2024 California HS XC CIF

no offense, but are you just trying to make a point here? Why did you not think Lucas Cohen would not make NXN when he got 6th in the state at Clovis and 5th individually if we don’t include Evan Noonan since he was likely to go with his team?

I don't see Aydon or Miles making it (sorry Aydon, I know you are reading this!)

Locks: Noonan, Sadie, Blade

Would bet on it: Kushen, Barker, Caldwell, Holman, Fitchen-Young, Combe, Wilson, Landon

Needs a good day: Errington, Thomsen, Ben, Turk

Just off the bubble: Cook, Aydon, Flores, Zavaleta, Lesher, DeBrouwer, Dailey (shes been out for half the season), Robar

This is purely individual and ignores that some people like Barker and Landon will likely make it as a team.

Opinion: Woodward Park is the worst possible location for the CA state meet. While I agree that it should be located in Fresno due to its proximity to most of the best schools in the state, as well as its fame and reputation for being the best city on the West Coast, Woodward Park is just not the right choice. This is due to many factors, notably the size of the park. It's really big and easy to get lost in. Also, it has too many trees and lakes and beautiful landscaping that steals attention from the races. I found a better park that the CIF officials should take into consideration, as it is much smaller and more fit for a cross country race. It's called "Flood Control Basin Park," and another bonus is that it's located closer to the center of the city, allowing for athletes to hit downtown Fresno after their race. If CIF could make the switch soon enough for the upcoming November 30th State meet to take place there, I think it would greatly benefit California XC and could lead to the state receiving an At-large bid to NXN.

Mr. Yang, not to discredit the idea that Lucas Cohen improved in Fitness. But I think it’s safe to say that Lucas’s Clovis time was much slower than his state time because he went out waaay too fast at Clovis. We can see on the YT videos that Lucas ran 4:34 at Clovis (compared to 4:36/37 at states) and lead the race until the hill. Leading those first 9 minutes/1.9miles can be very taxing and I bet Lucas would have run ~5-10 seconds faster if he had gone out more conservatively.
I’m just saying this because since Miles did not start out as aggressively as Lucas, I expect his states time to be closer to his Clovis time compared to Cohen.

I mean if you go back to the previous 2023 thread. Lucas, though running 4:09, 9:00, and 15:03 prior to state 2024, was very much an underdog. Everyone was hyping up guys like Perez, Noonan, Fasthorse, Parra, Bell, and Morgenfeld that Lucas went pretty much unnoticed. I wasn’t saying Lucas didn’t have it in him to make NxN but he definitely wasn’t in that discussion yk. Like I said no hate to Lucas- he’s a chill dude (I met him at the club last summer), but he really just came out of nowhere.

I couldn’t tell if this was unserious or not before but now I understand.

You see this is what bothers me about California running social media and Rich Gonzales. They only pay attention to SoCal and not the rest of the state. If you look at the amount of videos by HDrunners or whatever, runners like Perez, Fasthorse, and Noonan were way more documented than Fitchen-young, Cohen, and Stefanopoulos. (Partially why they all surprised everyone at states last year)

On top of that, no one pays attention to the teams of Norcal at all. Part of the reason why I tried bringing St. Francis into the conversation was because I thought it deserves more attention since it’s the best team in Norcal for either boys or girls (with the exception of Jesuit). I mention all of this because, just like my coach said, “It is hard for Northern California teams to gain the level of respect as Southern California teams.”

And I totally agree with you. I try to bring attention to the SJS and NCS cause that’s where I came from. Ik SJS got it like that. For crying out loud the Woodward Park record is held by a fellow SJS athlete. Jesuit has the most state titles in CA history. That’s why I’m happy to see teams like Oakdale and Jesuit get their due respect (tho like I said Jesuit has been in the game for a while due to their coach being quite literally one of the best coaches in the state). We got runners like Luis Grijalva, Matt Strangio, Michael Vernau, Michael Stember, The O’Keefe sisters, The Denner twins, German Frickin Hernandez, and many more. NorCal definitely deserves more respect in CIF threads and now that we’re seeing more respect being put on, it makes me happy knowing that we can be on that level.

What bothers me beyond the So Cal bias is that all of you constantly talk about the boys and over analyze everything they do and completely forget about the girls.

Landon is definitely not qualifying with his team (no hate to the Menlo boys they’ve been on a roll this season), but Menlo is not on the lvl of Beckman or Jesuit. If they hope to make it to NxN they gotta be on that lvl on the day of the state meet. I think you also forgot to mention Tyler Dalliak in the list of individuals who you can bank on making it to NxN. He looked smooth running 14:55 At Valley Champs compared to his 14:53 performance at Clovis where he said in interview that he felt clunky towards the finish. Dalliak definitely should be in the conversation.

.... thats.... entirely exactly what I said...

Lucas went out too fast for his fitness at Clovis so although his time looked less impressive than Myles, we all knew it would drop way more since Myles is racing to his limit. So I believe Miles won't drop nearly as much time. Didja read what I spent so long writing out 😭

And 2 seconds in the mile isn't enough to blow up that badly from, he just got more in shape as season went.

Aydon is at least past Ben's level, if you aren't gonna give him Pretre level. At least in performances that you'd expect him to care. At CCS where Landon and Ben were racing balls to the wall Aydon definitely just cruised it in to win and save for states. At Clovis and etc and at previous states and all that he steps up his game.

My bad

I agree. Every year, Aydon Stefanopoulos runs faster at Woodward Park compared to how he runs at Crystal Springs/CCS. On top of that, he is at Pretre level, definitely in track and about the same at Woodward Park. If you watch the Clovis race, you will see that pretty tree was behind Aydon for almost the entire race until the last kick where he beat him by ONE SECOND.

I know it's a touchy subject on here but Noonan today still doesn't feel like the Noonan from 2023 Woodbridge / bob firman / state meet. People get faster and slower have up and downs that's just how running works sometimes. You just have to push past it and move forward. I feel like it's a coin flip whether he makes it or not. However, I think he will come back very strong track season.

If he doesn’t make NXN this year he won’t be alone in this regard. Fast horse didn’t make it last year either.
I think there will still be time for him to sign up for Runninglane after he finds out if he makes NXN or not

I mean look at Keegan Smith.. He was pretty much non existent after running 8:52 as a freshman. He has been running significantly slower than that for the next 2 years. Then out of nowhere he improves dramatically and runs 14:23 Wake Med. For people who don't know, that is pretty close performance wise to German Fernandez's 14:24 at Woodward Park.

nah not a touchy subject. it's just true. he isn't as good as last year at this current point in time. but he's still really good, so it's okay. 14:02 and 14:03 for 3 miles with one being a whole ahh collapse at woodbridge and one being a smoothly run tempo-kick league finals after treating his problem bodes pretty well, IMO. I think he runs sub 14:50-14:45 to get a ticket to NXN. Not the 14:35 we saw last year but good enough.

Unfortunately both are based in Socal - even then, SD gets little to no coverage.

In any case, be the change you want to see in the world and start a Norcal media company/site yourself.