By Michael Newman

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I had just finished publishing my 2018 Illinois State Cross-Country team rankings. I received a text message from Neuqua Valley Coach Paul Vandersteen.

“It would be harder to do, but it would be fun to do your ranking with the top 30 teams of all time,” Vandersteen stated. “Not just the total team time at the state meet.”

Challenge accepted.

I had to first develop criteria on how I would do this list. I came up with this.

1 – I could not go through all of the results and choose the top 30 teams that I would evaluate. Choosing the top 30 Boys teams starting in 1971 is almost impossible. I could choose the teams but that would enter bias into this study. The accuracy would be diminished.

2 – I though maybe I could just go through every team that won a state championship. Again, that would take me months. At the same time, there are some great second, third (etc.) teams that could compete with some of the state championship teams. Again, the accuracy would be diminished.

3 – Where I could get the most accurate result of finding who the top team in both the Boys and Girls teams is to go off the Top 50 All Time Lists (by time) to determine the top teams. The accuracy of this study would improve.

4 – I decided to stay with 30 teams. It’s the right size to figure all of this out. I could go with the top 50 teams but there are more variances in the outcome of the result. Too low of a number of teams in figuring this out we have the same problem with variance of the outcome where we would not get an accurate answer. You can see the Top 50 lists in these links – BOYS | GIRLS

5 – When I started listing times with fastest first, there were a large amount of number of runners that had the same time. In this study, there are some runners in the same meet year that had the same time. To keep this study fair, all same times would not be broken. Runners with the same times would have an average point total given to them. No ties would be broken.

There is more data to analyze on the Boys teams compared to the Girls. Boys started to run 3.0-Miles at Detweiller Park in 1971. Girls teams started to run on Detweiller Park in 1979 with a 2.1-mile distance. In 1998, the IHSA changed the Girls Distance to 2.5-miles. In 2002, the Girls distance was moved up to the current distance of 3.0-miles. We only have data for 3.0 miles from 2002 on.

There are two different eras for Boys Cross Country in Illinois: Before NXN and the NXN era. You also have variances in the Detweiller Park course. A study was commissioned by DyeStat.com in 2008 (DETWEILLER LINK) showing the changes in the course from 1971 until it changed to the current course from 2002 to 2005.

Because of the differences between the two eras, it is tougher to come up with a fair comparison. For this study, it is close enough where we get a good idea of how good the top 30 teams are and get a fair comparison.

BOYS STUDY ANALYSIS

There were 13 teams before 2004 (when the Nike Team Nationals started) that have team times that are in the top 30. 17 teams since 2004 have made it into the top 30. It gives us a good idea that we are in a “Golden Age” of Distance running in this state. The first “Golden Age” occurred in the 1970’s. 12 teams in the 1970’s are on this list. York’s 1999 team is the only other team on this list before NTN/NXN started.

York has 12 teams that are listed in the top 30. The next closest programs are Deerfield (1976, 1977), Neuqua Valley (2007, 2016), and Downers Grove North (2016, 2017) all with two teams on the top 30 teams involved in this study.

RESULTS

York’s team from 1999 has the fastest total team time ever run at the IHSA State Meet (72:37). In this study, York had the lowest point total with 176.5 points. York’s 2005 team is second on the fastest time list (73:11) and was also second with 236 points). York’s 2006 team was third with 301.5 points.

In the top 10 teams using the point analysis, five teams from each of the era’s are included. The top 1970’s team was the Deerfield 1977 team (#6) followed by Maine East 1979 (#8), Deerfield 1976 (#9), and York 1979 (#10).

Sandburg 2015 has the sixth fastest team time ever (73:38). In this study, they finished fourth overall (324 points) with Neuqua Valley 2016 just three points back (327 points).

GIRLS STUDY ANALYSIS

It is a given that Girls Distance running in Illinois (and in the United States) is improving yearly and has showed the greatest increase of improvement in this state in the last four years. We’ve had two runners (Judy Pendergast – Naperville North 2015 – 1553.8 and Katelynne Hart  - Glenbard West 2018 – 15:59.9) run under 16-minutes. That could double in the next two years.

Geneva is the oldest team in this top 30 team study (2008). Half (15) of the teams in the top 30 are schools that ran in state meets from 2015 until 2018. That is a ton in the past four years. The other 15 schools are from a seven-year period (2008-2014).

Naperville North’s program has the most teams in the top 30 with six (2012, 2014-18). Glenbard West is next with five teams (2012-15, 2017).

RESULTS

We said after this year’s state meet that Naperville North and Yorkville ran the fastest team times ever faster than the next closest team by almost a minute.

In the state meet, the two teams were separated by seven points with Naperville North winning their third straight state title. When using those times in a mythical state meet with 28 other great teams, the 2018 teams from Naperville North and Yorkville came up with the same point total (225 points). Naperville North’s depth from their sixth and seventh runners gave the Lady Huskies the tie-break win.

Four of the six Naperville North teams finished in the top 10. Their 2017 team was the closest to the 2018 teams but 89 points back in third (314 points). Naperville North 2012 was fourth (333 points) followed by Minooka 2015 (335.5 points).

Six teams from 2015-2018 were in the top 10 with Minooka 2016  (#8) and Downers Grove South 2018 (#9) the other teams from that era.

BOYS TEAM RESULTS

GIRLS TEAM RESULTS