Monday, June 13, 2011

NCS Pre-Season Cross Country Rankings...

Now that I have some free time, I would like to start ranking the NCS teams for this upcoming cross country season.

If you have any information in regards to any teams or divisions, feel free to share in the comment section below. If you are shy and would rather just share with me, feel free to email me at albertjcaruana@gmail.com.


I will start with the Division V teams and work my way up to Division I.


So, who are the individual and team favorites for each division?  What is going to be the toughest division?  Who is going to have an impact at the state level?  What teams really improved during the track and field season?  What teams have been hurt the most by graduation?  Where are the freshmen studs attending next year?

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

SJND number one for d5. They return all of their top five, and two of their top 5 were injured last year. It's a toss up b/w ratto and arias for the individual win.

Anonymous said...

SJND probably does get the #1 ranking, but I would'nt count out UHS. Connor Clark could prove a worthy adversary if he does'nt overtrain. Sonoma academy returns their full team as well. I would say Urban HS is still in the mix, but I recently learned that they're #1 will not compete next year.

D3 boys I would say Campolindo with Luna for the win of course.

Karsten Kaufmann said...

Deepest division will be division III for sure. One of the most competitive years in a while I think. Although Campolindo loses 3, their depth should take care of the absences, considering they had a frosh-soph runner go sub 10:00 during track. Piner should be a huge threat, returning all but 1 from xc, and having 3 guys going under 10 for track. Petalumas 2 soon-to-be juniors Poteracke and Douglass should have a big season this year. Las Lomas didn't have a spectacular track season, but is still a threat considering their F/S boys win in the highly competitive DFAL last XC season. Acalanes loses 3, but should come back strong, with Alder Faulkner, and Tyler Troxel leading the charge. Northgate will lose 2, however, had a respectable track season behind Mike Valeriani and Danny Salters. Its not looking too good For Eureka for 2011 xc, considering they are losing 5 of their runners, while no returners left a big mark on their track seasons. Miramonte could be deadly this season, returning their top 4 from 2010 XC, while also having a very successful track season. Expect to see Jamie Fehrnstrom, and Tyler Hanson in the top 10 for 2011 NCS. Bishop O'Dowd loses nobody, and had a breakthrough track season now having a top 10 time in NCS for the Distance Medley. They also sent 3 distance runners to Meet of Champs. if they come back strong for the fall, expect the dragons to have an impact at Hayward.
REDWOOD from Marin also had a great track season, led by Tommy Warfel, Kyle Ryan, and Fred Huxam, who all went sub 4:25 during track.

Anonymous said...

D2: SRV returns 6 I think, they'll win for sure. College Park comes down from D1 but loses their top 4, nothing exceptional from their returners in track season...Santa Rosa put in some decent track times that should make for a solid top 5 among returners, Alameda returns all 7.

Anonymous said...

d5:SJND, returns all the good runners, Arias for individual win, they destroyed Urban at state, and Louis Rodrigues had a solid track season for them
d4 between Drake and St. Mary's both are returning lots of runners, best runner will be John Lawson
d3 Lots of teams at the top Luis Luna will be top runner. In terms of teams the following should be considered: Campo, Los Lomas, Piner, Acalanes, Miramonte, and Bishop O'Dowd. Even though O'Dowd finished 10th at NCS last year I included them on this list because they return a full seven. Their one main problem may be having seven good runners and not one great runner.
D2:San Ramon Valley-Parker Duell, Alameda High should also have a good team. They only lose their number 6 guy and are going to mostly be Juniors. I would not be surprised if they won it.

Anonymous said...

D2:

SRV returns 6 out of their 7 from last year's NCS. This past track season, I only see results of Brian Hardy running in the post season. What happened to Deuel, DeVries, and the others?

Alameda, who has shown great improvement from this past track season, returns their top 5 scoring runners. Depending on what happened to SRV this past track season, Alameda is my favorite to win D2.

It looks like College Park and Mt. Eden have been hit hard due to graduation. Santa Rosa moves up to D1 this year. Casa Grande loses their top 3 but returns #4-7. Arroyo and Montgomery will also have great shots at being on the podium. Third place and the last spot to advance to state will pretty much be a toss up.

Anonymous said...

SJND looks good but I'm not ready to crown them just yet. The Pilots should be worried about University in their rear-view mirror. The team had difficult and distracting year and season (even before the state meet) that was capped by a sub-par performance at NCS. They have a solid top two in Clark (4:27, 9:48) and Hosie (midlow 430s, 9:53) that showed they're ready to go head to head with Ratto and Arias.

The supporting cast might not be apparent at the moment, but look for UHS to slowly build to championship form as they seem to do every november.

Anonymous said...

Division 2 CIF results from 7 months ago was weighted in SRV's favor and I suspect their overall times will continue to improve and will result in SRV coming on top.

Injuries, timing and overall competitiveness differences in leagues have a impact on which individuals reach post season but XC is about total team strength and in this area SRV appears to have a very capable lineup.

12. San Ramon Valley 16:28
=====================
20 Parker Deuel JR 15:49
64 Brian Hardy JR 16:27
77 Carl Wilke SO 16:38
80 Zach Hanze SO 16:41
84 Matt DeVries SO 16:44
Nicco Baumann JR 16:56

23. Alameda 17:25
=====================
122 Duc Nguyen SO 17:07
125 Steven Carlson SO 17:09
140 Michael Moler SO 17:34
141 Cameron Tu SO 17:34
147 Emmanual Boquerin JR 17:40
(149) Tyler Parsons SR 17:43
(156) Reece Kamphuis SO 18:11

Anonymous said...

SRV will win for sure. They didn't put anybody into the post season strangely but you can find their track results on milesplit, top 4 at 4:30 and under for 1600.

mike said...

In XCStats, you can display the team results in a format that makes it easy to estimate rankings for this season. And, this year we've opened up access with our Guest Pass program.

Here's an example:
http://www.xcstats.com/images/stated1teams.png

Anonymous said...

In D4 SMB boys and girls should be favored. Boys were 2nd last yr and return everyone except #5 runner and San Rafael who came in first loss top 3 runners. SMB return all including D4 champ Spencer Moore. They also only loss 1 runner from last year.

Anonymous said...

I see De La Salle being pretty solid as always next year, but I don't know much about Amador Valley in crosscountry but they had a pretty good track season on the boys side. Two guys under 2:00 in 800 and they are also very deep in the mile. Thats all I know about D1. Is there anyone else in D1 we should talk about?

Anonymous said...

d2 indiviuals?

Anonymous said...

possibleDII individuals Based on their track seasons.
Adam White- Arroyo
Steven Carlson- Alameda
Matt Devries- SRV
Carl Wilke- SRV
Brian Hardy- SRV
Emmanuel Morales- Mt. Eden
Duc Nguyen- Alameda
Dante Hay- Maria Carillo
Harrison Luft- Maria Carillo

Andrew said...

Of course another D2 individual, Parker Deuel. Nolan Petersen (Washington), Paul Holden (Ukiah), and Jose Mendoza (Montgomery) also return as XC state qualifiers. Mendoza ran 4:25 for 1600 btw.

D1 - I think Monte Vista will be one of the top teams. They return I think 4 of top 5 and one of those is state 1600 qualifier Trevor Fuhriman. Livermore is going to have a good top 3, but what they had last year from 5-7 wasn't up to championship level. Granada is another team to watch; they return 5 of top 6. DLS and AV were so senior heavy that to reload to top 5 is gonna be tough. DLS has a history of doing it though...so sure, it can happen.

Is College Park dropping/SRV moving up?

Andrew said...

Also, D1 girls...Granada has the top 4 overall returners...

Albert Caruana said...

Division II is suddenly a much stronger division with San Ramon Valley staying put and with the additions of College Park, Dougherty Valley and Maria Carrillo.

Anonymous said...

Maria Carillo had a really good track season they could take 2nd or 3rd, but I don't think Dougherty Valley is really in the mix.

Anonymous said...

D2 predictions
(tossup between top 2)
Teams
- San Ramon Valley
- Alameda
- Maria Carillo

Teams to Watch
- College Park (amazing pedigree)
- Washington

Individuals (in no particular order)

Parker Deuel - SRV
Matt Devries - SRV
Brian Hardy - SRV
Steven Carlson - Alameda (watch this guy)
Duc Nguyen - Alameda
Nolan Petersen - Washington
Emmanuel Morales - Mt. Eden
Jose Mendoza - Montgomery
Paul Holden - Ukiah
Adam White - Arroyo

Anonymous said...

Who does Washington have besides Nolan?

Anonymous said...

yeah dude carlson is definitely a kid to watch, monster track season

Anonymous said...

yeah dude carlson is definitely a kid to watch, monster track season

Anonymous said...

D3: Campolindo looks very fast with at least 3 runners with 3200 times under 9:40. Predict they make the CIF D3 top 5 again.

D2: San Ramon Valley should also field a very competitive team. Expect they will sprint past last year's 12th place CIF finsh to the top 10.

D1: Still thinking it over

Anonymous said...

D1 Girls could get interesting. Granada returns 4 of their top 5 powerhouse team. But Sophie Hartley, their #1, suffered from a broken leg prior to last track season and is still recovering, from what I hear. However, the Amador girls return their top 7 after coming in a very close 3rd last year behind Granada and College Park. Granada's top 3 girls will be hard to beat if they are all in shape, but Amador's very well-rounded top 5 could upset.

Mike DeVries said...

The duel meets between DLS and SRV should be excellent.

DLS seems to be able to reload at will. During track, they would run seeming of pack of people in 1600 and 3200.

SRV has Duel (SR: 4:17 / 9:20), DeVries (JR: 4:26/9:45), Hardy (SR: 1:58 / 4:20) Wilke (JR: 1:58 / 10:02) Hanze (JR: 4:34 / 9:57) and Baumann (SR 2:02 / 4:36) are all back from last years NCS championship team. Add in Trever Holmgren & Jake Piesenti and Tim Hunter must be smiling!

Anonymous said...

SJND should get the top ranking, followed by UHS. They only lost to Urban at NCS by a point last year, and dominated them at state. They boast the best one two punch in CIF d5. Rodrigues ran mid low 4:30's and 2:02-2:03 during track season, and LaFollette placed 11th for them at NCS last year. I haven't seen much from UHS with the exception of Clark.

Watch out for Carlson from Alameda, i dont think the team has the power to take down SRV, but Carlson could make a run for the top spot.

Anonymous said...

Washington doesn't have any good male returners other than Nolan Petersen. Jack Champion was 57th last year and Kedar Pujara was 72nd. A team to keep an eye on would be American, which isn't losing anyone due to graduation. They didn't do too well at NCS last year because of injuries - their 4th and 5th runners at NCS were actually the top 2 on their team, and 6 and 7 were also injured. Furthermore, David Brody, previous state qualifier, couldn't run due to injuries (although this won't matter for the upcoming season because he graduated).

On a side note, Division II teams must be really irked about San Ramon Valley being 6 students away from Division I.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if anyone else has brought this up, but where was freshman stud Sophie Hartley (Granada) this past track season?

Albert Caruana said...

Sophie Hartley was injured during track and field season.

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