way too early GIRLS 2025 XC CIF HS predictions

Looks like they’re doing a Friday championship heat and a Saturday one depending on school size

Thanks for sharing those possible Clovis entries. Being somewhat new to HS cross country, what criteria goes into these selections? For the girls Sat Championship, I see Los Altos HS (CCS) in the #7 spot. I believe it was in the other "Way too early..." discussion where someone said they lost a star runner who transferred to rival St. Francis. Maybe the early analysis that went into these selections did not account for this transfer, or are these selections based solely upon actual performance this season, to date? Looks like the Los Altos girls were in the Championship last year, ran just 5, three of them are no longer on the team... I imagine being so early in the season, some weight is put on past performance?

I mean to be fair, Los Altos losing Lily Symon is a huge hit to their team but I’m pretty sure they’re still 2nd in CCS. Los Altos is generally a solid girls xc program

Thanks for the response. I agree. In their two invites so far, they placed 2nd to a school I had not previously heard of called Archie Williams, but apparently they are a very strong team. Again, I'm new to the HS XC scene... Looks like the Los Altos girls comfortably won their first league meet, so I can see the rationale for the Clovis Championship consideration. 2nd in CCS to which team? Now that I look, they would seem to be a strong candidate for 1st in CCS. If I'm reading this thing called "CBEDS" on the CIF website correctly, Los Altos is the smallest of 14 D1 girls schools. Looks like Evergreen Valley is fairly strong, but in head-to-head at DeLa Salle, the Los Altos girls were somewhat better. Ah, Menlo-Atherton, I'm guessing that might be who you think has the top spot in D1 for CCS girls. Where is the best place to see such rankings? Thanks!

Let's try this again, Drake High School, located in San Anselmo, California in Marin county was renamed Archie Williams High School.

It's drake bub. Drake hs.

Saint Francis MV is definitely the #1 girls team in CCS. Archie Williams (formerly known as Sir Francis Drake High School but was changed in 2020), is a well-known D4 xc program. Their boys team has been all state in recent years up until 2021. However, I’m pretty sure their girls team hasn’t even made the podium before.

You do know why it’s not called Drake anymore right?

Something tells me it has to do with it being in California.

Basically, the name changed happened during the BLM protests because of Francis Drake, a very-well documented racist, colonizer, slave owner, and trader, and participated in many massacres. The school district voted on naming it after a former teacher and Olympic athlete at the school named Archie Williams. You can put two in two together as to why I don’t like people calling it Drake.

With that transfer noted above, that seems for sure (St. Francis being #1 in CCS, girls). I jumped into this conversation in response to the Clovis invitational and the watchlists provided here; which apparently breaks-down the schools into two groups, those above 1901 enrollment, and those below. Los Altos and St. Francis are on these two separate watchlists. I now understand why Los Altos is on the watchlist. CCS D1 girls, it seems that Los Altos is the #1 or maybe #2. Back to that transfer, which I see why you say it's huge, because if she would have stayed, Los Altos might then be tops in CCS (all divisions). Has the transfer been approved? That Lily Symon has not competed yet. I guess like other sports that I'm more familiar with there can be a required period where the athlete cannot compete.

Lily Symon (unless she’s injured or sick or whatever) will most likely be competing at Clovis because the sit out period does usually come to an end around Clovis

But I think if Symon stayed at Los Altos, St Francis MV would’ve still been unstoppable— they damn near
return everyone minus two runners. Los Altos loss a huge chunk due to graduation and transferring

Appreciate your help, getting me up-to-speed. Is HS XC and track like HS football where the best teams are mostly private schools? Even with hoops, the top 10 or so teams are inordinately private. Not sure if has changed much, but over 80% of the HSs in the state are public, less than 20% private... TBH, it always seemed rather unfair. St Francis is private, Los Altos public... Whatever one feels, it's reality and it seems like a smart move for Symon to transfer her senior year to be on a dream team of sorts.

Looks like one cannot edit a post after a while...

Thanks to AI, I can answer that question... XC is much more well-balanced with respect to public and private success. Most private schools are smaller, so they do dominate more in the smaller divisions, like D4 and 5, but otherwise, the publics do exceedingly well in D1 and D2.

I digress, apologies....

Murrieta Valley girls team beat Great Oak in a tiebreaker