Schedule and Meet Info

2023 Schedule: 

State Invitational 

The Massachusetts Middle School State Invitational ("State Meet" or "States") is typically held on the first Saturday in November at Willard Field in Devens, MA.  

All athletes are eligible to compete at this meet, there are no qualifying times.

Each athlete will participate in one of eight races offered that day, either a grade level race or the scored/"Championship" team race. In the scored race, we may only enter seven athletes and they will not compete in their grade level race. 

Please note that while we only can place 7 boys and 7 girls into the championship race, we train up to 12 of each for the championship race in case we need alternates. These alternates will be notified ahead of time of the order they would be chosen to run in the championship race. They will be entered in their grade level race with the understanding they could be pulled at the last minute to run in the championship race. 

Parents will be notified which race their child is part of as soon as possible so they can plan their day.  

We recognize that this is often a big day for town soccer and AAU basketball and leave it up to you and your child to determine what you will do that day. We do have to pay an entry fee by the runner and ask that you let us know no later than October 27th if your child will be participating. We cannot add entries after that date so all decisions are final.   

Selection Process for the Championship Race

Choosing our seven participants for each of the boys and girls race is never easy. We will look at the following criteria:

• Race by race performance-We track each athlete's performance, tallying their times over the course of the season and assigning points for team placement. Our first runner gets 1 point, second 2, and so on through 10. If an athlete misses a race, they are given a score of 11. 

  • Note: Some years we have had up to 15 runners who are capable of performing well in the scored race so we expanded the scoring system from 1-10 to 1-15.  In this case, anyone who misses a race is scored as 16. 

  • An athlete is NOT penalized for missing a meet due to school conflicts (ie Nature's Classroom) or religious events. 

• Practice participation-If there is a question about which athlete to take, we will always look at practice habits which are a sign of how important the team is to the athlete. We reward those who come to practice consistently. More so, we talk about how hard we feel the athlete is working. We include the runners in our conversations so they are aware that they are being monitored. 

• Reliability-Can we count on the athlete to be present? To be prepared? To run their hardest? In April, 2017, Bill Belichick stated he doesn't put his most talented players on the field in important situations, he puts his most reliable, dependable players on the field. If we cannot count on someone to get the job done, we will not put them in a position to hurt the team. 

• Good Teammate-We are going to have several athletes who can take those precious 7 slots, particularly spots 5-7. We want our team to be recognized not solely by performance but by deeds and actions. We always give a boost to the best teammates when filling out our championship race lineup. 

• Head to Head-As has been the case each of the last three years, when we have two or more athletes who are close or tied in all categories above, we look at their recent head to head results. Should the schedule allow, we will use a race as a "run off" to determine who receives the spot and who is the alternate. 

Performance Lists

The 2022 list can be found here. 

The 2021 list can be found here.

The 2020 list can be found here.

The 2019 list can be found here. 

The 2018 list can be found here.