I debated whether to do picks this year.
In a normal year the greatest weight to the picks comes down to the final three meets. League, NCS and State.
As you all know another year of fire disasters took most, if not all, of that away from our cross country runners this year.
Not a single runner was allowed to compete in all three of those this year and some did not get to run in even one of those meets.
I decided to go ahead and do the All-Empire anyway, since not doing it would be just one more disappointment for these hard working kids, but I’m sure that if they had a chance to run the list would look different.
Normally I only look at what the kids actually did. Some kids have great potential that can be seen but that usually does not carry any weight in the picks.
This year is of course different.
Take for instance Montgomery’s Mariah Briceno and Casa Grande’s Emma Baswell. Two very good runners who had solid season’s but never got a chance to run in any of the final three meets. Would have been the same for Montgomery’s Haley had their protest not been granted.
Also I usually stay with seven per team. But especially with the girls I got to a point trying to divide it down and finally threw in the towel as you can see by the oversize list.
So if your looking at this years picks and feeling like you got left out and should have been on there you very well may be right and I apologize. It was a no win situation for all of us and I feel especially bad for the seniors.
Only part of this years picks I am totally satisfied with are the Runners of the Year.
Andre Williams and Gabriella Peterson could not have done much more to show their worthiness by capping of the year with state wins in the last CIF meets and then again being are top runners at Footlocker meets.
PS Photos
Still need to add many photos for these runners.
I can even sub out ones I have up if you have a better one.
If you want to send me a new one or ID a runner from Lucid collection here please send them to me at [email protected] and I’ll add them.