Here's the next edition of what is quickly becoming the Newport XC Weekly Newsletter. So below we've got some general results from last week, a preview of next week, and some basic info to answer questions that new XC families have been asking the last couple of weeks. It's lengthy, but hopefully it's helpful.

AN AWESOME FIRST WEEK!
First - congratulations to all the athletes who competed on Thursday at the Jamboree and Saturday at Tahoma Relays. You were AWESOME. We were impressed not only by your efforts and fast times, but by the way you cheered for your teammates while they ran. GREAT JOB!!!

The Jamboree was a great way to start the season. There were great surprises in each one of the races. It was fun for the coaches to get a better "picture" of where each of you are starting so that we can hope and plan for just how fast you'll be running in in October and maybe even early November. We should have "official" results from the Jamboree from the Kingco league soon, and we'll share those with you so that everyone will know their times.

Special congratulations to all the freshmen and newcomers who ran their first races this week. We hope you had a great time and realize the level of achievement that those races were. And just think - no matter how tired you are in any races later this season, at least you won't have to run through WATER! It is really cool as coaches to see kids who had a hard time completing a three mile run 3 weeks ago doing such a great job racing now. You guys have come a long way already!

Thirteen Newport teams ran Saturday at the Tahoma Relays. All of them were fantastic, and one of our varsity relays took 4th place in the entire meet. Congrats to Alex Jeffers, Lydia Ngai, Alex Poplawski, Dana Dixon and Dan Hutchins! Also, special congratulations to one of our all freshmen teams: Sam Staples, Katrina England, Micah Mansfield, Emily Meyer and Ryan McCord. We have no official proof, but I'd be willing to bet that they were one of the very fastest teams consisting of all 9th graders running Saturday. And finally, to all of you who ran through that water for the first time - HATS OFF! (Coaches Davis and Heffernan felt for you out there after trecking through that lake ourselves!)

INFO FOR FAMILIES NEW TO CROSS COUNTRY:
In the last week I've had a couple of athletes and parents ask me questions about the sport of high school cross country. So, I'll try to clear up a few of the basics. Keep asking if you have questions, as you probably aren't the only ones who have them!!! I'll answer whatever I can.

1. How is a cross country meet scored? Interestingly enough, the goal in cross country is to have the LOWEST score possible. Each team consists of seven runners. A race is scored by adding up the places of the first 5 finishers on each team (so the lowest score a team can possibly get is 15). Runners 6 and 7 don't actually score themselves, but if they finish in front of some of the top five on the other team, they increase the other team's score. So a team A can have two really fast runners who get places 1 and 2, but if team B gets 5 runners in before A's third then team B can still win. TEAM A FINISHERS: 1, 2, 8, 9, 10 = 30 points (and their score would be even higher if team B's 6th and 7th runners finished before runner #5 for example) TEAM B FINISHERS: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 = 25 points TEAM B WINS!

Also - in the event of a tie after the first 5 athletes are scored, the finishing places of the 6th runner are used.

2. How are JV and Varsity determined in cross country? Unlike many sports it isn't necessary to identify athletes as JV and Varsity right at the beginning of the season. In fact, the makeup of the JV and Varsity teams may change from week to week. The varsity team for each gender consists of the 7 fastest kids on the team and JV consists of the next 7. However, it is rarely the case that the individual athletes on those teams remain exactly the same throughout the season. Positions 6-10 in particular have a tendency to switch and change throughout the season. Therefore, varsity letters are often given to the first 10 or so members on a team as the "varsity 7" may not be a static group. Of course, this is up to the coaches' discretion as there may be very little variety in the composition of the varsity team in some years. Also, an athlete who is injured a large portion of the season but who the coaches believe would have been varsity, may still receive a varsity letter.