www.ArkansasRRCA.com

Hey all,

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?

No questions but I do want to point out to everyone that is a volunteer effort that Brian continues to provide. While he uses technology as much as possible, it is still a lengthy, manual process. Mistakes are possible and if one is made, please send an email to staterep@arkrrca.com. Typically, mistakes arise from misspellings in the race results which usually happens with manual race form registrations.

Thanks, Brian! I've always wondered how the points were totaled for teams!

Now if we can just figure out how the individual points are earned in the AURA Series...

dmeroney wrote: Mistakes are possible and if one is made, please send an email to staterep@arkrrca.com. Typically, mistakes arise from misspellings in the race results which usually happens with manual race form registrations.

Definitely! Let us know as soon as possible if your name is misspelled in any way in the results.

I can have a spreadsheet do a lot of the grunt work for me, but there is plenty of opportunity for human error. But we are getting better!
When I started scoring the Series in 2005, the only tools I used were a piece of paper and a pencil Kim Howard knows the joy of this task.
Luckily in 2005 there were only about 200 people in the GP so it wasn't nearly as tedious as it would be today with double the amount of GP runners.

They don't have Excel in Mineral Springs.

MarathonBoy wrote:They don't have Excel in Mineral Springs.

They don't have a lot of things in Mineral Springs!

Good info......

They might have too many minerals in Mineral Springs.

One thing we do have in Mineral Springs,,,a fairly decent runner,,..(ask some of your RVR crew about that) GOTCHA!

Also,,Thanks, Brian!! We appreciate your hard work!! I do remember the pencil and paper days,,

Ha, yeah is right!

I used colored pencils even when writing the points in. Different colors for overall, masters, grand masters and seniors. I think I've got selective amnesia about the age groups because I don't remember much about that. I remember emailing you a spreadsheet with everyone broken up into age groups, then you emailing me the AG point totals, then double checking it against a print out. I think I had more emails back and forth with Kim Howard than everyone else I knew combined for about 2 years there!

The funny thing is that reading this you'd think we were talking about 1982, but it was 2005...

Fairly good runner in Mineral Springs huh??? I should be ready to meet this guy at Toad Suck in a few weeks!

Clydesdale wrote:Fairly good runner in Mineral Springs huh??? I should be ready to meet this guy at Toad Suck in a few weeks!

Hmm,,, will you show up,,that is the question.. you must be kin to George "No Show" Jones..lol..

You remember this quote in the movie Tombstone? I'm comin, and hells comin with me! Heres another a man of your stature should remember..... My powers have doubled since the last time we met! I better Shut-Up now, I'm diggin myself a pretty DEEP hole to fill!!!

Clydesdale wrote: My weight has doubled since the last time we met! :

that's what u meant to say