Bringing Apples & Oranges Together

Tim Fulton Photo

It’s been more than a decade since an environmental scientist from the Syracuse area started a website designed to ‘rate’ cross country runners in Section 3, one of 11 regions encompass the New York high school athletic association.

Soon Bill Meylan was ranking the entire state, which required knowledge about the course, the conditions and the runners in comparison with one another. Now his website, TullyRunners.com, is a frequent stop to see results ‘normalized’ by his speed ratings.

Mitch Kastoff, a runner from Valley Stream, N.Y., was one of Meylan’s loyal followers. He wound up being one of the guys who got screwed by the University of Delaware when it unceremoniously dropped men’s track.

Thankfully, that didn’t turn him off from the sport. In fact, he has introduced Meylan-type analysis to Flotrack and now we have, for the first time ever, FloRatings.

Here’s a look at the leader and the Ivy runners in the top 150 (out of more than 1,500). I’d say that the ratings aren’t yet perfect (there are unattached runners in there, including a high schooler), but they will certainly continue to improve, just as Meylan’s system did a decade ago.

Take a look:

Men

Rk Name School Pts
1 Lawi Lalang Arizona 227.0
30 Alejandro Arroyo Yamin Princeton 204.9
44 Will Geoghegan Dartmouth 203.1
50 Chris Bendtsen Princeton 201.9
88 Nick Wade Cornell 198.7
109 Mike Franklin Princeton 197.6
115 Max Groves Cornell 197.1
123 Matt Nussbaum Yale 196.7
126 Jonathan Vitez Princeton 196.6
133 John Bleday Dartmouth 196.4
145 Kurt Ruegg Harvard 195.7

Women

Rk Name School Pts
1 Alexi Pappas Oregon 163.4
2 Abbey D’Agostino Dartmouth 161.7
13 Katie Kellner Cornell 153.7
21 Rachel Sorna Cornell 152.1
49 Emily Shearer Cornell 149.1
50 Greta Feldman Princeton 149.0
54 Olivia Mickle Brown 148.7
58 Emily de la Bruyere Princeton 148.0
78 Devin McMahon Cornell 145.7
82 Jackie Nicholas Princeton 145.0
90 Nihal Kayali Yale 144.4
107 Margaret Connelly Brown 143.1
112 Millie Chapman Yale 142.7
120 Heidi Caldwell Brown 142.1
124 Christie Rutledge Dartmouth 141.7
130 Dana Giordano Dartmouth 141.4
137 Morgan Kelly Harvard 141.1
138 Kate Rosettie Cornell 141.1

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012 at 9:54 pm. It is filed under Athletes, Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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