Only One Auto Qualifier
If you've never paid attention to the qualifying process outside of your competitive division, when you watch the race above you should keep in mind that only one of these finishers automatically qualifies for the state championship. In Division II Class AA, each region (East, Middle, West) advance one based on place and that's the winner regardless of their time. The rest are decided by picking the next best five times from the three regions. Last year, if you ran 4:16.35, you DID NOT qualify for state. This year, if you ran 4:13.56, you were the first man out. Here's a breakdown of the qualifiers for Division II Class AA in the boys 1600m:
- 4:08.11 - Luke Thompson, Brentwood Academy (Middle Champion)
- 4:10.40 - Colin Eckerman, Webb (East Champion)
- 4:13.76 - Kaleb Smith, Christian Brothers (West Champion)
- 4:08.73 - Carter Johnson, Brentwood Academy (At Large 1 - Middle 2)
- 4:09.19 - Jack Wallace, Montgomery Bell (At Large 2 - Middle 3)
- 4:11.32 - Zachary Youngblood, CCS (At Large 3 - East 2)
- 4:13.35 - Samuel Trumble, MBA (At Large 4 - Middle 4)
- 4:13.53 - Thomas Arender, Pope Prep (At Large 5 - Middle 5)
- 4:13.56 - Jack Bowen, McCallie (DNQ - East 3)
- 4:15.14 - Joe Edwards, CBHS (DNQ - West 2)
Brutal. There's a lot to be said when runners of this caliber will not get to race again in a week two weeks. My suggestion would be that for non-laned events like the 1600m and 3200m to expand the field of qualifiers in Division II Class AA. Adding 4-8 more runners per open distance event does not add anymore heats or time to the duration of a meet.