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Why do so many meets insist upon running JV races? I understand the big meets that have a ton of kids, but I am seeing more and more meets with JV races that have 20 or 30 kids in them. Down here in far western Kentucky (where everything is done perfect) we don't run JV races ever, we just allow more than 7 entries in the varsity races.

Do schools do it because they are hoping their meet is so big they will need the overflow or is it to drive in more money on team entries or for some other reason? I understand it gives someone a chance to win a race that is developing, but sometimes it is overkill. I would guess only 10-20 meets really need a JV.

jonathan

Down here in far western Kentucky (where everything is done perfect) we don't run JV races ever, we just allow more than 7 entries in the varsity races.

@jonathan
I thought you told me they don't ever run JV races on the West side because you guys can't spell "JV".

In the cradle of civilization which is Louisville, we run don't run JV in most of our Master Schedule/All-Comers meets, but we have some fairly large teams in our area, so JV is helpful for getting those kids a race.

@professor
I understand what you mean. You almost have to if you want them to run a race. Although, why not just cap the number of meets a specific kid can run, instead of how many meets a "varsity" team can run... If it makes sense, we could have numerous teams that score, but wouldn't count towards our meet total because it goes by athlete, not team.. it would help to solve both issues in my opinion...

@runpinkbunny

Like 95% of the rules and laws, it's there to prevent the 1% of the population who would abuse the system. The KHSAA would never support counting individual athletes competition instead of team competition because of the precedent it would set for other sports. Right or wrong the limitation of team competition rules apply to everyone, all sports, all member schools.

@cbeckerson

I agree with you. I understand why it is like that, and also know it won't change. I'm just saying our sport is just a bit different than soccer or basketball or whatever. I mean, is JV REALLY JV in cross country? Look at the results from Trinity and it shows that the larger teams who are fortunate to have many talent athletes should be allowed to run them in the faster races through a "B" team, and it should legitimately count in the scoring but not penalize their teams meet total.

The girl that won could potentially have ran under 19 in the varsity race where the competition was far superior.

@runpinkbunny

I agree. But, rather than change the rules which are out of our control, there are things we could do to address that issue that are in our control. Here are some thoughts.

I've seen it argued on here during track season that meets should have more entries per team / per race if they hit a qualifying standard. Recently there has been some work done with that in a few meets. The opposing argument is that you have to be the best in your school to earn the right to run the elite races. It can be argued either way.

In CC we can allow more participants per team in any regular season race or set a performance standard for entries above 7 per team. If a team has 20 girls who can run under 20:00 (an arbitrary number) let them all run. Only score the top 5 (6-7 displace) per normal rules. Then the school doesn't need to have a "B" team. The point here is that there is no KHSAA rule limiting participation per race in a meet, it is all up to the meet management. At a big meet like Trinity you wouldn't want unlimited entries for everyone, the field would be too large and there would be a lot of walking or running off course to get around the first surge or runners that slow down. But your argument that some very good athletes were left out makes a lot of sense. Another option is to do an elite race with qualifying standards. If you look at what other states do, almost all the big meets have multiple Varsity runs with different performance recommendations. The only meet to do this in KY that I am aware of is Lex Cath. It may be time that Trinity looks at doing that and changing the entry guidelines to open up the top race to more participants per team.

Just my 2 cents, again, it is all up to meet management (except the post season)…

@cbeckerson
I've been to a few out-of-state meets and none have performance standards, but they do seed entries. Lexington Catholic only divides races into big and small school, which I believe dilutes that meet in a big way.

Given the racing schedule of most teams, you really can't afford to run multiple teams in the Varsity race that often, because you'd exceed your maximum number of Varsity meets.