Coaches Classic

 
Lancermania said:
The stunner for me was Moeller beating Mason at Mason. Mason, IMHO, looks like the best boys teams in Cincy this year, or are they? I've known a lot of Moeller coaches since the 1970s. Moe has had their ups and downs. I know the current coaches at Moeller have been working really hard to revive the great Moe tradition in track. They appear on the brink of doing just that this year. Moe has not been a major factor since they won back to back GCLS titles around 2004. All of a sudden Moeller aprears once again to have become a city power overnight. Wow! I'm impressed.
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While I agree that Moeller has impressed, I still wouldn't put them ahead of Mason after the Prelims of the Coaches Classic. When you're just running to qualify, places don't matter at all, as long as you are in the top 4. I'm assuming that a few of the Mason guys, especially in distance where Mason dominates Moe, could have placed higher had they been worried about a team victory. If they can pull off the upset tomorrow, then I will eat my words. It wouldn't surprise me too badly though if it happened.
 
xcrunner311 said:
While I agree that Moeller has impressed, I still wouldn't put them ahead of Mason after the Prelims of the Coaches Classic. When you're just running to qualify, places don't matter at all, as long as you are in the top 4. I'm assuming that a few of the Mason guys, especially in distance where Mason dominates Moe, could have placed higher had they been worried about a team victory.
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I think that's a very good assessment, especially considering the difference was 1 point. In no way am I knocking Moeller - they look REALLY good this year. But a prelim meet is what it is

By the way, it looks like Mason was hand-timed? Not sure why, considering they have their own auto-timing system. But it definitely gave their qualifiers in the short sprints an advantage over the FAT sites when the heat/lane assignments were drawn up for the finals.
 
They tried to do the FAT, but the system wouldn't boot up. So we had to go with MT. I was a bit surprised myself, but what are ya gonna do?
 
lane4 said:
As Lancer said, Affatato has some crow to eat.
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Yeah because he knew there was going to be an issue with the equipment at Mason for the prelims. Seriously get over it. It's not like it resulted in the wrong kids getting to the finals or anything.
 
PantherVOR said:
Yeah because he knew there was going to be an issue with the equipment at Mason for the prelims.
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Assuming it was indeed a technical issue, that's why you do a dry-run the day before - to ferret out any issues that may have developed since the previous several seasons, when you've run the system flawlessly.


Seriously get over it. It's not like it resulted in the wrong kids getting to the finals or anything.
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Tell that to the deserving sprint kids/relays getting bumped from the fast heat to slow heat, or into a crappy lane, because they were at a quarter-second disadvantage to four Mason qualifiers per event.
 
lane4 said:
Tell that to the deserving sprint kids/relays getting bumped from the fast heat to slow heat, or into a crappy lane, because they were at a quarter-second disadvantage to four Mason qualifiers per event.
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Place should be seeded before time anyways (Rule 5-6-5). Nobody should get bumped to a "slow heat" because of MT to FAT. Lane assignments could possibly be affected, but you're looking at whether they're in lane 4 vs 5 or 1 vs 8. Not 4 vs 8.
 
Altor said:
Place should be seeded before time anyways (Rule 5-6-5). Nobody should get bumped to a "slow heat" because of MT to FAT. Lane assignments could possibly be affected, but you're looking at whether they're in lane 4 vs 5 or 1 vs 8. Not 4 vs 8.
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I agree 100%. I've always felt at least the winners from each site should be seeded into prime lanes by place, primarily because of different track orientations and wind conditions, and would not have a problem if all qualifiers were assigned by prelim place
 
moemancc said:
They tried to do the FAT, but the system wouldn't boot up. So we had to go with MT. I was a bit surprised myself, but what are ya gonna do?
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Hmm..they had a problem with the 2006 district meet as well. I wonder if it was the same problem.
 
lane4 said:
I agree 100%. I've always felt at least the winners from each site should be seeded into prime lanes by place, primarily because of different track orientations and wind conditions, and would not have a problem if all qualifiers were assigned by prelim place
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EXACTLY!!!
 
I'm wondering if the severe weather the night before had some kind of effect. Regardless we ran very well, as did Mason, so being seeded where we are isn't really that shocking. I mean look at the other results. 1:59 to make finals in the 800, 8:17 first in the 4x8, 43 to make finals in the 300 hurdles. We had a very tough prelim site, and guys ran a little harder because of it. Consequently the marks from our site were a bit better regardless of MT
 
moemancc said:
I'm wondering if the severe weather the night before had some kind of effect. Regardless we ran very well, as did Mason, so being seeded where we are isn't really that shocking. I mean look at the other results. 1:59 to make finals in the 800, 8:17 first in the 4x8, 43 to make finals in the 300 hurdles. We had a very tough prelim site, and guys ran a little harder because of it. Consequently the marks from our site were a bit better regardless of MT
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The depth of talent in the boys 800 at Mason was sick! Ten in at 2:03 or better four in under 2:00. Based on prelim times no one at the other three sites would have qualified at Mason. Of course we all know that prelim times can be deceiving.
 
Tony shouldn't feel too bad. FAT systems do fail at times, despite repeated testing. This is why at major internationals & nationals, parallel FAT's are used. As they say (I still don't know who "they" are?), stuff happens :shrug:
 
Good meet, despite the cool weather & light headwinds in the sprints/hurdles.

Before everyone gets too excited about the team title implications, don't forget it was spring break for a number of schools, and this is early April. The only meets that really count worth a hill of beans are (in ascending order): League, District, Regional, State

On the other side of town at the New Richmond Invite, Western Brown's Mack Tudor edged ever so close to taking the mantle of the best shot putter in Cincinnati area history with his 62' 0" put, moving to No. 3 on the all-time list. That is a scant 2.5" short of Amelia's Jeff Glos (1975) put at the Norwood Sectional of that same year. The No. 2 putter is Roger Bacon all-time great, Dave Foley (1965) at 62' 1.5". Tudor also won the discus at 171' 0". I know that it was raining cats & dogs early in the meet, but don't know whether the rain was a factor in either event. I'll know more in a few days.
 
Why does Sycamore go all the way to Ross for the prelims?
Taylor has run at Ross for years against neighbor schools Oak Hills, Elder & Harrison. Now they get sent to Fairfield. Do coaches have any input on the sites?
 
I don't know how they seed them now. I think Lancer's idea is ideal. However, given the diversity of events in track & field, coming to some agreement in "equality" would be challenging, and that equity may very well come into question if entry marks are given credence. We ALL know about how "truthful" all the entry marks are :rolleyes: I think a solution may be in hand, though, if a small committee were to sit down and verify entry marks a week prior to a meet like the CC, then enter those marks into a "power system" similar to those used to rate collegiate teams against each other. A final ranking of the teams based on the overall power ranking could then be used to separate into four reasonably equitable sites. They could be seeded something like:

Site A - Seeds 1, 8, 9, 16...
Site B - Seeds 2, 7, 10, 15...
Site C - Seeds 3, 6, 11, 14...
Site D - Seeds 4, 5, 12, 13...

Food for thought.
 
Where was Mike Means for Moeller in the 100? He won his prelim with a 10.8 mt which would still have been good too win the race.. and I guess Moe decided not to run the 4x100 or 4X200 with him not being there as they likely would've been in the top 3 or 4 maybe even 2nd for those events. Hopefully he isn't badly injured.. ideally just precautionary. I still think the Track team should recruit Watkins, Madaris, and Davenport.. they could make a killer sprint relays.
 
Gerstner does a terrific job of balancing the primary goal of having balanced prelim sites across all event disciplines(not team rankings), and the desire to keep teams at the site closest to their school. I may have some things I think could be done better, but that is not one of them.
 
Just look at the boys 800 meter prelim at Mason compared to the other sites and you would be able to see that something needs changing.

For those to lazy to look up the results, NONE of the qualifiers from the other sites would have qualified at Mason. Something needs to be changed in the future so that thew most deserving runners are competing in the finals.
 
xcrunner311 said:
Just look at the boys 800 meter prelim at Mason compared to the other sites and you would be able to see that something needs changing.

For those to lazy to look up the results, NONE of the qualifiers from the other sites would have qualified at Mason. Something needs to be changed in the future so that thew most deserving runners are competing in the finals.
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Short of splitting individual teams by event(a ridiculous idea) there's no way you're going to eliminate the chance that an event or two out of thirty-four at a site might being loaded in a given year. I know Gerstner puts great effort in reviewing team strengths/weaknesses from year to year, and sometimes moves a team or two in the interest of sprint/distance/field balance. From my observations he does a pretty good job.
 
lane4 said:
Short of splitting individual teams by event(a ridiculous idea) there's no way you're going to eliminate the chance that an event or two out of thirty-four at a site might being loaded in a given year. I know Gerstner puts great effort in reviewing team strengths/weaknesses from year to year, and sometimes moves a team or two in the interest of sprint/distance/field balance. From my observations he does a pretty good job.
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Agree, there is no way to prevent this from happening. This also takes place at the district and regional level. The only potential improvement could be top 4 plus 4 fastest non-top 4... as we have discussed previously.

The other way, as I had mentioned before would be to have a qualification standard, say the previous 3 years 6th place finish. If your prelim time meets that you move on (above and beyond the top 4).
 
Just because I like to look at actual data and not anecdotes. Here are scores by preliminary site:

Boys
Mason 246.5
Fairfield 204
Winton Woods 122
Ross 90.5

Girls
Mason 183
Winton Woods 173
Ross 159.5
Fairfield 147.5


So, he might have a point for the boys. But, it'd be awful tough to balance the girls any better than that.
 
Altor said:
So, he might have a point for the boys. But, it'd be awful tough to balance the girls any better than that.
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Nice work Altor


Depending on whether or not you converted the Mason sprint marks, the boys may have been a lot closer as well(if you didn't).
 
Not quite sure what you mean. I took the team points scored on Wednesday and summed them up by qualifying site. Nothing more.
 
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