CCRS: Griak and Milaca Predictions in Review

Two of the largest cross country meets in the Midwest took place last weekend. Rough CCRS projections were produced for both Griak and Milaca (posted only on tracktalk.net, not on this site), with the Milaca 4A race being discussed here.



As part of a discussion on the validity of CCRS, a look back at each of those meets is below.

Griak

A simulated meet can be run through the CCRS system by projecting a team's season CCRS score on their individual runners, using the spread at each team's last race. This was done with the seven highest ranked teams participating in the Griak Gold race. Projected scores and final scores (after removing all other teams) are given below:

Team	Projected Score	Actual Score
Wayzata	30	28
Edina	50	77
Minnetonka	96	102
Hopkins	121	109
Eagan	124	126
Washburn	141	135
EP	144	135

The seven teams in question finished in the projected order in the meet itself, with each team scoring reasonably close to the projected value. This is particularly true when you account for the loss of Edina's # 2 runner. With his finish, Edina likely would have scored in the 60s with each other team scoring a couple points higher. At Griak anyway, CCRS projections predicted nearly perfectly the actual meet results.

Milaca

The Milaca 5-team projection was nearly as accurate as the Griak projection

Team	Projected Score	Actual Score
Stillwater	54	47
Maple Grove	56	56
Mora	75	74
Centennial	74	75
Perham	73	80

However, this more serves to highlight the inherent problem with using a 5-team projection to peg a twenty team meet. The projection saw a close race between Perham, Mora, and Centennial, and it was fairly accurate in a sense. But thanks to the many runners from other teams that finished ahead of their 4 and 5 runners, Mora and Perham ended up some 40 points back of Centennial in the actual meet. Clearly, any incomplete projection should be taken with a grain of salt.

Last week's discussion on the validity of CCRS predicted that Maple Grove would run 7 seconds faster than Stillwater and either win or lose by only a couple of points. In reality, when you insert CJ Young's freshman victory into the varsity race, Maple Grove was only 2 seconds faster than Stillwater and lost 79-97. Of course, Young ran largely alone and may have placed higher (as he usually has) in the varsity race. How might have that result played out in different situations? Would 7 seconds (or an additional five seconds per runner) have given Maple Grove the victory?

Scenario	Score
2 sec Maple Grove advantage	79-97 S
Young runs 25 seconds faster for 7 sec average gap	79-81 MG
Each MG athlete runs 5 seconds faster for 7 sec average gap	79-87 S

As it turns out, either team may have won depending on how those additional seconds were distributed. As it stands now, the close match-up between these two teams may ultimately determine a podium place at the state meet. If each team performs as they have, roughly 6-9 seconds continues to be the gap that Maple Grove will need to beat the tightly-packed Ponies.