Mountain View (ccs) ran 1:14:24 to win the rated race and beat Oaks Christian.
And Los Gatos (ccs) ran rated but had their top runner in sweepstakes. Put him in and drop their 5th guy and their team time goes down by 1:45 to 1:14:52.
Oh my bad I thought this was one of the out of state Mountain View high schools. It's a pretty generic name. Yeah they dominated with a super close pack.
They had an 11 second spread - absolutely insane. Herriman at 22 seconds.
Important to also realize that time isn’t how cross country works, using athletic.net gives a more clear California rankings
But it is time across the exact same course within an hour of each other. It's not like we're comparing across courses or different days. And the Rated and Varsity races had to work more solo to get the times because of the lesser competition.
It makes you think what time a team like Menlo could have run in the sweeps if they had 50 other guys around them pushing and a larger field to chase.
I think I am going to checkout guys. I would usually follow girl races but only if I can follow guy races too. Probably will come back to support the california teams next xc season but it doesn't seem like it will be a good year teamwise. Dana Hills and San Clemente 2023 were the best teams we had and it doesn't seem like that will be replicable this season.
This shouldn't be a surprise. Based on my scoring system, this year's top 4 was about 50 points per team worse in merge scoring than last year (based on the end of track season) before I altered the scoring system this year to give more credit to 3200m times (so I can't say exactly). This did not include last year's Dana Hills getting a huge transfer, a #2 runner, which would made the difference even bigger. And track times were faster nationwide this year, which made things worse relative to the rest of nation. On top of that, there are many more NXN level teams across the country this year. Finally, even those top Cal teams are underperforming for one reason or another.
Woodbridge looked even worse than I expected at the top end, even hypothetically scoring Great Oak, ML King and Beckman with the missing pieces, it still doesn't look good. I went through a lot of the other teams, and most had all their expected top 5 run (even top 7 in many cases). Many of those good teams outperformed my expectations, so that's good news. But it is impossible to ignore the big take away, that is the very top California teams are historically weaker on a national level.
**Top speed rated Cal team, Woodbridge 2023 9 Westin Brown 11 Great Oak (SS) 14:09.4 185 13 Gabriel Rodriguez 12 Great Oak (SS) 14:11.7 184 67 Jacob Brown 11 Great Oak (SS) 14:48.8 172 68 Kai Marotta 12 Great Oak (SS) 14:49.1 172 77 Jack Paradise 11 Great Oak (SS) 14:52.4 171 **Top speed rated Cal team, Woodbridge 2024 35 Isaac Faynsod 12 Mira Costa 14:17.5 179 65 Krish Desai 11 Mira Costa 14:36.7 173 87 Carson Ehman 11 Mira Costa 14:45.0 170 107 Ian Hansen 12 Mira Costa 14:53.3 167 124 Ryan Burger 11 Mira Costa 14:59.9 165
Important to also realize that time isn’t how cross country works, using athletic.net gives a more clear California rankings
But it is time across the exact same course within an hour of each other. It's not like we're comparing across courses or different days. And the Rated and Varsity races had to work more solo to get the times because of the lesser competition.
It makes you think what time a team like Menlo could have run in the sweeps if they had 50 other guys around them pushing and a larger field to chase.
You care more about that than the menlo team does. Hopefully they had fun at Disneyland
But it is time across the exact same course within an hour of each other. It's not like we're comparing across courses or different days. And the Rated and Varsity races had to work more solo to get the times because of the lesser competition.
It makes you think what time a team like Menlo could have run in the sweeps if they had 50 other guys around them pushing and a larger field to chase.
You care more about that than the menlo team does. Hopefully they had fun at Disneyland
Why are ya'll throwing in the towel on CA boys already? It's still early. Woodbridge was the first large meet for many CA teams! I appreciate your posts but am disappointed that because some kids were sick, injured, or missing, you think the teams are done?
Why are ya'll throwing in the towel on CA boys already? It's still early. Woodbridge was the first large meet for many CA teams! I appreciate your posts but am disappointed that because some kids were sick, injured, or missing, you think the teams are done?
It is not suddenly because of this meet, I am pointing out that the data was already pointing to this reality. It just looks even worse because the top teams are underperforming. But the teams from other states probably think they would be better if they didn't have some runners sick, injured or missing. Most teams are not 100% at any given meet.
But below the top, there were some good performances. Last year, the top looked strong but the depth of teams looked a little weak. But at CIF SS finals and the state meet, the depth was the best I have seen in a while. At this point in the year, the depth (#6-#20) looks better than last year. So good and bad. Bad if you are focused on NXN. Good if you want to see a lot of good teams battle it out.
Matilda Torres 5k: Hannah 14:58, Fernandez 15:30, Felix-Andrade 15:39, Soito 15:50, Ramirez 16:21, Santiago 16:28, Macias 16:33. They def look solid for a DIII State Title. 3 seniors, 3 Juniors, and a Freshman. Maybe an NxN bid in 2025
They were the #2 California team in the Sweepstakes race.
What’s even more impressive is that this school didn’t open until 2020.
Wow. JSerra and Oaks Christian tied for first in D4
JSerra is still missing senior transfer Newman who ran a 9:25 last spring. He was on the entries list for Woodbridge so I guess he doesn’t have an SOP.
And on the girls side, Polay was missing but all of their top 6 in the race were nonseniors
Wow. JSerra and Oaks Christian tied for first in D4
JSerra is still missing senior transfer Newman who ran a 9:25 last spring. He was on the entries list for Woodbridge so I guess he doesn’t have an SOP.
And on the girls side, Polay was missing but all of their top 6 in the race were nonseniors
I think at the moment the tie is justified.
JSerra is super all in on their track times (especially the lower distances) while Oaks Christian seems to value their XC times more based on last year's results. So it's kind of hard to use the track times here when there are so many unknowns on the OC side.
The transfer missing for JSerra and then Oaks's new 3rd scoring runner being a sophomore running his first XC race makes Rich's ranking going the safe route of a tie sound better. OC has the higher potential imo but they are only 5 deep while JSerra has way more depth and experience at the highest level races in both XC and track.
Oh my bad I thought this was one of the out of state Mountain View high schools. It's a pretty generic name. Yeah they dominated with a super close pack.
They had an 11 second spread - absolutely insane. Herriman at 22 seconds.
Bellarmine won at Lowell with an 11 second spread. Still impressive even though it’s a shorter distance
Great Oak had a 10.5 second spread at NXN 2019 and took second there