What's up everyone, I'm the original poster that started this thread, and this state meet was very interesting. Here are some of my takeaways/insights:
- Jesuit is the real deal. Insane team time and super tight top 5. They didn't even all have a perfect race; Connor Bilodeau ran 10 seconds slower than at Clovis, but his teammates improved enough so that it didn't even matter, namely Drake Hoferer and Lucas Alberts. If Niwot ever has an off day, Jesuit has reinforced that they will be one of the contenders to nab the national title.
- Redondo, San Clemente, and Mira Costa really put up perfect races. I don't think any of their guys did particularly bad. I think the biggest surprise to me was Redondo's 3rd runner, Desmond Vaughn. I remember him being a 14:4x 3 miler, so seeing him go through the 1st mile in 4:3x convinced me that redondo was going out too fast and would probably die out, like last week at the CIF ss finals. But nope, Vaughn in particular had an amazing race and ran 15:14, and all his teammates held on. Same for San Clemente and Mira Costa, although I expected San Clemente to steal the title from Redondo in the last mile. The improvement that these teams' 3-5th runners have had is incredible.
- Woodbridge, Campolindo, and Beckman, despite their best efforts, fall short once again. Especially brutal for Woodbridge, since 4 of their top 5 had amazing races and ran faster than clovis, while Thomas Yohn ran a lagging 15:55, clearly not at 100% after missing the qualifying races. Fun Fact: if Yohn just ran the same time that he did at clovis (15:19), Woodbridge would have convincingly qualified for NXN, and ran 36 seconds faster than their already-great team time. Instead, they got 5th in the merge due to other team's superior placement. Beckman's Nguyen unfortunately had another bad day at state, despite his teammates performing amazingly well to still get 4th in the D1 race. If Nguyen ran his clovis time, Beckman also could've strongly qualified for NXN ahead of Mira Costa. Campolindo just lacked top runners today; their 2-5 was nicely placed for the d3 race, but they were all 10-20 seconds off getting their team into contention for qualifying for NXN. However, since most of them are returning, increased development will probably push that pack forward and make them formidable.
- California boys teams are finally on the comeback. After the last 2 years of disappointment following the NP era, its exciting to see so much potential in California's future. The top 5 boys teams today beat Glendora's team time when they received the at-large qualifier last year for NXN, and most of those teams are returning most of their runners. Only Mira Costa and Redondo are going to be graduating a majority of their varsity runners after this school year. I know someone else has already started a CIF 2026 thread, but I just wanted to leave my own predictions here for the next season:
1. San Clemente
They always peak and develop very well, they're returning their entire top 7, and they performed very strongly today to qualify for NXN via at-large qualification. It will be tough to dethrone them in their best year ever.
2. Jesuit
They will graduate 3 key seniors; Isaac Abbot, Drake Hoferer, and Kyle Jakary, but their returners are still seriously good, and their depth will most likely be able to fill any gaps that appear.
3. Campolindo
as I hinted earlier, Campolindo has a very strong pack and a strong low stick in Clark Gregory, so as they all develop next year, all their scorers will be fitter and simply be faster, producing devastating depth. However, their performance in the state meet merge is unproven, compared to Jesuit and San Clemente.
4. Woodbridge
Woodbridge, like Jesuit, loses 2 key runners; Aiden Zavala and Inban Kathiravan, but they still return 4 of their top 7 and lots of depth that will cover any problems. Notably, Aidan Antonio will be one of the strongest low sticks in the state.
5. Mountain View
Mountain View only loses a couple of their top 10 runners, and their returners are plenty fast enough on Woodward park to create a much stronger team for next year as they develop.
6. Redondo Union
Redondo has thoroughly proved how well they can reload and develop their runners this season. They graduate many top runners this year, just like last year, but Mario Montoya and Matteo Sanchez will remain and only get faster, and I won't underestimate Redondo's ability to reload. Montoya and Sanchez will fight to be the best 1-2 punch in California with Anderson and Dos Santos from San Clemente.
7. Vacaville
Cooper Stream surprised with the individual state championship in d2 today, and while they lose a significant amount of seniors, they have enough strong returners to stay relevant and challenge more teams next year.
One last thing: we DO NOT deserve the 2nd at large. The first one is very much deserved; San Clemente has historically done very well at NXN and has been on a very notable comeup throughout the season. On the other hand, this will be Mira Costa's 1st appearance at NXN (I think), and other teams in the nation are much more deserving of a berth than them. I thought for sure the northwest would get one so that Mead would go; if a team is one point off of autoqualifying for NXN and doesn't get an at large bid, that is similar to implying that the 2nd autoqualifier does not deserve to go, because the gap is so small. Save the 2 CA at larges for next year, when we will be STACKED.
