What California High School class was the best? Strictly speaking only high school career.
Definitely not 2022.
2023 (Newbury Park, Chris Caudillo, Matthew Donis, etc)?
2024 (Anthony Fasthorse, Emmanuel Perez, Lucas Cohen, Josh Bell, etc.)?
Or 2025 (Evan Noonan, Landon Pretre, Eyan Turk, Eli Fitchen-Young)?
This is a hard one. I think arguments could be for all of them and even ones not listed. Personally I’m going with 2025. Noonan has been burning it up for years and his illness for state track was unfortunate. People are hating on the 3200 because of his absence but I kind of like what the race turned into. Tactical that went 4:34, but winner closes in 4:17, 2:01 final 8 and 59 final 400m. That’s impressive regardless of who was in the race. It also shows a maturity and talent recognition for the runners that were there. they wanted to be ready for the negative that was sure to come. I really like 2025 specifically looking at depth and the rise of the small schools. Love the fact that D4/5 have risen up and are hanging with the other division which makes California depth as a whole stronger. Two fastest times at XC were small school. One of two teams for NXN were D5 and you had Eli Fitchen Young D4 go too! Ben Bouie is another name not listed for 2025 who is also a strong member of the 2025 team and also a small school. I’m sure many will argue 2025 wasn’t the strongest class, but don’t think anyone can argue this was the strongest small school class California has ever seen and the future for small schools seem bright as there are plenty of good under class-men coming up.
Damn dude. I didn't even know it's existed for that long. That's one hell of a fall off. I wonder what exactly caused it. I knew about Kersh running 1:46.58 there which is crazy. I was thinking to myself "there's no way that literal Olympian and NR holders raced at this random meet at this random norcal school"
You know your meet is doing badly when you have to convert to 3200 for the meet record. Also Michael Carter's shot record still stands(don't think that one is falling no matter how good the meet is).
Respectable opinion, I like the rise of the small schools. Personally though, I would say 2024 was better just due to the amount of fast times that came from that class compared to 2025 (at least in track). Manny Perez, Grant Morgenfeld, Jason Parra, Josh Chu (my goat), Josh Bell, Lucas Cohen, Andreas Dybdhal, Anthony Fasthorse- just to name a few. But I will say 2025 was the best for NorCal and small schools though
I don’t understand why you guys are rooting for the private schools so much. You guys phrase your praise as if the odds are against them when in fact, perhaps the smaller schools you talk about are more likely to succeed than bigger ones. Menlo School is from the richest ZIP Code in the country, whereas Crystal Springs Upland has he expensive tuition is in the upscale Hillsborough community, which indicates a wealthy student body. I don’t know that much about Woodcrest Christian, but I know that it’s private. In addition, part of the reason Broen Holman and Eli Fitchen Young are so successful is because of their parents, elite level runners and/or running coaches.
Again, I’m not trying to undermine the athletes, I’m just confused as to why you guys are rooting for the small schools so much? It doesn’t seem like the long term running quality of the small schools are improving.
Doesn’t appear that Brooks was going purely by national rankings for the invites - more by personal favorites and biases - left out a few deserving athletes.
I think it’s just because as Landon Pretre has said in past interviews, the smaller divisions, especially D5 have always been seen as the sleeper divisions in the state. This isn’t to say they don’t have resources due to the areas they’re located in but it’s mainly because of how strong the smaller school divisions have gotten this year compared to previous year. Like I said no one really talked about D5 like that up until the rise of Menlo and Crystal Springs even though we had individuals such as Cooper Teare, Kenan Pala, and Alex Mader coming from D5 but prior to the class of 25, D5 was never really in much discussion- and they definitely weren’t in discussion for a team from that division to qualify for NxN. It’s more or so about how D5 finally got its due recognition after just being seen as the weakest division.
I don’t understand why you guys are rooting for the private schools so much. You guys phrase your praise as if the odds are against them when in fact, perhaps the smaller schools you talk about are more likely to succeed than bigger ones. Menlo School is from the richest ZIP Code in the country, whereas Crystal Springs Upland has he expensive tuition is in the upscale Hillsborough community, which indicates a wealthy student body. I don’t know that much about Woodcrest Christian, but I know that it’s private. In addition, part of the reason Broen Holman and Eli Fitchen Young are so successful is because of their parents, elite level runners and/or running coaches.
Again, I’m not trying to undermine the athletes, I’m just confused as to why you guys are rooting for the small schools so much? It doesn’t seem like the long term running quality of the small schools are improving.
Fair points, and I don’t think it’s a matter of rooting for private schools but more of celebrating that the small schools who typically don’t have people in the top of the class having multiple people there. As another post pointed out Cooper Teare, Kenan Pala and others have had success but there wasn’t the depth at their era. As for private schools having equal or better resources that very debatable. Menlo and others sure big $$ great resources. I can tell you we’ve run meets at woodcrest and it’s a dirt track and facilities are…. No where on par with big schools and I know other schools are similar. I still am a fan of other divisions and the California talent as a whole, just like seeing more depth across the board.
My cousin went to Menlo College and would tell me that the Menlo school would use a lot their resources on campus, such as their swimming pool. I’m not even sure if Menlo School has a track but ik that they have to use Menlo College’s swimming pool along with other sports items
Eli’s mom is a runner and Broen’s parents were both runners, ik one of his parents coaches the Stan State team and because of that connection, he trains with actual collegiate athletes.
I remember during my first two years of high school, a sub 15:40 would make you state champ in D5- it’s actually insane how the division has evolved throughout the years
What California High School class was the best? Strictly speaking only high school career.
Definitely not 2022.
2023 (Newbury Park, Chris Caudillo, Matthew Donis, etc)?
2024 (Anthony Fasthorse, Emmanuel Perez, Lucas Cohen, Josh Bell, etc.)?
Or 2025 (Evan Noonan, Landon Pretre, Eyan Turk, Eli Fitchen-Young)?
This is a hard one. I think arguments could be for all of them and even ones not listed. Personally I’m going with 2025. Noonan has been burning it up for years and his illness for state track was unfortunate. People are hating on the 3200 because of his absence but I kind of like what the race turned into. Tactical that went 4:34, but winner closes in 4:17, 2:01 final 8 and 59 final 400m. That’s impressive regardless of who was in the race. It also shows a maturity and talent recognition for the runners that were there. they wanted to be ready for the negative that was sure to come. I really like 2025 specifically looking at depth and the rise of the small schools. Love the fact that D4/5 have risen up and are hanging with the other division which makes California depth as a whole stronger. Two fastest times at XC were small school. One of two teams for NXN were D5 and you had Eli Fitchen Young D4 go too! Ben Bouie is another name not listed for 2025 who is also a strong member of the 2025 team and also a small school. I’m sure many will argue 2025 wasn’t the strongest class, but don’t think anyone can argue this was the strongest small school class California has ever seen and the future for small schools seem bright as there are plenty of good under class-men coming up.
Let the hate comments begin.
great take espescially about ben bouie. he should definity be up there in the history books.
I don’t understand why you guys are rooting for the private schools so much. You guys phrase your praise as if the odds are against them when in fact, perhaps the smaller schools you talk about are more likely to succeed than bigger ones. Menlo School is from the richest ZIP Code in the country, whereas Crystal Springs Upland has he expensive tuition is in the upscale Hillsborough community, which indicates a wealthy student body. I don’t know that much about Woodcrest Christian, but I know that it’s private. In addition, part of the reason Broen Holman and Eli Fitchen Young are so successful is because of their parents, elite level runners and/or running coaches.
Again, I’m not trying to undermine the athletes, I’m just confused as to why you guys are rooting for the small schools so much? It doesn’t seem like the long term running quality of the small schools are improving.
from what i've heard crystal springs upland doesn't even have a track
We all know about Servite, Poly, Wilson but whats the best underrated program in CA and the same for orange county?
Not sure about OC but Carson on the girls side and Cathedral on the guys side are both perennial programs that have had many state champions and even more state qualifiers over the last two decades but get very little acclaim for it. Each program also has multiple section and division titles, especially over the last 5 or so years.
Also, Cathedral KNOWS how to run a 4x400. I think they've been in every state final since 2022 with a DIFFERENT team each time. Private school or not you know how difficult it is for a D3 school to do that? Just this year they went from 3:19 to 3:09 at the end of the season .
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I see where you’re coming from but I gotta disagree- 2023 only had 4 people who went under 15 (Young Twins, A Sahlman, and Matthew Donis). You gotta keep in mind the slowest individual to make NxN that year ran 15:08. Just cause you got the last of Newberry in that class doesn’t mean it was necessarily the best cause everyone else was ‘slow’ compared to those 4. I’m just saying after 2023 there were more sub 15s and sub 8:50s - 9s. 2023 every other state champ besides DI and DII weren’t going under 15. Sub 15 was just the requirement to be state champ during the co’ 2024. Co’ 2025 at least sub 14:50 (with the exception of DI). Hell low 15s only get you within top 5 now in co’ 2025. Point is that the 2023 only looked fast because of Newberry Park and Donis- the increase of all these faster times happened post-Newberry Park.