2026 California Track talk (CIF)

Those don't count. The highschool season is over. All of those meets besides USATF are just sponsored events where kids run unattached.

That's for another thread. These are California only. So once again on to X-Country.

Max's double was amazing, especially since it came after going through the gauntlet of the Southern Section Trials, which is a big added degree of difficulty. Also, MLK finishing second in the 4x800 without Max and his 1:50 ability was very surprising.

Combe's triple also through the gauntlet was the stuff of legends, simple as that.

Dailey's double was also very impressive. She also has the distinction of being the only non- Southern Section winner of a girls track race this year. Southern Section won 10 of 11 girl's races, and 8 of 11 boy's races. That's got to be a fluke, most likely never to be repeated. Still, if you used the standard state meet scoring system, and scored Southern Section vs The Rest, I think SS wins both boys and girls, but it isn't important enough for me to score it.
On one hand, it adds more fuel to the "Southern Section is way too big, we have been saying it for years". On the other hand, the auto qualifying marks do a good job of making sure the best still get in, so maybe it doesn't really matter. I'm now in the latter camp. I think the top 6 in each event would have been basically the same no matter how you divided up the sections. Yes, the qualifying rounds are tough, but for most it a great chance to run fast against similar competition, and many runners set their lifetime bests in those rounds. I always think you should look for advantages and not dwell on disadvantages. It looks weird at times like this, but I don't see it as a serious problem that has to be fixed.

On that note, I think things will change in XC next season. I am using a track scoring system based on speed rated converted track times (just using 1600 and 3200), and just totaling the values. For the boys, using only returning runners, the top 4 teams before the state meet were all non-SS teams. It is the 4 you would suspect Jesuit, Campolindo, Vacaville and Mountain View. So maybe next year will look very different.

XC isn't until September. What is your rush?

Since no one has said it yet, Servite ran an insane 3:07.63 in the 4x400 - a team with no seniors!

August*

Some teams (like Great Oak) have their XC time trials in July

To be fair I think one or two of them are reclasses. Jaelen Hunter comes to mind.

In fact, I'm seeing a lot more of these "age cheats" in HS track nowadays. That Edison freshman kid Antwone Beattie is another example. His athletic. net states he was in 8th grade in 2024, then... again in 2025? And is now currently a freshman despite being 16 years old.

There was also that Jesuit kid Kwanna Smith who ran a ton of races last year but I have not seen at ALL this year. Same reclass situation. Does anyone know what happened to him?

Pretty sure Smith is injured or focused on Football

Why were the JSerra girls DQ’d from the 4x8? sorry if this was discussed but I didn’t see what happened.

Poman's video is up:

It looks like there was a move at 1:44 race time where the JSerra athlete moved from the inside out in front of another runner and impeded her.

Weak SD section?

That weak section of females, the one that only gets 3 section qualifiers per event, had 3 in the final of the 1600, 2 in the final of the 800 and took 1, 3, 11 in the 3200 final (and #11 ran 10:28).

Super weak.

Zavaleta and Combe’s performances were absolutely legendary but I also want to highlight two distance athletes who really popped off- both from NCS.

Gretchen Yakaitis (Carondelet) doubled in the 1600 and 3200 to put herself in both 3rd (4:44) and 5th (10:15) for her respective races. She has been one of the most improved female athletes in the state of CA. Last xc season she ran around 19 minutes at Woodward to then go on to win state in D3 in 17:09. She was always an 800 runner and only got 5th in NCS in the 800 last year to now being a double NCS champ and competing with the best of the best. Quite the underdog story.

This one took me by surprise, Sebastian Taylor (Bishop O’Dowd). Prior to state his 3200 pr was 9:10. Even prior to this track season he didn’t have many prs to write home about (4:25, 9:29, 15:47). Then had a huge jump between last xc season till now (he was also NCS champ last xc season too) -> (4:13 & 9:02). Taylor ran a huge 3200 pr last night of 9:02 to put himself in 9th place and podium, what a performance!

The rise of Servite (and Rosary, on the girls side) is so interesting to me. We used to compete against them 20 years ago as we were in the same league.

They were NOT the track powerhouse they are today. They were simply rich, elitist private schools with barely-filled teams. I wonder what changed. They now have incredible sprinters.

If that's the DQ then that's not DQ worthy.

Smart recruiting and scholarships happened... and 2 very good coaches.

Did you read my first post on I'll have find this thread that was started last November. I was having fun. I believe I wrote a haha.

I was sadden that JSerra was disqualified in the 4x800. I wasn't sure why they were DQ'd. . But then I watched PoMan's video, thanks so much, and at 1:43 in the during the race you can clearly see the JSerra girl cut off the Scripps Ranch runner causing her to lose her balance. I believe that was the disqualification as I saw no other violation.

PoMan post the 3200 videos. Once thanks for the great work you do.

There's no way that move 600M into the race was worthy of a DQ. That night, we heard that there was obstruction possibly at a handoff, but I watched every exchange and there is NOTHING. Something ain't right here.

JSerra had a great race, an excellent year and deserved to be on that podium.