Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Top 15 Norcal Teams (Boys and Girls) pre-Stanford

Feel free to discuss who belongs on these lists in the comment section below.  What is the best boys' team in Northern California?  Best girls' team?

NorCal Sections:  Northern Section (NS), Sac-Joaquin Section (SJS), North Coast Section (NCS), Central Coast Section (CCS), San Francisco (SF) and Oakland (OAK).

For now, here are the top 15 teams in alphabetical order.  We'll have a much better idea of where everybody belongs after the Stanford Invitational.  Until then, keep commenting below and let me know if I missed any teams.
 

Girls (in alphabetical order)
1)  Acalanes (NCS)
2)  Aptos (CCS)
3)  Campolindo (NCS)
4)  Carlmont (CCS)
5)  Del Oro (SJS)
6)  Granada (NCS)
7)  Granite Bay (SJS)
8)  Gunn (CCS)
9)  Los Gatos (CCS)
10)  Mountain View (CCS)
11)  Oak Ridge (SJS)
12)  San Lorenzo Valley (CCS)
13)  San Ramon Valley (NCS)
14)  St. Francis-Mountain View (CCS)
15)  St. Francis-Sacramento (SJS)
Who else?

Boys (in alphabetical order)
1)  Bellarmine (CCS)
2)  Campolindo (NCS)
3)  College Park (NCS)
4)  Davis (SJS)
5)  Del Campo (SJS)
6)  Livermore (NCS)
7)  Los Altos (CCS)
8)  Menlo Atherton (CCS) 
9)  Oak Ridge (SJS)
10)  Petaluma (NCS)
11)  San Benito (CCS)
12)  San Ramon Valley (NCS)
13)  Vacaville (SJS)
14)  Willow Glen (CCS)
15)  Woodcreek (SJS)
Who else?

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

On the boys side I would think Bellermine, Petaluma, College parka, and Menlo-Atherton would be up at the top.

For the girls, it looks Granada, Campo, and then I'm not to sure.

Anonymous said...

SRV boys look very strong. Bellarmine is deep but have not had a stand out number 1. I think College Park is the best. One team that could move up a lot is Carlmont.

Craiggypop The Angry Panda said...

I'm going to preface this by stating that I don't know that much about all the teams in Norcal as I haven't had too much time to read results this year.

Boys:
As a former Falcon it is great to see them still doing well...however, I would have to disagree that College Park is the best.

College Park lacks a 5th runner at the moment (or really a 4th runner that could fit between the trio of Bickert/Holland/Ortolan and Shanks), which is why I'm going to have to go with Bellarmine as a better team then CP and most likely all the teams in Norcal.

Now before all you Falcons get pissed off at me, look at Bellarmine in their past two races (Earlybird and Lowell), then you will notice (if you haven't already) that they can 1) Match CP's trio and 2)have had pack margins of 23 seconds (Earlybird - 1 to 5) and 35 seconds (Lowell - 1 to 5). In fact, their pack margin was 45 seconds between their 1st runner and their 7th runner.

That's tough to beat if they can keep that going.

I thought SRV looked great and I was impressed by Livermore (although they need a 5th man).

I will admit that I don't know much about what's going on further north (SJS and North Section) but I would venture a guess that Jesuit isn't too far away from the top.

Girls:
I think Campolindo looks very good and so do Carlmont and Mountain View. Acalanes and Granada are solid early on.

I think some teams have been training through the early meets and will probably not show their stuff until this weekend. One that usually sticks out in my mind from north of the Bay Area is Oak Ridge. I read that they are competing in Oregon this Saturday instead of Stanford (Varsity Boys will be at Stanford though).


Okay, time to finish the work day. Great results so far from Norcal runners! Great job to all the coaches, runners, and parents/family/friends that have been out there supporting XC! Good luck this weekend!

Craig

A.B.S. said...

Now I don't know much about any section except NCS, but here are my NCS rankings:

1. Petaluma
2. College Park
3. De La Salle
4. Campolindo
5. SRV
Then probably Amador Valley and Monte Vista. Castro Valley factors in there somewhere, probably about 6th. Petaluma beat CP and DLS, and everyone else at De La Salle Invitational and I don't see why that shouldn't continue at least for the time being. As mentioned, CP has a great 3 but 4th and 5th are a big weak spot. SRV has a big drop off between their 2nd and 3rd, which I think De La Salle can use to pull off a win. Speaking of which, De La Salle needs to stop being plagued with health issues, as has been happening all season, but even in their current state I think they can hold on to the rank I just gave them. Castro Valley has Ben Eversole, Anthony Matore is a great runner (though maybe somewhat inconsistent) but after those there is quite a drop off. Campolindo looks pretty good too, seeing as they ran the De La Salle (aka Nike) invitational in trainers, and were missing Dylan Laucher (anyone know why?).

Yeah so, correct me if my reasoning is flawed there. For the rest of Norcal, Bellarmine looks like they are probably on top, I hadn't heard of Menlo-Atheron before yesterday so I won't try and comment on them. Someone mentioned Jesuit this earlier, in my opinion it looks like this is a serious transition year for them, since they got 9th at the De La Salle Invitational.

Anonymous said...

Bellarmine deifnitely looks like number 1, I have been at both of their meets, and all their runners look strong. I would not be suprised if the score 15 in all three of their WCAL meets (which os one of the tougher leagues byfar). However since I'm on the topic of WCAL, you can't forget about St. Ignatius who has a great new coach, and still hasn't broken out their racing flats.

Anonymous said...

willow glen needs to be in the discussion...

Anonymous said...

On the boys side, Bellermine looked very strong. SVR should not be overlooked as their very young squad (4 sophmores) will only get better and Ryan Piece is still recovering from spring ACL surgery (ran strong at Lowell and can still get much stronger)

On the girls side, Campo has to be a favorite but the addition of Sophie Hartley at a #1 runner (and freshman) to an already strong Granada squad makes them a very real contender.

Anonymous said...

Petaluma's top 4 placed in the top 15 at the Nike Invite, beating out college park by 44 points.

Anonymous said...

Petaluma for the boys, the beat out college park by 44 points at the nike invite

Anonymous said...

Aptos? Their #5 runner has run 24 minutes and high 23 at Toro. While I think Aptos will get their #5 to the 21:00-22:00 rannge by CCS and win it all for D3 right now the 23-24 min 5k for #5 will kill them and will probably put them outside of the top 25. Right now I think people are ranking on potential not reality as their top 4 is very solid.

Anonymous said...

15:40 16:11 16:16 16:31 16:47 ( 17:04) ( 17:11) = 1:21:25

Willow Glen cranked 81:25 at Toro Saturday... Easily top 5 Norcal team... right on Bellarmine's tail.... The Bells went 81:10... Willow Glen may end up better if Bells don't get their front end up a bit...

Anonymous said...

You can't look at team time when comparing Bell to Willow Glen. Their spread was 23 seconds which is unheard of. Their 6th man beats Willow Glen's 4 and their number one their last two races was their number 5 guy last year a bunch of races. So they're not even at their fullest potential yet. I don't think anyone in norcal will be able to touch Bell this year just because they have such a tight pack of about 6 and their times are low enough to beat a lot of teams 2 or 3 guys, even without a low stick. It would take some sickness and almost a perfect race for another norcal team to beat them this year.

Anonymous said...

On the girls side--Presentation and Valley Christian from the WCAL.

Anonymous said...

Agreed, for the girls you put St. Francis over Presentation? Pres is #1 in WCAL right now!

Anonymous said...

Los Altos in general is going to do well with an Olympian coach!

Anonymous said...

"Los Altos in general is going to do well with an Olympian coach!"

And don't forget the Kinney/Footlocker national champion assistant coach.

Albert Caruana said...

I know PattiSue Plumer is the head coach. Who is the assistant?

Thanks.

pmccrystle said...

Albert: The great Charles Alexander, who was Patti Sue's teammate at Stanford, a great distance runner, and one of the father's of the Shoreline course...and an all around great guy!

Albert Caruana said...

Thanks Patrick. Quick google search and we find:
http://va.milesplit.com/articles/16192

Anonymous said...

Livermore (#6) was beaten by San Ramon (#12) at Lowell on Saturday. No sure if Livermore was missing a top runner but their ranking doesn't seem deserved given this performance.

Anonymous said...

SERIOUSLY?!? Granite Bay girls beat Del Oro 29-80 at Del Oro's own tournament to start the season, then goes 1-2-3-7-11 versus Del Oro's 5-6-13-19-21 at last week's league meet (that's 20-64 for those who are counting), and yet you rate Del Oro ABOVE Granite Bay? What's with the anti-Grizzly bias...you didn't even rank them in the top 6 in Sac-Joaquin at the start of the season, yet they've dominated every meet they've run. You are going to see some VERY MOTIVATED Lady Grizzlies at Stanford thanks to this ranking...too bad Oak Ridge won't be there to join in the fun.

Albert Caruana said...

The top 15 teams are ranked in ALPHABETICAL ORDER (clearly stated above).

I am sure I have missed a few teams which is why I asked for people to add teams that deserve to be in the top 15. It's very hard to rank teams to date due to injuries, soccer tournaments etc.

For the most part, teams will put their A teams on the line at Stanford so we will have a better idea following the meet who are really the top teams.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Albert, you are entirely correct about the clear alpha order notation...TWICE. And BTW, I can't count, either (it was 24-64not 20-64 at the SFL League meet). Maybe I should just stick to READING blogs rather than commenting on them. But I am right on this one: Granite Bay girls are the real deal!!

Anonymous said...

i definately think that Serra is one of the most underestimated teams out there...their performance last year at CCS was completely unexpected

Anonymous said...

Amador and Monte Vista are better than livermore and probably san ramon also.

Anonymous said...

haha ohh man granite bay, your funny... no need to get that defensive. its just a ranking. if you guys are that good it shouldnt bother you

Anonymous said...

Ok - I completely missed the part about alphabetical order. Boy do I feel silly!

Kevin said...

Monta Vista finished a close (13pts) second to Los Altos at Lowell, and we were minus our #5 guy, causing us to have a 60s gap between #4 and #5. Deserving of a spot in my opinion, but that's kinda redundant.

Anonymous said...

The Livermore boys were missing Nick Trebes at Lowell. Not sure of the exact difference he would have made, but at Ed Sias, he was 53 spots ahead of the next Livermore runner.

Anonymous said...

What about the SLV boys? Landis Macmillan and Cody Johnson are showing their stuff and could be serious contenders for the D 4 title

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

On the boys side, Bellermine looked very strong. SVR should not be overlooked as their very young squad (4 sophmores) will only get better and Ryan Piece is still recovering from spring ACL surgery (ran strong at Lowell and can still get much stronger)"

SRV has one kid who's at least a junior-didn't he win overall?

Conor Dunn said...

"SRV has one kid who's at least a junior-didn't he win overall?"

Yes- Parker Deuel

Jason J said...

To the Grizzly Anon-

Obviously, EVERYONE now knows that the Lady Grizzlies are the real deal. The PRE-season rankings were PRE-SEASON. Obviously, they have put together a very strong team and will be a tough squad, hopefully, for the rest of the season. Get the chip off your shoulder. Cross Country Express nor the people who do the SJS rankings have anything against any team.

Here's hoping the SJS can win some medals at Stanford. And best of luck to the rest of the NorCal teams.

Matthew said...

For the top 5, I'd say Campo, College Park, Petaluma, and Bellarmine should be there. Also, Las Lomas is really good this year. Definitely top 10.

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