2Timer
← Back to 2Timer

2Timer Help

Practical guides for humans, with structure that is easy for AI systems to parse.

Cross Country Scoring

Purpose

Explain how 2Timer scores cross country team results, including the custom ghost-runner option available in this app.

Where these settings live

You set XC scoring rules in two places:

  • the cross country new-meet wizard
  • the meet settings page after the meet is created

The main XC scoring controls are:

  • Number of scorers
  • Number of displacers
  • Ghost Runners Allowed

Standard scoring in 2Timer

Most meets use:

  • 5 scorers
  • 7 displacers

In 2Timer, displacers include scorers. A 5/7 setup means:

  • the first 5 eligible runners count toward the team score
  • the first 7 eligible runners from that team can displace other teams

This is not “5 plus 2.”

If Team A finishes runners in 3rd, 8th, 12th, 15th, 20th, 24th, and 30th:

  • runners 1 through 5 are the scorers
  • runners 1 through 7 are the displacers
  • the 6th and 7th runners do not add points to Team A’s score, but they can push other teams back in the scoring order

How 2Timer handles the settings

  • scorers can be set from 2 to 12
  • displacers can be set from 2 to 12
  • displacers cannot be lower than scorers

2Timer does not quietly rewrite a setting you typed. If you enter more scorers than displacers, the change is refused and explained, so a meet never scores under numbers you did not choose. Correct one of the two and save again.

Ghost runners: a custom 2Timer rule

2Timer includes a distinct option called Ghost Runners Allowed.

This setting lets short-handed teams fill missing scorer slots with synthetic scorers so they can still produce a team score when your meet rules allow it.

In 2Timer, a ghost runner works like this:

  • it is a synthetic scorer used only for team scoring
  • each ghost runner adds last-place points
  • ghost runners fill missing scorer slots, not extra displacer slots
  • ghost runners never displace other teams
  • unattached teams still do not score

This is the key custom rule to understand: ghost runners can help an incomplete team reach the required number of scorers, but they do not behave like real finishers in the displacement order.

Limits on ghost runners

2Timer currently allows 0 to 2 ghost runners.

Ghost runners are also capped so a team still needs real runners. In practice, 2Timer will not allow enough ghosts to replace the entire scoring team.

Runners who tie

When two runners are recorded on the same place, they share one scoring position and split the points that position and the next one are worth.

Two runners tied across scoring positions 2 and 3 both show as position 2, and each contributes 2.5 to their team. The next runner is position 4. Three runners tied across positions 3, 4 and 5 each contribute 4.

Two consequences worth knowing:

  • A team score can end in .5. A score of 28.5 is correct, not a rounding error.
  • Neither team gains from the order the tie was entered in. Splitting the points is what makes the result the same whichever tied runner was typed first. This is the NCAA and USATF rule.

Teams tied on score

Two teams can finish with the same score. 2Timer separates them using the Team tie-break setting next to scorers, displacers, and ghost runners — pick the one your governing body uses:

  • High school (default) — compares the runner right after the last scorer (the 6th runner in a standard 5-scorer meet), then the next one, and so on.
  • USATF — compares the last scoring runner first (5th in a 5-scorer meet), then works forward toward the first.
  • NCAA — compares the scorers head to head, one against one; whichever team wins more of those comparisons places higher.

Changing this setting only reorders teams that are tied on score — it never changes a team’s score. Team standings state which profile decided the order, so nobody has to guess which rule was applied.

When one division runs under a different rule book

A meet can hold races scored under different rules — a college race alongside high school races, for example. Each division has its own Team tie-break setting on the division’s edit screen, and it starts on Use meet setting. Point it at a different profile and only that division’s races are separated by it; every other division keeps the meet’s rule, and each set of standings names the profile it used.

Scorers, displacers, and ghost runners stay meet-wide. Only the tie-break rule can differ by division, so the runner being compared is the same in every race.

You can see and change the rule for every division at once in the Team tie-break column on the Divisions list, and the meet’s own Team tie-break setting names any division that is not following it — so changing the meet rule never quietly leaves a race behind.

One division is set up this way for you: when you add a College/University division in the new-meet wizard, it is created on the NCAA rule, because a college race is scored under NCAA rules even when the rest of the meet is high school. The wizard’s review step says so before the meet is created, and you can change it on the division afterwards like any other setting.

The wizard also preselects the meet’s own rule from the genre you pick: Championship, Masters, and Youth – USATF start on USATF, and every other cross country genre starts on High school. It is only a starting point — change it on the same screen before you create the meet, or on Setup afterwards. If the profile still cannot separate two teams, they share the place and the next team’s place skips the shared slot.

Who is excluded from team scoring

2Timer excludes these from XC team scoring:

  • unattached teams
  • athletes marked as exhibition
  • athletes whose team code does not match any team in the meet
  • teams that still do not have enough runners after ghost-runner rules are applied
  • runners beyond the displacer limit for their team

Those athletes and teams can still appear in results, but they do not affect team scoring the same way eligible scoring teams do.

Team codes that do not match a team

If an athlete carries a team code with no matching team — usually a typo, or an import that brought athletes across without creating the team — that athlete cannot score for anybody. They keep their own place and time, but they take no scoring position, so no other team’s score changes because of them.

2Timer reports this as a data issue on the meet dashboard, listing the athletes that carry the unmatched code. Create the team, or correct the code on those athletes, and the issue clears. If the runner really is a one-off with no team, you can dismiss it.

Fix these before the race if you can. They are easy to miss until team scores come out.

Incomplete teams

By default, incomplete teams do not score.

If Ghost Runners Allowed is greater than 0, 2Timer can treat some incomplete teams as scoring teams by filling the missing scorer slots with ghost runners and assigning last-place points to those slots.

If a team still does not reach the scorer requirement after the allowed ghost runners are applied, it remains incomplete and unscored.

What you will see in reports

When ghost runners are used, 2Timer calls that out in team standings and detailed XC reports.

You may see:

  • Ghost Runner as the runner label
  • a ghost count in the team summary
  • notes explaining that G indicates a ghost runner scored with last-place points

For standard scholastic or collegiate XC, start with:

  • 5 scorers
  • 7 displacers
  • 0 ghost runners

Only turn on ghost runners when the meet rules specifically allow incomplete teams to score that way.

Metadata

  • Last Updated: 2026-09-09
  • Document Version: 0.2
  • Status: Active