Parts of this post were used in Aggravated.
The Data
This is the third of four posts about a lie I believe Hanna told in court. If you haven’t read the first two posts yet, you should probably do that before reading this one. Start with Part 1, The Background.
Let’s compare some actual race times. If stats aren’t your thing, I’ll sum everything up at the end. Not that these later rankings are proof of what they might have been in 2001 (or what Hanna’s individual time might have been), but you’ll see there was some consistency from year to year. Since Hanna claimed she was 16th out of 300, let’s look at the times for 1st place, 16th place, and last place from 2011 on.
In 2011, Alderson didn’t compete in the Miler meet. The first place finisher in the 7th grade girls race that year had a time of 8.58 (8 minutes, 58 seconds). The girl in 16th place had a time of 10.55, and 45th (last) place finished with a time of 16.08. A total of 277 runners participated in the entire meet. The largest race that year was the Varsity Boys race with 78 runners.
In 2013 (the next meet I have stats for), Alderson again didn’t field a team. The first place runner in the 7th Grade Girls race finished in 9.41. The 16th place finisher had a time of 11.27, and the last place finisher (#59*) had a time of 17.53. A total of 393 runners participated in the whole meet. The largest race was the Varsity Girls race, with 98 runners.
*Note: 62 girls were listed for the 7th grade race, but three of them apparently didn’t finish.
In 2014, Alderson again didn’t field a team. The first place runner in the 7th Grade Girls race finished in 9.18. The 16th place runner had a time of 11.05, and the last place (#90) finished in 18.01. A total of 579 runners participated in that meet. The largest race was the Varsity Girls race, with 147 runners.
In 2015, Alderson did participate. The winner that year came in at 8.55. The 16th place runner that year finished in just over 10 minutes.* Alderson’s best 7th grade girl placed 62nd at just over 12 minutes. Other Alderson 7th grade girls finished in 70th place at 12.46, in 91st place at just over 14 minutes, in 96th and 97th places at just under 18 minutes, and in 102nd place at a little over 18 minutes. The last place finisher (#105) also had a time of over 18 minutes. In the team results that year, Alderson’s 7th graders placed last, 13th out of thirteen teams; Alderson’s JV girls placed 6th out of 7 teams; and their varsity girls team did only marginally better, taking 8th place out of 13 teams. A total of 703 runners participated in the meet that year. The largest race that year was the 8th Grade Girls with 140 runners.
*Note: Some times are approximate because Miler only listed exact times for every 10th runner that year.
In 2016, 123 girls ran in the 7th grade race. In that race, the winner finished with a time of 8.32. The 16th place runner’s time was 10.09. The last place finisher (#123) completed the course in 18.37. Alderson’s 7th grade team consisted of only three girls that year. Their best 7th grade runner placed 55th, with a time of 11.51, slightly above the middle of the pack. The other two Alderson runners finished in 69th place at 12.30; and in 83rd at 13.04. That year, Miler only listed the top 11 teams (out of 20) for 7th Grade Girls’ team rankings, and Alderson’s team didn’t place. Their 8th grade girls placed 15th out of sixteen teams. Their Junior High boys placed 11th out of 13. Their Junior Varsity girls didn’t place in the Top 11 either. Their Varsity Girls placed 20th out of 23 teams. Their Varsity Boys didn’t place at all. A total of 774 runners participated that year. The largest race that year was the Varsity Girls Race with 162 runners. This was the meet that Curtis Hamner referred to as their “biggest meet ever.”
In 2017, Alderson’s 7th grade girls still ranked low. That year, 145 girls ran in the 7th grade race. The 1st place finisher that year had a time of 9.04. The 16th place runner finished with a time of 9.56. Alderson’s two 7th grade runners finished 90th and 118th, with times of 12.26 and 13.22 respectively. The last place runner (#145) finished with a time of 16.57. I have no team results for that year, but the total number of participants was close to Coach Hamner’s “biggest meet ever” with 739 runners. The largest race was the Varsity Girls Race with 172 runners.
In 2018, with 115 girls running, Alderson entered only one girl in the 7th grade race. She finished 110th, with a time of 14.30. The winner finished with a time of 8.41. The 16th place runner’s time was 9.44, and the last place runner (#115) finished in 16.23. I have no team results for 2018. The total number of runners was 615, and the largest race was once again the Varsity Girls with 140 runners.
Alderson’s runners, both boys and girls of various grades, didn’t fare very well in any of the stats I have for this race. Almost all of Alderson’s runners, year after year, from all the classifications, were middle of the pack or worse at Miler’s meets, often at the tail end. I don’t say this to belittle the teams, but to point out that Hanna’s performance, if it had been anything like what she claimed, would have been considered a remarkable achievement at her school. Also, Beau is a sports/stats person. If Hanna finished as well as she claimed, he would have noticed. Beau said that he remembered Hanna finishing not in the top half, but in the bottom half of the pack, not “16th out of 300 and something.” I realize that the performance of other 7th grade girls from Alderson in different years isn’t proof of any previous year, but given their low average performance in all the scores I have seen so far, I would think that any Alderson 7th grade girl who placed 16th out of 300 girls, would be a sort of school hero, at least for a while. Somebody would have remembered. No one does, though, not even her former coach.
Hanna also said, in Trial #1, that the race finished “Whenever you got done running. It was normally over about maybe twenty minutes after it started. It was very short. It was only a mile.” The first place winners for the 7th grade races in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 finished in 8.58, 9.41, 9.18, 8.55, 8.32, 9.04, and 8.41. The girls who finished in 16th place those years, had times of 10.55, 11.27, 11.05, over 10.00, 10.09, 9.56, and 9.44. The last place finishers were a bit slower than that (16.08, 17.53, 18.01, over 18.00, 18.37, 16.57, and 16.23), but all of them were under twenty minutes. Did Hanna take “about maybe twenty minutes” to run a mile? How could she have placed 16th with a time of twenty minutes if the other 16th place runners were finishing the race between ten and eleven minutes? Even the last place finishers were consistently beating a twenty minute time, taking between sixteen and eighteen minutes to complete the race. In the next post I’ll wrap this data up and make some judgments.
Michael Sirois
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