Monday, October 28, 2013

NorCal Rankings, Second Edition, October 18, 2013

I will be updating these rankings this week.  Until then, feel free to to comment on what I posted on October 18th.  

Here are the mid-season rankings.  It's possible that I could have a glaring omission below so please let me know if I missed anybody worthy.

Boys
1)  De La Salle NCS Division I
2)  Bellarmine CCS Division I
3)  Carlmont CCS Division I
4)  Campolindo NCS Division III
5)  Yreka NS Division IV
6)  Davis SJS Division I
7)  Jesuit SJS Division II
8)  Maria Carrillo NCS Division II
9)  Del Campo SJS Division II
10) Rocklin SJS Division II
11)  Bishop O'Dowd NCS Division III
12)  St. Francis, Mt. View CCS Division II
13)  Placer SJS Division III
14)  Lynbrook CCS Division II
15)  Homestead CCS Division I

Girls
1)  Davis SJS Division I
2)  Campolindo NCS Division III
3)  St. Francis, Sacramento SJS Division I
4)  Bella Vista SJS Division II
5)  Aptos CCS Division III
6)  San Lorenzo Valley CCS Division IV
7)  Bishop O'Dowd NCS Division III
8)  Gunn CCS Division I
9)  St. Francis, Mountain View CCS Division II
1 0) Whitney SJS Division II
11)  Vista del Lago SJS Division III
12)  Las Lomas NCS Division III
14)  Maria Carrillo NCS Division II
14)  Mountain View CCS Division I
15)  Granada NCS Division I

Again, comments are welcome. Any teams missing?

43 comments:

Nils said...

Hi, I'm curious why SJND dropped off the list- is it on the basis of team performance at invitationals, primarily? If so there will (hopefully ) be some rearrangement of the rankings after Mt. Sac (Oct 25), because SJND hasn't run in an invite since Stanford.

Albert Caruana said...

St. Joseph Notre Dame has a couple of runners out with injuries and other teams performed well this past weekend. I am ranking on the now not projecting to November.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure the St. Francis crowd will be happy now they are ranked ahead of Homestead.

Nils said...

Thanks Albert! That's basically what I thought. Also they and others are scheduled to run at Mariner Saucony tomorrow in Hayward, but I haven't seen that confirmed, so things could change over the weekend, if you are able to put that into the mix.

As always, thank you for all your work!

Anonymous said...

St. Francis girls beat Vista del Lago head to head at Clovis so I'm curious as to why they are behind? Also if the combined results for Clovis had correctly included St. Francis #5 runner, they would have been ahead of Las Lomas in the combined scoring, too.

They also looked strong at WCAL meet on Thursday. Four of their top 5 runners are freshman and sophomores.

Anonymous said...

Granada girls beat Monte Vista and Amador Valley at the EBAL Center meet on Wednesday.

Albert Caruana said...

I updated the girls rankings. Some valid points were made and I adjusted the teams accordingly.

Anonymous said...

Seems like the league meets and the Center meets mean less than the Invitationals with teams not fielding their best runners or easing up so that they are fresh for the weekend invitationals.

Nils said...

Anon 12:44 You hit the nail on the head. Some folks have actually said "why have league meets at all" but I think that misses the point. This is High School athletics, not some pro sport. We need to balance recognition of the most outstanding athletes at the invitationals, versus the fun for the bulk of the runners at the league meets. How can you hear anyone cheering for you if there are hundreds of screaming fans?

Anonymous said...

I agree that the League and Center meets are important and are really good for the entire team to get some recognition and support. As a parent of one of the outstanding athlete, I do find it frustrating though that every race is so closely analyzed. I know that my child's team is using an upcoming Center meet as a practice for league finals and fully expect to see lots of comments when the times aren't as competitive or when they "lose" a race. Important to keep in mind that the coaches are trying to prepare the teams to have their best performance at the league and section finals so that the whole team can advance. I'm reminding myself of that as it is very hard as a parent to have my child go out and not try to win every race.

Anonymous said...

I was curious about what a Bellarmine vs DLS race would look like, so I plugged in the Bellarmine team's times from their 3 mile course at Golden Gate into the same race as DLS at Newhall Park. When I totaled up the results, I found that Bellarmine would have won 42-44. Granted, I have no idea how the two courses compare in terms of difficulty or other factors other than they are both 3 miles. I think it will definitely be a battle when these two teams meet next at state.

Anonymous said...

Mt View is now Div I btw -- they were Div II last year.

Albert Caruana said...

Thank you. Fixed.

Anonymous said...

Did you see the WACC results from yesterday? Piedmont and O'dowd girls tied.

Anonymous said...

So sad to see SRV not on the list.

Andrew said...

DLS and Bellarmine raced each other Stanford right? I know that was like 3 weeks ago and things have changed, but its still a good indicator unless we know someone was out (and I know DLS ran full strength and I'm pretty sure the Bells did too).

On another note, yeah Piedmont looked real good yesterday in beating O'Dowd on a sixth runner tiebreaker. I know O'Dowd won their Clovis race, but Piedmont was pretty good at Crystal. Not sure if O'Dowd was tempoing a little though.

Anonymous said...

wait, O'Dowd beat Piedmont in the tie breaker.

Andrew said...

^@Anonymous 9:35 PM haha you're right. I was just going with what the WACC facebook page said.

Anonymous said...

O'Dowd lost to Piedmont! Talk about overrated

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous 2:01 I'm pretty sure that O'Dowd's #6 won the tiebreaker...

Anonymous said...

Los Altos (CCS DII)

Anonymous said...

los altos boys? no way, they just lost to willow glen and almost to aptos at the monterey bay invite. and WG and aptos didnt field their top teams from what I heard.

Anonymous said...

Del Oro Girls and Whitney were separated by mere seconds (team time...different races) at the Bronco Invite this weekend. Seems like Del Oro should be somewhere on the list also

Anonymous said...

Casa Grande boys tied Maria Carrillo recently in a tri meet and then were only 8 pts behind yreka at Castro valley. They might deserve a spot some where on that list.

Anonymous said...

Do you think it could be possible to also do a divisional list? like have the top 5-10 D1 schools, 5-10 D2 schools and so on.

Anonymous said...

I second the request for NorCal rankings by division.

Anonymous said...

St. Joe's boys team finished 1st in the D5 Sweepstakes Race, 2nd in the Top 10 NorCal and 10th in the Top 100 overall teams. How about rewarding them with a top 6 ranking for their excellent performance in Mt. SAC?

Anonymous said...

The Casa Grande Boys were also ahead of O'Dowd at Mt. Sac.

Anonymous said...

does anyone know the Div 5 boys team time records for NCS and State (Woodward)?

Albert Caruana said...

1:20:32 at Woodward Park

Scott said...

Couple of side tidbits:
The #2 St Francis runner, Seaman, won the CCS gymnastics Floor title last year, and her team won the CCS team gymnastics crown.

The #1 Harker runner, Iyer, has a mother who was very successful as a runner in India; and her grandmother also ran.....BUT, had to cut her hair and run in boy's races as women were not allowed to run track....

Scott

Anonymous said...

The O'Dowd girls just lost to Castro Valley in a league meet. They probably should not be ranked that high.

Anonymous said...

didnt odowd tie piemont last week before mt. SAC? doesnt seem like theyre taking the league meets very seriously right now.

Anonymous said...

Well if they are that good why would they just throw away a league title? Maybe it is just a coaching decision, but it definitely makes him look bad. I mean they are a state ranked team, but cannot win a league meet, doesn't really make sense.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nils said...

Regarding O'Dowd's women, since this is not football, the coach has the option of counseling a "go easy and avoid injuries" approach in the league meets. We will see if that's what's up, at their league championship! Plus I know some of the East Bay XC courses, e.g. St. Mary's, are downright dangerous because of the ruts and cracks that appear late summer, so going easy may be a VERY wise strategy.

Anonymous said...

If the O'Dowd coach does the "go easy in league meets" strategy wouldn't he use that strategy for both the men and the women teams. The men always seem to win by a decent amount while the women have tied and lost 2 out of the 3 league meets this year. Maybe it is the coaching or maybe it is the individuals, but they might want to stop losing if they want to run well in the postseason.

Albert Caruana said...

I would wait until NCS and state before making comments about coaching decisions at league meets.

Many teams have separate boys and girls programs and even with the same coach, it's possible the boys and girls are coached differently.

Anonymous said...

It's really extraordinary how such a small school like SJND is competing with, and beating, so many of these schools that have such a large talent pool to choose from.

Anonymous said...

I agree...SJND is a small school with big and impressive wins. However, When I visited SJND's website, I was surprised and wondered why SJND is keeping a low profile of the team. There is no Roster and just a couple of TCAL wins posted. There is absolutely no article about Mt. SAC and the Mariner's Invitational. This is a team that can win another D5 State title!

Anonymous said...

^ when are you guys going to get that the people in the admin jobs are football guys. They view xc as scrawny unathletic students that couldn't cut it in a "real sport."

Fact is, xc is the most participated in prep sport in the world. There are more people participating in local races on The weekend than attending a football game. They don't understand why someone would run because it is hard and don't appreciate that to be great means no days off, no off season. They forget that as a child the first kind of competition was racing another kid.

And so here we are. Fat and more inclined to bash or brains in than run a few miles. So it's not the low profile it's that people outside of our sport don't care. The student body doesn't care. That teachers and admin don't care.

Most would change thei mind if they ever came to a meet. Shame that our society has forgotten the joy of challenging ourselves and doing something hard.

Anonymous said...

So Albert, when will you publish that updated list?

Anonymous said...

^ man there's like 2-3 weeks. Let's sort it out there. You all crack me up, you love your pointless rankings.

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