– All individual performances are important and recorded on athletic.net
– For team purposes, only the varsity meets are scored.
– Competitions on Wednesdays are with other Bay State Conference schools.
– The varsity runners all compete at the same time, but there is a separate score for each pair of schools at a meet. For example, if three schools are present at a meet, Natick, Brookline, and Wellesley, all of the varsity runners will run the varsity race, and then scoring will be calculated for Natick vs. Wellesley, Natick vs. Brookline, and Brookline vs. Wellesley.
– The top five runners from each school are counted in team scoring.
– Individual places of the top five runners are used. The lowest total team score for all five runners is the winning team.
How to Score a Cross Country Meet
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. For example, consider the following race:
| Team: | Natick | Framingham |
| 3rd | 1st | |
| 4th | 2nd | |
| 6th | 5th | |
| 7th | 11th | |
| 8th | 12th | |
| (9th) | ||
| (10th) | ||
| Final Score: | 28 | 31 |
Natick wins!
As you can see, even though Natick’s sixth and seventh place runners’ scores were not added into the total, they were enough to displace Framingham’s fourth and fifth place runners’ scores, and give the win to Natick.
A score of 27 or less always wins a meet, as does having the first, second and third place winners, with at least five runners finishing. This final instance is called a “sweep”.