2021 Eastbay Cross Country Championships Preview: Natalie Cook Goes for Unprecedented Nationals Sweep; Gavin Sherry Leads Boys’ Field
By Jonathan Gault
December 9, 2021
One of the great traditions in high school cross country is back. It may have a new name — after 28 years as Foot Locker (and 13 years as Kinney), it’s now the Eastbay Cross Country Championships — and last year’s race may have been cancelled due to COVID, but the meet that has birthed future stars such as Bob Kennedy, Dathan Ritzenhein, Chris Solinsky, Sara Hall, and Molly Seidel (all are former champions) is back for its 42nd edition on Saturday in San Diego.
You might think, with Nike opting not to stage Nike Cross Nationals for the second consecutive year, that this year’s Eastbay Champs would be the most loaded edition in decades. Not exactly. The RunningLane Cross Country Championships in Alabama stepped up in place of NXN, with many of America’s top teams and individuals opting to race there rather than Eastbay.
Most notably, Newbury Park (Calif.) the #1 team in the country — and greatest high school boys’ team of all time — chose to race at RunningLane last week rather than the Eastbay West Regional. As a result, the #1, #2, and #3 runners in the country in both DyeStat and MileSplit’s rankings — Colin Sahlman, Leo Young, and Lex Young, all of Newbury Park — won’t be racing this weekend. They weren’t the only ones to choose RunningLane over Eastbay; only three of DyeStat’s boys’ top 10 will be in San Diego.
On the girls’ side, it’s a different story. Nine of the top 12 in DyeStat’s rankings are at Eastbay, including the entire top four. Natalie Cook, who won RunningLane by 19 seconds, and Angelina Perez, who won the Eastbay Northeast Regional, by 21, are the headliners and should produce a terrific race. In 2018, just 0.7 of a second separated first and second in the girls’ race at Foot Lockers. In 2019, the gap was just 1.8 seconds. Could we see another sprint finish in 2021?
Here’s a closer look at each race, with the names you’ll need to know on Saturday.
Race details
What: 2021 Eastbay Cross Country Championships
Where: Balboa Park, San Diego, Calif.
When: Saturday, December 11. Girls’ race at 12:15 p.m. ET, boys’ race at 1:00 p.m. ET.
How to watch: Live on the Eastbay website
Girls’ Race
This is the loaded race, so let’s start here. The last time this meet was held two years ago, four of the top 10 were either freshmen or sophomores. Yet none of those five will be back in 2021. Abby VanderKooi, who was 3rd as a sophomore in 2019, won the Michigan Division 4 state meet but was only 19th at Eastbay Midwest. Jenna Hutchins (5th in ’19), who last year became the first American high school girl to break 16:00 on an XC course, didn’t race at all this fall and is enrolling early at BYU in January. And Carly McNatt (8th in ’19) and Tatum David (9th in ’19), both of whom attend the IMG Academy in Florida, have combined to race just once this season.
There are three returners from the top 20 in ’19, however. Karrie Baloga (11th), Juliette Whittaker (13th), and Riley Stewart (17th) are all back. Baloga was the New York federation champion and finished 5th at Eastbay Northeast, while Whittaker should be a familiar name to track fans as she ran 2:01.15 for 800 on the track last year and made it to the semifinals of the Olympic Trials. It’s Stewart, however, who has had the best 2021 cross country season as she won the Colorado 5A state meet by 27 seconds and was third at RunningLane last week.
As usual, one of the best resources to preview this meet is the speed ratings put out by Bill Meylan of Tully Runners. And if you trust Meylan’s number, Eastbay should be a two-horse race. This season, only two girls have posted a speed rating of 160 or better: Natalie Cook and Angelina Perez. What’s more, both girls have multiple speed ratings of 160 or better; Perez has done it twice and Cook has done it four times. Here’s the case for each girl on Saturday.
Cook will head to Stillwater next fall (courtesy run4okstate)
Natalie Cook
Senior, Flower Mound, Tex.
College choice: Oklahoma State
Track pbs: 4:52 1600, 10:16 3200
Cook was beaten at the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic in California back on September 18, but since then she has been untouchable. Her margin of victory, in seconds, in her five races since that defeat: 61, 86, 56, 35, 18.
The latter two are particularly impressive. On November 27, Cook ran 16:38 to win the Eastbay South Regional. Her time was the third-fastest ever run at McAlpine Park in Charlotte, and her 35-second margin of victory was the largest at the meet in at least 20 years (results on the Eastbay website only go back to 1999). It was also the largest margin of victory at any regional since 2017, when Claudia Lane won the West by 72 seconds en route to her second straight national title.
Then, last weekend, Cook ran 16:04 at RunningLane to win that race by 18 seconds. That’s an enormous margin in a national championship, and it earned Cook a 165 speed rating, the highest in the country this year.
Based on those two dominant performances, Cook is the favorite in San Diego. A win would make history: she would be the first high school girl to win two national XC titles in the same year (no girl has ever won both NXN and Eastbay). And if you are looking for a weakness, that might be it: this will be Cook’s third straight weekend of travel and hard racing. Can she summon yet another top performance?
Angelina Perez
Senior, Ringwood, N.J.
College choice: Florida
Track pbs: 4:54 1600, 10:20 3200
Perez is undefeated, and like Cook, she will head to nationals on the strength of a series of impressive races. On November 13, at the New Jersey Group 2 Championships, Perez ran the fastest time ever by a New Jersey girl on the famed Holmdel Park course, clocking 17:07. A week later, she claimed the #2 time as well with her 17:09 at the New Jersey state meet. And the week after that, she ripped a 17:21 at Van Cortlandt Park to win Eastbay Northeast by a humongous 21 seconds.
Perez’s 17:07 at Holmdel was worth a 163 speed rating, the #2 performance of the year according to Meylan; only Cook’s 165 at RunningLane was better (one speed rating point is worth three seconds). Perez, unlike Cook, had last week to rest, so she should be fresh on Saturday. Will that be enough for the victory?
Others to watch
- Kate Peters (Lake Oswego, Ore.) — You could make a case that Peters belongs in the category above with Cook and Perez. She’s undefeated this fall, won the West Regional, and earlier this year beat Riley Stewart (3rd at RunningLane) and Dalia Frias (one of the only girls to beat Cook this year) at the Nike Portland XC on September 25. However, her best speed rating of 152 only ranks her 13th in the country this year, but it’s possible facing top competition like Cook and Perez forces Peters to raise her game.
- Riley Stewart (Cherry Hills Village, Colo.) — As mentioned earlier, Stewart was 17th at Foot Locker as a sophomore in 2019. This year, she won Eastbay Midwest by 17 seconds in 16:54.4, missing Anna Rohrer‘s course record by less than a second. Then last week, she was third at RunningLane. All of that points to a strong performance on Saturday, but Stewart was 25 seconds behind Cook at RunningLane; overcoming that deficit to win at Eastbay will be challenging, to say the least.
- Sophia Kennedy (Carmel, Ind.) — Kennedy was only third at the Indiana state meet but bounced back a month later to run the race of her life and finish third at the Eastbay Midwest Regional. She’s also the daughter of American distance legend Bob Kennedy — the 1987 Foot Locker champ who went on to win two NCAA XC titles and become the first American under 13:00 in the 5,000.
Boys’ Race
With the Newbury Park trio absent, there are three guys in the field who have posted a speed rating of 200 or better this season. Tops among them is Zane Bergen (Longmont, Colo.), who was 4th at RunningLane in 14:09 (201 speed rating), six seconds behind winner Colin Sahlman.
Just behind Bergen is Riley Hough (Fenton, Mich.), who ran 14:10 at RunningLane and actually beat Bergen at the Midwest Regional, 14:49 to 14:55. Only California (8) has produced more boys’ Kinney/Foot Locker/Eastbay champions than Michigan (7), and Hough could be the next Michigander to top the podium. Last year, Hough won the Michigan Division 1 state meet, taking down a guy by the name of Hobbs Kessler (Hough’s time of 14:49 was the second-fastest ever run on the Michigan International Speedway course, behind only two-time Foot Locker champ Dathan Ritzenhein in 2000). This year, Hough repeated as Michigan state champ and won the Eastbay Midwest Regional in 14:49 — #3 in course history, and the fastest since 2010. At his best, he could very well win this race.
Courtesy Gavin Sherry Instagram
The slight pre-race favorite, however, is a guy who didn’t compete at RunningLane last weekend: Gavin Sherry of West Hartford, Conn., who is the top-ranked non-Newbury Park athlete in both the DyeStat and MileSplit rankings. Two years ago, as a sophomore, Sherry finished 14th at Foot Locker and ran 8:53 for two miles on the track. Last spring, he lowered that best to 8:47 for 3200m and ran 4:01 for 1600. This fall, he’s gone undefeated.
Sherry didn’t race at RunningLane last weekend, so he should be rested, but it’s debatable how much of a benefit that is: the last four Foot Locker champions all ran at NXN the week before (and none of them won NXN). The real reason to be excited about Sherry is that he ran 15:05 at the Eastbay Northeast Regional to break the Van Cortlandt Park high school course record of 15:08 held by Josh McDougal and the meet record of 15:09 by Donn Cabral. Breaking the CR at fabled VCP is something to be proud of — Cabral, a two-time Olympic steeple finalist, said his own 15:09 there was the best performance of his high school career across all surfaces.
Sherry’s 200 speed rating from the Northeast Regional was the best by anyone in the Eastbay field until last weekend, but it’s not a guarantee of victory. When Cabral set the old meet record back in 2007, he only finished 8th at nationals. And when McDougal set the CR in 2003, he was 4th at nationals. That doesn’t mean Sherry can’t win; it’s just a reminder that to become a national champion, you need talent and you need to race well on the day.
One final comment before making predictions. I would incur my bosses’ wrath if I failed to mention that their alma mater, St. Mark’s School of Texas, has its first Kinney/Foot Locker/Eastbay qualifier this year: Sahil Dodda, who was 2nd at the Eastbay South Regional.
Predictions
As good as Angelina Perez has been this year, Natalie Cook just destroyed everyone at RunningLane. Winning a national championship by 18 seconds is really hard to do, so I’m taking Cook FTW.
The boys’ race is more open. Hough and Bergen have been very close to each other this year, and Sherry looks to be right at their level. Yet Sherry won the Northeast Regional by less than four seconds — watch out for runner-up Marco Langon, whose 15:09.6 almost broke Cabral’s record as well. It could be a close finish, but I’m taking Sherry FTW.
Be a fan and talk about this race on the world-famous LetsRun.com messageboard: MB: The 2021 Eastbay XC champs are Saturday. Who you got? Full race preview.
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