Nassau cancels cross country state qualifier meet; Suffolk moved to Wednesday

Nassau County announced Monday that they will not run their cross country state qualifier meet.

The county will instead select their state meet representatives using the merged results from the conference championship meets two weeks ago, according to an email from Section VIII executive director Nina Van Erk.

The decision means that Section VIII will forego running the individual championship/ state qualifier, which was postponed from Saturday, Nov. 3 due to Hurricane Sandy.

The top team in each class advances to the state meet, as well as the five fastest individual runners not on the winning team. The state meet will be held at Elma Meadows in Buffalo on Saturday, Nov. 10.

Below are the teams/individuals that qualified in Nassau per the decision, according to Nassau County's official cross country website:

Suffolk has rescheduled its individual championship/state qualifer cross country meet to Wednesday, Nov. 7 at 1:00 p.m. at Sunken Meadow State Park. The meet was initially set to be run on Friday, Nov. 2, but was postponed due to Hurricane Sandy.

The course will be a modified version of the three-mile course instead of the scheduled 5K. The "moat" -- a stretch of about 800 meters that runs alongside and over a creek  -- was washed out. That stretch is utilized in both the start and finish of both the 5K and as the finishing chute for the regular three-mile course, forcing officials to change the course for Wednesday.

The rest of the meet will run as planned. There will be six races in total -- a Class A, Class B, and Class C/D race for both boys and girls. The team with the lowest score in each class will advance to the state meet. The five fastest individuals in each class that are not on the winning team will also make the trip to Elma.