2024 California HS XC CIF

the way I see it right now -

Potential tier - Hart, Tesoro, Millikan, Loyola, Vacaville, Bellarmine
Second tier - Mira Costa, Great oak, Buchanan, Jesuit ca
Top tier - Jserra, Arnold Beckman, ML King

everyone else feels pretty irrelevant

Glendora is another team to watch out for

Flores - 15:21 XC 5k / 9:25 3200 / 4:22 1600
Oliveros - 15:45 XC 5k / 9:56 3200 / 4:34 1600
Fabian Garcia - 16:04 XC 5k / 10:16 3200
Sandoval - 16:37 XC 5k / 4:25 1600
Carlson - 4:36 1600

They took 5th at the D2 state meet with their #1,2,3,7 (who also ran a 4:25) being juniors
I do understand that it likely won’t have much depth beyond its top 5 though.

Clovis East returners
4:14
4:16 / 9:29
4:20 / 9:30
4:38 / 10:08
4:43
4:47

I honestly think that Top Tier and Second Tier here can be combined

I think we may be weighing these 1600 times too heavily. I feel like time and time again that often doesn’t pan out to cross country success.

That's the conclusion I came to after doing my own projections last year. The 3200m is so much better a predictor, but unfortunately a lot runners never run it/or run it all out, so you have less data to work with. I'm not doing my projections this year, but when I eyeball a list of times, I use a different scale for 1600m times now. I lot of people go by 4:40->10:00. Well, until I see that 3200m time I don't quite believe it. This year I am using 4:30->9:50. But more importantly, if it looks like the runner has made serious efforts at the 3200m, I just use those.

I agree. I have seen way too many runners who can run a very good 1600m time but can't hold up on Woodward Park well enough to be relevant on a scale of top teams.

3200 at the end of the day will be the best estimator for xc which is why I think JSERRA is definitely nice on the track but I dont know how well that is going to translate into xc but definitely great talent and speed. I think Clovis East is under the radar right now as they look great and Mira Costa is solid and I think Arnold Beck looks on paper to have the depth and talent to hang with anyone. Jesuit has two dominate sophomores right now with proven 32 times of 9:11 and 9:19 so to me they have the lowsticks that could be huge for team time come November. I believe once we get 32 times from MLK that will be good to see if they can hang with Great Oak as those are to me are the two favorites right now.

For the next top 10 team rankings, I will put more emphasis on the 3200

Back in the day, U of O had to rely on a couple of 800/1500 guys to win NC's.....And remember, they had to step up to 10K so I hardly think that Centro and Andrew Wheating would quickly agree with that....maybe ask Galen Rupp?

Centro, Wheating and Rupp would all agree that in general the 3200m is a better predictor of HS XC success than the 1600m. They would also agree some runners can step up in distance much easier than others. But if you are just looking at numbers and nothing else, you go with the general rule.

Jesuit, CA. Current (as of March 19)

Hoferer (10) 4:17, 9:19

Ogilvie (9) 4:19

Abbot (10) 4:24, 9:11

Alberts (9) 4:35

Nadel (11) 4:35

Jakary (10) 4:36

Jopson (9) 4:37, 10:07

Cressman(11) 4:41

Krotine (11) 4:45

Vlahos (10) 4:47

Blum (11) 4:50

Ryan (10) 4:45

Smith (9) 4:56

Maciel (10) 4:58

They've got impressive depth AND are very young. They'll have 3 guys ready to run up front at CA state. We'll just see how some of the other young guys develop. I'm certain they'll have 2-4 more guys down into the mid 4:2x, 9:3x range by the end of the season. That should put them in the Top Tier, IMO

I would add De La Salle and Clovis East to the potential list.

De La Salle -

9:11, 9:42, 9:52, 4:33, 4:34, 10:04

Jserra is too high and Great Oak should be the top returning team.

Agreed. Some people are better at XC than track. Great Oak returns their #2-4 from the NXN squad and add Westin Brown (which is a solid returning group in itself) and add two more sub-10 guys. That’s a solid top 6.

One of the seniors from the scoring Dana squad last xc sxn was running on someone else´s name, Dana does not have a secret junior talent but they do have some solid freshman runners.

I remember at Clovis, Noonan was running under Brda (their 6th or 7th runner)

The championship mile is stacked, who do you think the top 3 will be?

1. Andreas Dydbahl

2. Carson Hedlund

3. Carter Spradling

Yeah, De La Salle returns 1-6 and not only have been putting out excellent track times, but also have incredible Frosh-Soph talent that will undoubtedly make them one of the top contenders by the time September comes around.