New Hampshire boys shine at NXN Northeast
Ellie Shea returns in style as Massachusetts sends six runners to the Champs Sports Nationals
In hastily previewing the past weekend’s high-school cross-country action, I referred to the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) Northeast Region using both its correct name and “New England Region.”
The Champs Sports (nee Foot Locker) series has only four geographical divisions, with the Northeast Region including every state between Maine and Maryland inclusive as well as the District of Columbia. The far newer NXN series has eight regions; summing its New York and Northeast divisions produces nearly the same territory as the Champs Sports Northeast division, but it’s still a little smaller, as Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia belong to the NXN Southeast Region.
A map-free way to consider the same information: The NXN Northeast region has a population of around 37.3 million, while the Champs Sports Northeast Region has a population of around 64.9 million.
The NXN Northeast race saw three boys based in New Hampshire (pop. 1.4 million) among the five individual qualifiers for Saturday’s national championship in Portland and four in the top seven overall (results).
In accounting for about 3.75 percent of the NXN Northeast Region’s males but 60 percent of its individual male qualifiers for the national race, New Hampshire overperformed in this area by a factor of about 16. Had Pennsylvania (expected to provide over one-third of the area’s national qualifiers) managed the same statistical feat, it would have sent approximately 28 boys (out of a possible five) to Portland. (Byron Grevious is admittedly an edge case, since he’s from Connecticut but attends school in New Hampshire.)
I’m spitting out dry data because I don’t have access to any race videos from the weekend. But NewHampshireCrossCountry.com has a detailed write-up of how the race developed along with a post-race interview with Aidan Cox. Despite physical difficulties this fall, Cox has lost none of his competitive edge or smarts.
Though this was an impressive collective performance by Granite Staters, their disproportionately rosy showing fails to capture the whole mathematical and competitive picture; some folx were missing, as the Champs Sports Northeast races were also held on Saturday. In the Bronx, Ellie Shea, a resident of the Boston suburbs who doesn’t compete for a high school, ran what appears to be the third-fastest time in the history of the Van Cortlandt Park 5K course in winning by 75 meters over Katie Baloga of New York (results).
(Whenever I look at the all-time VCP girls’ list, I’m blown away by that 16:46 by Cathy Schiro. Only a tiny handful of girls have come along in the last 38 years capable of beating that, which obviously none have. I bet it was out of Katelyn Tuohy’s reach.)
Shea, a junior, is a monster talent who in a three-day span in March ran indoor times of 4:41.00 for the mile, 9:52.35 for two miles, and 15:49.47 for 5,000 meters (all are personal bests except for the mile, a distance she covered in 4:40.01 in February.) But she’s also been mercurial, posting DNFs at last year’s Champs Sports finals as well as races at the Millrose Games, the Brooks PR Invitational, and the USATF Outdoor Junior Nationals in 2022. The Emerging Elites team Shea competes for is notorious for overambitious racing schedules and a concomitantly high DNF rate, but it’s still worrisome when good runners that young develop even a modest pattern of not finishing races.
Shea was part of a strong Massachusetts contingent that wound up sending four boys and two girls to the Champs Sports finals on December 10 in San Diego. Meanwhile, Connecticut, which dominated the team competition at the New England Championships two weeks earlier, won’t be sending a single athlete to either the NXN Nationals or the Champs Sports Nationals this year. (A sad historical fact: Practically every standout girl from Connecticut is done by the time she gets to college. I attribute this lazily and accurately to the state’s lily-white affluence and its inevitably high incidence of body-dysmorphia-driven problems, but it’s so obvious it’s almost alarming.)
Cox was seventh last year at the Garmin RunningLane Championships, but this year is opting for the NXN Nationals. This will see him racing many of the Colorado kids I’ve been scoping out this season, although the talent level here isn’t what it was in 2021. And just to keep things straight:
This Saturday, the NXN Nationals (pardon the redundancy, but everyone does it) and GarminRunningLane Championships will be held, as will the Champs Sports West Regional.
On Saturday the 10th, the Champs Sports Finals will take place in Balboa Park.
Some or all of these races may be unceremoniously eliminated or relocated to Bermuda as part of the still-swelling effects of the FTX cryptocurrency swindle, as could the states hosting them. I have few hopes that the principals will land in the sternly operated pound-me-asswise prisons where they belong, but I could be wrong about crypto’s negative effects on running extending beyond Outside CEO, Inc. Robin Thurston’s wet dreams for the brand he’s busy wrecking.
Anyway, these kids!
Bonus content: Schiro recounts her win at the 1984 Kinney National Championships in a short WMUR-NH television interview that’s now eight years old.