North Shore, Westfield Get The Call

The boys from Christian Brothers Academy (N.J.), Pembroke (Mass.), Fayetteville-Manlius (N.Y.) and Shaker (N.Y.) as well as the girls from F-M, Hamilton-Wenham (Mass.), Champlain Valley (Vt.) and Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) got to take it easy Saturday night after earning automatic invitations to the Nike Cross Nationals.

But the rest of the teams had to sit and wait to see if an 'at-large' invitation would be coming their way on Sunday.

The phone rang with good news for the North Shore (N.Y.) girls and the Westfield (N.J.) boys. North Shore will be making its second straight trip, but the Rush-Henrietta boys' team did not get invited despite only losing to FM by a single point at the state championships (and beating them in the merge). Westfield was invited instead. Scoring the two teams head-to-head as a dual from Saturday, Westfield wins, 27-28.

The Fayetteville-Manlius girls will be after their sixth straight national title. Saratoga Springs — only 14 points behind the Hornets at regionals — is making its seventh appearance in only the eighth running of the meet. 'Toga — champion in 2004 — has been runner-up three times since, including each of the last two years. New York State girls have won every title since the meet's inception with Hilton winning in 2005 and FM each since.

The Fayetteville-Manlius boys have been close, taking second in 2010 and 2004 and third in 2005. The only New York boys' squad to win the national title was Saratoga Springs in 2005.

TullyRunners.com has a complete list qualifying teams.