MV Jr. Orienteering Champs - Practice Event and Turkey Hunt
November 15, 2008 - Bill Yeck Park
Weather: 45° early, falling to 35° by 1 PM with rain changing to sleet and snow.
Attendance: 61 in 42 groups
Thanks for meet assistance: Jeff McPherson, Tom McClory, Tom Wentling, Tom Svobodny, Benjamin Bond, and Sharon Bond.
Thanks to all for attending. The new Bill Yeck Park map brought us many new things, most notably was our first snow of the season. Of course, setting the course the day before the event I didn't get my feet wet anywhere putting out all 34 controls. Unfortunately, this snow and the rain that preceded it kept attendance low.
OCIN's new Tristate Regional Orienteering League (TROL) program brought a team in from Liberty, IN, to compete in our new Middle School/Jr. High Division.
Our new electronic punching system is such a blessing on cold, wet days. It takes a little more time to set up, but the ease of administration makes the extra effort more than worth it. The system keeps track of start and finish times all by itself, as well as times between controls. It checks to see if all punches are correct, and that they were punched in the correct order. And I think everyone likes getting a printout of their results within moments after downloading.
The new result report formats are more in-depth as well. Results below are shown by division for the Jr. Champs and by course for the Turkey Hunt in three formats for each: a standard result list, split times, and chip data.
The standard result list is pretty straightforward. For the Miami Valley Jr. Championships, it shows that in the new Middle School/Jr. High Individual Division, Sam Gordon from St. Joe's in Hamilton had the fastest time and Union County Middle School won the division. The Middle School/Jr. High Cooperative Division was won by Wayne High School. Megan Skelly from Ursuline in Cincinnati had the fastest time in the Rookie Individual Division. And the JV Cooperative Division was won by Springboro High School.
The new split time list shows time spent traveling between each control visited. For each competitor, the first row shows cummulative time, and the second row shows each leg's split time. Leading times are in blue. For example, in the MS/JH Individual Division, Sam Gordon had the best split time to the first control getting there in 33 seconds, so his split time is shown in blue italics. At that point he's leading the division, so his cummulative time is also shown in blue (not italicized). For the second leg from 1 to 2, Sam Kelsch had the best split time of 1:21, but at #2 a more consistent Kacey Schweinfest is in the overall lead with a cummulative time of 2:33. It's interesting to see how each leg's time affects the overall lead throughout the race. Like how Blake Frasur set a blistering pace from 8 to 9 in only 23 seconds, but at #9 he still had a 4:43 deficit.
The new chip data report is the raw data from the computer chip inside the SI cards (finger sticks). It shows the start time of day, finish time of day, elapsed time (bold), and download time of day (Read at). It also shows each control number punched and the time of day it was visited. This shows where people were and when, as they traveled around their course. It shows if people were following each other. This would be shown by a consistent punch time within seconds of each other from control to control. Following other competitors is against the MV Jr. O Champs rules, and if needed, the meet director reserves the right to disqualify any competitor who follows another orienteer.
Though additional orienteering is always encouraged, in the interest of competitive fairness, only the first course an individual or group runs can be included in the championship competition. Once an orienteer is out on a course they return with advantageous knowledge of the competition area, shared controls, etc. Results for subsequent courses are listed with the Turkey Hunt results.
I enjoyed planning out all the courses -- especially red #4. I chose the location because no one ever gets much opportunity to put a control underneath such a massive tree -- while it's still standing upright!
Many accolades are due all who participated. Even through the cold, wet conditions, all individuals and groups finished their courses. Great job everyone!
Matt Bond
Meet Director