How to Score a Cross Country Meet

The first five runners from each team to cross the finish line receive the points that correspond to their place. The first place runner receives one point, the second place runner two, and so on. The team receiving the lowest score wins.

The sixth and seventh runners on a team, although they don’t receive a score, can also be important, in that they can “displace” scoring runners from the other team. For example, consider the following race:

In this meet situation, Secaucus wins 28-31.

As you can see, even though our sixth and seventh place runners’ scores were not added into the total, they were enough to displace the Blue Hat fourth and fifth place runners’ scores, and give the win to us. I can’t emphasize again the important role of the #6 and #7 runners!

A score of 27 or less always wins a meet, as does having the first, second and third place winners, with at least five runners finishing. This final instance is called a “sweep”. This only pertains to dual meets.

• Unfortunately, we will not have the opportunity to run any duals this year because of Covid-19 and the shortened season.

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All of our meets this season will be of this nature below:

Invitational or Championship

Your team gets the points for the actual place that you earn when crossing the finsh line. For example if we went  11,18,21,23,34 (36, 40) – our score would be the first five runners = 107

If a school enters less than 5 runners or starts a team and does not finish with 5 runners, their places are displaced. Meaning if a team ahead of our first runner (in the case 11th) was 10th, that 10 points would be awarded to us and the ENTIRE field of runners bump up into new scoring positions.

Before we open the season, the Captains, coaching staff, and new members of the team will get a sit down meeting to discuss these topics and more. We will prepare you before the season begins!