XSL Sorting Question

I am a bit of a newbie when it comes to XSL. I have worked with it, but only at beginner to intermediate levels. Which is why I am having a problem resolving my current issue. I have a node list that is built. the node list is the passed to the XSL file. As it works now, the top 10 nodes are selected and then sorted by date. I want it to sort the entire collection by date, then display the top 10. Can any one lend a hand? the current code is:

Code:

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  <xsl:template match="/">
      <xsl:apply-templates select="descendant::event[position() &lt; 11]">
        <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="month" data-type="number"/>
        <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="day" data-type="number"/>
        <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="year" data-type="number"/>
        <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="substring-before(starttime, ':')" data-type="number"/>
        <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="substring-before(substring-after(starttime, ':'), ' ')" data-type="number"/>
        <xsl:sort order="ascending" select="substring-after(starttime, ' ')" data-type="text"/>
      </xsl:apply-templates>

  </xsl:template>

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I found my error - i was sorting in the wrong location. i changed the if statement qualifier to another location and that solved my problem. If anyone wants or needs further detail on this, ping me.