Had a question about team scoring at the Spring Fling and thought I would share the answer here in case anyone else doesn't know how it all works. I did this a few years back, but there have been so many posts on our forum, it was bogging down the server and I had to prune all the old stuff or they would have shut the forum down. An explanation has also been on the site's FAQ section for about 4 years now, but I've been told that no one reads the FAQ section!
This will be better than that anyway, because I'll use yesterday's race as an example.Anyway...
The Grand Prix uses Cross Country format for the team scoring. That means the clubs that have eligible teams (4 finishers for the men, 3 for the women) are only compared to one another to tabulate the scores.
Any runner in the race that is not in the Grand Prix does not factor into GP team scoring at all. Also, any runner from a club that did not field a full team at the race likewise does not factor into team scoring. That runner will get all appropriate individual points of course, but they do not impact the team competition since they were not part of a full team.
So, once we eliminate the runners who don't factor into team scoring, the clubs can be compared by the rank of the Top 4 finishers per team for the men and the Top 3 finishers per team for the women.
Let's look at a partial example from yesterday's race. Here are the top twenty overall female finishers at the Spring Fling 5K. After the name, I've listed how they factored in team scoring. The first 3 women for each club are Scorers. All other finishers on eligible teams also factor into the calculations as Displacers:
1 Leah Thorvilson (LRRC - 1st scorer)
2 Aimee Larkin (MVS - did not have a full team - no factor in team scoring)
3 Addy Swaim (CRC - 1st scorer)
4 Jenny Wilkes (LRRC - 2nd scorer)
5 Angie Swaim (CRC - 2nd scorer)
6 Becky Humes (LRRC - 3rd scorer)
7 Kristen Brown (HLRC - 1st scorer)
8 Tina Coutu (LRRC - Displacer)
9 Jen Freilino (AURA - 1st Scorer)
10 Chrissy Ferguson (AURA - 2nd Scorer)
11 Cindy Knott (WAR - 1st Scorer)
12 Debbie Hill (SPA - 1st Scorer)
13 Alise Atha (CCC - 1st Scorer)
14 Lexi Morrison (CCC - 2nd Scorer)
15 Gabrielle Halverson(CCC - 3rd Scorer)
16 Hannah Larkin (Not in GP, no factor in team scoring)
17 Isabel Current (CCC - Displacer)
18 Ginea Qualls (LRRC - Displacer)
19 Alexis Ayers (Not in GP, no factor in team scoring)
20 Holly Craig (WAR - 2nd Scorer)
And I continue to score like that for all the female runners. Then, I go back and eliminate anyone who is not in the GP so we can re-rank only the runners who are on eligible teams.
1 Leah Thorvilson (LRRC - 1st scorer)
2 Addy Swaim (CRC - 1st scorer)
3 Jenny Wilkes (LRRC - 2nd scorer)
4 Angie Swaim (CRC - 2nd scorer)
5 Becky Humes (LRRC - 3rd scorer)
6 Kristen Brown (HLRC - 1st scorer)
7 Tina Coutu (LRRC - Displacer)
8 Jen Freilino (AURA - 1st Scorer)
9 Chrissy Ferguson (AURA - 2nd Scorer)
10 Cindy Knott (WAR - 1st Scorer)
11 Debbie Hill (SPA - 1st Scorer)
12 Alise Atha (CCC - 1st Scorer)
13 Lexi Morrison (CCC - 2nd Scorer)
14 Gabrielle Halverson(CCC - 3rd Scorer)
15 Isabel Current (CCC - Displacer)
16 Ginea Qualls (LRRC - Displacer)
17 Holly Craig (WAR - 2nd Scorer)
Now it is simply a matter of adding up the rankings of the scoring members of each team.
In the example above, you would add 1+3+5 for LRRC's three scorers to get a total of 9 points for LRRC for this race. Then you do the same calculation for every other eligible team. The example above doesn't show everyone, but here's how that looked:
CRC - 2+4+21=27
CCC - 12+13+14=39
WAR - 10+17+28=55
AURA - 8+9+45=62
HLRC - 6+20+37=63
SPA - 11+34+40=85
SCS -47+48+52=147
Lowest score wins, so the female teams placed in the order above for the Spring Fling.
Quick word on the Displacers. Even if you are not one of the first 3 females (or 4 males) for your team at a particular race, you can help your team. The Scorers can make their own teams' scores better, the Displacers can make your rival teams' scores worse! In the example above, Tina Coutu was an LRRC Displacer. She didn't factor into the LRRC score of 9 for the race, but her finish increased the number of every other female who finished after her. Without Tina at the race, the three CCC scorers would have ranked 11, 12, and 13th for a score of 36. But because Tina displaced them in the rankings, they finished 12, 13, and 14th for a total of 39 points. Thus, Tina single-handedly made CCC's team score 3 points worse. In this example, that didn't actually affect the overall team rank between LRRC and CCC, but many many times the Displacers do make the difference how their team finishes.
Also, if there is a tie between two of more clubs, the 1st Displacer breaks the tie. So, say two clubs both have 40 points. Club A's first Displacer was ranked 32nd for the race and Club B's first Displacer was ranked 35th. Club A would win the tie and beat Club B at race. If only one team has a Displacer, that team automatically wins the tie. If neither team has a displacer, then the win goes to whichever team had the highest ranking 3rd scorer (for women. In this same scenario, it would be the highest ranking 4th scorer for the men's teams).
Any questions?
Kim Howard knows the joy of this task. 
I do remember the pencil and paper days,, 
