NTN committee's decision, June's 'comeback' was something we thought would be taken into consideration during the selection decisions. Whoops.

The Hilton girls made the alternate selection cut after a nail-biting week. We did find them after all that day, while standing in line to the honey-buckets before their race, believe it or not (even National powerhouse teams have to wait in line…), then had a nice talk afterwards with Allison and Caroline about NTN. They seemed as nervous as we were about the next morning when the call was going to come in, giving them the thumbs up or down about this race that has been taking over our lives.

And we all got a laugh talking about the Colt's Neck team getting the automatic bid. The morning NTN announced the first round bids, I didn\'t believe Shannon when she told me not only was Radnor not going, but neither was Hilton, and actually the NE#5 was in the Automatic bid spot. Just imagine how they felt that day. #2 in the NE, then BUMP, not. They\'ll be able to laugh now, after receiving the last At-large bid and handily beating Colt's Neck in Portland, but they were almost beyond incredulous that morning two weeks ago.

We also met Ashley Higginson, Colts Neck\'s #1 runner, at FLNE. She came over to us and wished our team good luck with the NTN bid and to say she hoped to see us there. It was definitely a nice sportsmanship-like gesture. What folks on the DyeStat boards haven't figured out is that we don't think Colt's Neck was not deserving of a bid. Their run in Portland showed they were more than deserving. Our gripe has been that, according to the rules NTN laid down, we were just more deserving. I think Hilton's run in Portland demonstrated that.

Is it mean to say I really wanted to meet Marc Bloom in person, and introduce myself at FLNE? I did. Not to start hating on him or anything, just to be able to put a face to this person who ended up, by confessing his "mistake" about us not being a top ten team, pretty much dictated the end of our season. *cough* then blatantly and openly pushing his favorite, local team into nationals *cough.* Never did get to meet him. My loss, I guess. He has done a lot for the sport, The decision cut us to the heart, though. We'll never know how we matched up in the best High School XC field.

After the race this weekend, with Colts Neck finishing 4th, I\'m sure the NTN committee will be able to say "See?" while pointing at the results to justify their actions and decision. The CN girls did run very well, led by Ashley Higginson and "Bri Jac," who finally burst out of her \'slump\'/injury to come through for her team in the end. The Northeast finished 1-2-4. What could be wrong about the NE bids?

Well, Colt's Neck wasn't better than Hilton. And the California first round selection teams barely rounded out the top 10 or 15 at NTN. Why didn't the NE deserve both alternate bid selections? The California team that took the last at-large spot, our spot more or less, if you don't mind my saying so, Corondelet, raced to an outstanding, drumroll, please, 16th place. Pardon my sarcasm. Mr. Bloom never ranked them in his top 25 nationwide and they were CA#5 before their state meet. Quite the tough one for Flanagan to explain to the rest of the girls last weekend.

Who knows what goes on in those guys\' minds, or what gets talked about at their NTN bid choosing meetings? I only hope they invited the teams that they thought were the fastest teams in the country and that it really didn\'t come down to a handshake and \"I\'ll get your team in, if you\'ll give Colt's Neck a push.\" Scary thought.

I don't like conspiracy theories like these – all over the DyeStat forums, go check – but the bad taste left in my mouth over my team being passed over probably makes them more attractive than they should be. It's somewhat of a beauty contest in the end, even people who are associated with NTN's selection committee in the Northwest and Northeast tell me that's not far off. How to shake off the "didn't get-selected-for-NTN" blues? Try a team dinner. Worked for me.

The awards banquet early last week officially ended the 2006 XC season. Coach Flanagan got up and talked about our whole season. Kelyn got the Outstanding Freshman award for girls, which was no surprise. She was the wind in our sails while some of the other girls weren't up to speed yet. Kelyn was invaluable to us in the beginning of the season, running #1, then continued to be the only underclassman in our top 5 through the State meet.

Liz, my best bud, got the Outstanding Runner award and no one scratched their head about that one, either. Coach Flanagan even made Liz blush, talking about how she is the best female runner that has come through Radnor, setting numerous school records and winning seven State medals. Her breakthroughs at season's end at Centrals, Lehigh and even Hershey, were highlight reel moments, especially given her come-back, under Coach's care, from a serious injury last spring.

It was a great night. Craig Holm, Shannon's dad, put together an awesome slide show of pictures from all our races. Another parent framed this incredible picture of the four seniors holding the Pennsylvania State Champions trophy, a picture that will hang in my house for years to come. It's not one of those flattering ones, our hair is going every which way, and we're all looking at different cameras, but it captured the moment perfectly. The four of us look soo happy. We'd achieved our goal, and NTN was out of our hands at this point. (Might also have been that it was before we realized that the picture-taking was going to go on for eons).

The night and the memories, the awards and gags gifts reminded me this season wasn't about NTN. It was about being a great team, perhaps, as Don Rich has said, the best girls team in Pennsylvania history. I certainly will never forget the fun, the friends, and the wins.

I almost can\'t believe it\'s over. Seems like just last week that we opened our season in a little scrimmage against Bayard Rustin, by running in the boys race, because BR somehow didn\'t being along a girls squad. We ran our first race as a pack (a habit that continued to work for us, and the Coatesville guys too incidentally), and "let Kelyn win," not realizing that soon we'd be working as hard as we could just to keep up with her.

But the season is over now, I get it. Pennsylvania XC got instant respect after this weekend's race in Portland. Thank you, Coatesville! Looking through the NTN girls' results this afternoon and seeing how the rest of the field played out was, as I said, pretty disappointing, even frustrating. It was especially hard knowing that -- barring a giant pile-up similar to what happened in the boys' race -- we could have placed well in the top 5.

Let's be real, though. Sure, there\'s a lot of disappointment, but, through all this, we found out how much support we have from coaches and fellow athletes from all around Pennsylvania. At FLNE, Liz and I, wearing our Radnor XC sweat shirts, were confronted by quite a few coaches who wanted to wish us luck on getting a bid and talking about our season, which they knew about in some detail. Then they would completely go off on a rant about Marc Bloom's comments and the selection process.

It was quite entertaining. And flattering. What more can we ask for? We could have had free Nike spikes, NTN uniforms, and a plane ride out to the rainy-weather capitol of the country. What we enjoyed instead was learning about the goodwill and support of numerous people from all around the region in addition to the successes we had as runners.

It wouldn't be right to close out my season comments on that note. I have to put in my thoughts on the new NTN Champs… Coatesville boys, what a team! They\'ve had their share of disappointments in their high school career and came back as champions. They went to the limit for High school racing, won the national race convincingly, and earned respect for the entire state of Pennsylvania. I know I speak for Pennsylvania runners from Erie to Philly in saying, "Congratulations!" and "Thank you!"

God only knows what would have happened if this had played out differently and we were selected. If we had made it as the fourth team out of the NE, we would have been able to race those teams head-to-head that were deemed faster than us for whatever reasons. At least in Pennsylvania from now on, we will be the team that \"didn\'t make it to Nationals.\" We'll always wonder.

Radnor's girls finished the season with an NTN disappointment. But we also bowed out with a State Championship, a team of friends, and being undefeated and pretty much unchallenged in-state. We can even say we beat the defending National Champions, even if that victory lasted for only about 10 minutes. Radnor didn't get its "big chance" as a team. Heartened by all that we did get from this season, though, we're on our way already as individuals and a team to reach new goals.

Thank you Pennsylvania for this season. Moving across the country as a senior could have been a disaster, but instead this turned into a fall I will never, ever forget.

I hope to write more in the future about some past Cross Country races. This whole indoor track thing is pretty new for me. Never run under a roof before. What strange things Pennsylvania people do. Thanks for stopping by.