Just a few details on the MN State Ranking system. It is based on the district system, with a couple of modifications. To encourage teams to pursue chairman's, points are awarded for that submission. And since most teams in MN only do one event, we just recognize the team's first event for points. This is the same for districts - every team there does two events, so they recognize the first two, even if the team competes every weekend. Details on the system can be found
here. Current standings can be found
here.
Those details give a maximum number of points in each category:
Qual ranking: 22 points
alliance selection: 16 points
elims performance: 30 points
awards: 5/8 points per award
As for the two teams mentioned... 2502 may have been ranked 31, and there is an issue with good teams occasionally being ranked low, and vice versa. However, in the state rankings, they came out with the third highest total points for the weekend. 5172 was ranked 16th, and came out with the 5th highest total points for the state rankings. So from that perspective, the state rankings seem to be doing what they're supposed to be doing - both of those teams should have no problem getting into States, despite having event rankings lower than they should have been (based on comments here, I really have no idea how high any team should have been at either event).
And while I didn't really see much at Northern Lights, I have to ask - was 2502's ranking caused by bad alliance matchups, or because their strategy (going for high goals) wasn't as effective in earning ranking points as other strategies (such as getting breaches)? How often did they get breaches compared to others, versus capturing the tower? From what i've seen, the dominant strategy during quals is to breach while scoring a few balls, with very few matches resulting in a capture. That extra RP for a breach really helps with the rankings!