How to Score a Cross Country Meet

We value all our runners and their individual success.  While everyone on the team might not contribute to the team score, how they run impacts our final results.  Any runner who finishes ahead of an opposing team athletes helps to ensure a team win. 

A Varsity level team consists of 7 runners - this only affects our team at large invitationals such as City of Lights and Sectionals (not options in the current year)..  Most of our meets are run as open meets where all runners are involved.  

A typical meet score would be determined from the top 5 runners in each team:

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.

A score of 27 or less always wins a meet, as does having the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners with at least 5 runners finishing,  This is called a "sweep" and only pertains to dual meets.