I'm not really sure if the teams in Michigan are necessarily getting much stronger, but there has definitely been a shift in the top teams in the state in Division B. For a long while, the top 5 at states was mainly held by teams from Region 12 on the west side of the state, but in the past several years this has shifted to teams on the east side of the state, mainly in regions 6 and 8 (the most notable example being Meads Mill).Adi1008 wrote:That's a good point. After looking at the past MI state results (which I didn't do initially) Unome's ranking makes a lot more senseJohn Richardsim wrote:Yeah, c'mon Unome, you'll put Meads Mill in twice before you give some love to Lakeshore?Adi1008 wrote:
You have Meads Mill twice
I don't feel comfortable ranking Meads Mill outside the top 10; this is only a few years after they came extremely close to winning nationals. In 2014 at UCF, they almost certainly would have beat us (Beckendorff) if a few things had gone their way.
Adi, I don't think you are seeing what Unome sees: in 2013 and 2014, Meads Mill had 70 and 74 points at states. Last year, they had nearly 150. Based upon invitational and regional results, they seem to be doing relatively similar to last year. Although things are a bit of a toss up being so far from nats, I don't think 11th is too farfetched.
However, is it possible that other teams in MI have just been getting stronger? I've heard Lakeshore has only been getting better and better over the past few years. For example, this year, Beckendorff's getting scores in the 20-40s, which is about half of what the first place at nationals team got (and that team also lost state to Riverwood, 63 to 64). That doesn't mean the national winning team was only half as good; rather, it just means that the competition was a lot tougher back then.
As for Lakeshore...though I may be disappointed that we never secured the Division B state title in my time, I suppose jumping to 12th at nationals last year was decent consolation. And similar to what you were describing, though we had gotten a worse score at states last year in comparison to 2014, our score at nationals ended up being nearly 150 points better last year (maybe it helps when a school gets second at a state competition exactly two weeks before nationals...). But yeah, I'm excited to see how they do this year; having a couple of weeks of practices before winter break was definitely a big help last year, and many of this year's competitors have had previous competition experience on White Pines. But again, it's all still hard to pin them down anywhere before their first competition (always feels a tad odd having regionals so late...but hey, good luck to everyone going to a state competition this Saturday!).
