Cross country, typically referred to as (XC), typically starts a week or 2 before school starts in August. Practice is immediately after school from 3:00 - 5:00 (Practice does usually always end before 5, we mostly end around 4:30)

We do have Saturday practices where we like to do field trips. These practices we meet at the High School for 7 or 8 am and then push out as a group to our designated location. These field trips range from Plum Island to Battle Road, and many other spots. We have a lot of fun on the field trips, where the kids get to explore new routes that aren't always in Wilmington, and after the run we have a small picnic with snacks and recovery drinks. The season end date depends on the athletes. Those who make states will run into early/mid November, while some runners will be done middle to late October. 

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Our home course is arguably the best in the Middlesex League. It is basically 3 laps around the High School, which is not only very flat for the runners but great for viewing so you can see your athlete numerous times as they compete. 

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Scoring in Dual Meets

Scoring in dual meets for cross country can be very confusing. Basically each team has a "top 7" . The top 7 are the ones who score points, but within the top 7 the top 5 do the scoring. XC works like golf in a way where the lowest score wins. For example if we get 1st place in a dual meet we get 1 point, if we get 3rd place we get 3 points. This goes back and forth for the first 5 runners on both teams, but if for example our 6th and 7th runner beat the opposing teams 5th runner we displace points from them. If we take places 1 - 5 we have 15 points. But if the opposing team has 6th - 9th place and then we have 10th and 11th, we displace their points, meaning their 5th runner got 12th. So they will add 12 to their score. This does get cut off at 12 however. If a teams 5th runners finishes 16th overall, they still get 12 points. 

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Scoring in State/Invitational

Scoring in the state meets or invitational will change depending on the meet. Most invitational meets will set a guideline of for example "30 runners" So in this example the first 30 runners per heat will achieve a medal. In the state meets, the same rule is applied where the meet sets a limit for the first few runners to medal but with state meets the team is involved. Scoring is similar to dual meets except the entire section is at play. Meaning the top 5 score, but the scores are much higher. If our runners place 6, 16, 41, 57, 61 our score is 181. It's the sum of the places we achieve. 6 and 7 runners still count as displacements where they can bump other teams back 1-2 points.