Oklahoma 6A Cross Country Final Rankings 2023: Deer Creek Delivered, Owasso Crashed the Girls’ Party

The final 2023 6A poll, posted October 2nd, got exactly half of the story right. Deer Creek’s boys sat at No. 1, and they went out and won the whole thing with 42 points — the poll’s finest hour. Edmond North’s girls also sat at No. 1. They did not win. Owasso did, with 98 points, from the No. 4 slot. Somebody in the voter pool owes Owasso an apology card.

Let’s start with what the poll got right. Deer Creek’s boys were the wire-to-wire deal: No. 1 in the final poll, state champions at 42 points. Mustang was No. 2 in the poll behind them. And there’s a little poetry in the individual result: Edmond North’s Zac Rutherford won the 6A boys’ individual title — the poll’s No. 3 team produced the fastest kid in the class, and the No. 1 team still won going away. The big-school boys’ race went chalk, and there’s no shame in that.

Now the girls. Final poll: Edmond North No. 1, Piedmont No. 2, Deer Creek No. 3, Owasso No. 4, Jenks No. 5. State meet: Owasso 98 points, champions. The poll’s top three all watched the trophy go to the fourth-ranked team. Ninety-eight points isn’t a blowout — it’s a rock fight — which only makes it sting more for the voters. In a rock fight, you rank the toughest rock, and they didn’t.

To be fair to the poll — and it pains me to say this — 6A girls in 2023 was genuinely a jumble. Edmond North, Piedmont, Deer Creek, Owasso, Jenks: five programs that could all beat each other on the right Saturday. The poll picked the wrong Saturday. That’s not corruption, it’s the nature of ranking teenagers in October. But “it’s hard” is not the same as “it’s right,” and the record book doesn’t grade on degree of difficulty.

The rest of the boys’ top ten: Edmond Santa Fe at No. 5, then Broken Arrow, Moore, Westmoore, Yukon and Jenks. Girls behind the top five: Edmond Memorial, Bishop Kelley, Bartlesville, Edmond Santa Fe, Norman North.

The lesson of 6A 2023, filed for future polls: when five teams are separated by one bad afternoon, maybe don’t carve the order in stone. And Owasso — enjoy the part where the No. 4 team gets the trophy. That’s the whole point of running the race.

Final poll via ohstrack.com (Oct. 2023); state results via the OSSAA championships recap.