Thursday, June 30, 2016

2016 Pre-Season North Coast Section (NCS) Division I Cross Country Rankings

For many years, coaches, athletes and even parents complained about the unfair playing field at the California State XC meet. While the sectional races for the most part were quite competitive and fair, the divisional races at Woodward Park, especially in the top 3 divisions, pitted much larger Southern Section schools vs the smaller Northern schools. There is no denying that a larger enrollment is an advantage when it comes to fielding potential podium finishing teams. Over the years, coaches have submitted potential bylaws at their own section level that would potentially even out the state meet fields. All of those proposals did not make it very far until last year when Dublin coach, Chris Williams, was able to get the North Coast Section to change the divisions to this year's FORMAT. The idea was to reconfigure the divisions so that teams could compete against like sized schools at their section as well as the state meet. This year's NCS MOC meet at Hayward HS should be quite interesting. Construction could lead to changes to the regular section 3.0 mile course. Also, some teams are now in state meet contention for the first time while some teams that have booked rooms for Thanksgiving weekend on a yearly basis, now find themselves looking at a far more challenging trip to Fresno.

One of the biggest changes with the new format is in Division I which now only fields 8 potential section participating schools. The usual suspects of teams that have performed well in this division in the past like Monte Vista, De La Salle, and San Ramon Valley are no longer here. Now, the best team on both the boys and girls side appears to be Dougherty Valley which was founded in 2007 and currently boasts 2,330 students. The largest school in NCS is James Logan and with a reenergized track and field team in 2016, their cross country squad could follow suit with two state meet teams. Berkeley should also contend in both races as they attempt to make the state meet as a team. Castro Valley has been one of the top teams in this division and with an enrollment near 3000 students, it won't take much to put them in state meet contention in this division.

Division I Boys (Top 2 Advance to state)
1) Dougherty Valley-Senior Neil Braganza is the best runner on the best team.
2) James Logan-One of the better Division I teams the past few seasons. 
3) Berkeley-New section divisional format gives Yellowjackets hope for a state meet run.
4) Castro Valley-One of the historically strong teams in this division.
5) California-Will need help from some new blood to contend for top 2 finish.
On the bubble: Freedom, PittsburgDeer Valley

Top 5 returning individuals, (place) and 2015 NCS meet time:
Neil Braganza (8) Dougherty Valley 15:49.2
Arman Pabla (15) James Logan 16:17.8
Vincent Friesen (21) Castro Valley 16:26.8
Quinn Schmidt (22) Dougherty Valley 16:26.8
Sebastian Andersson (26) Berkeley 16:38.7

Division I Girls (Top 2 Advance to state)
1) Dougherty Valley-Returns the most firepower left in this division.
2) Castro Valley-Stronger up front than chase teams but not a lock for this spot.
3) Berkeley-Definitely in the hunt for a state meet berth.
4) California-The addition of a certain 800 meter state champion would bolster their chances.
5) James Logan-May surprise teams ahead of them.
On the bubble: Freedom, Deer Valley, Pittsburg

Top 5 returning individuals, (place) and 2015 NCS meet time:
Vanessa Mejia (18) James Logan 18:57.0
Kayla Jindrich (30) Dougherty Valley 19:32.6
Aushmitha Grewal (38) Dougherty Valley 20:09.0
Kayla Neumann (43) California 20:13.5
Kaitlin Manning (50) Castro Valley 20:25.4

Please feel free to chime in on the rankings above. I won't be offended if you strongly disagree as the above rankings are meant to be a launching pad for conversation. Fortunately section titles and state meet berths are decided by the runners themselves. Any impact freshmen that we should know about?

Up next: Continued NCS Rankings

17 comments:

Andrew said...

Wooooo! Didn't feel the need to write my mega-rankings this year with only 8 teams. But thanks, Albert!

Anonymous said...

Don't think Cal girls should be that high. Alyssa Brewer won't be doing cross country. She actually plays soccer in the off season of track (I know crazy to put yourself at risk of unnecessary injury with that much talent and potential). That being said Nuemann is the only girl who could potentially make some noise on that team.

trackdad said...

Boys top 5 individual rankings by 2016 3200 PR:

1) Neil Braganza / Dougherty Valley 9:26.21 (at Sacramento Meet Of Champions)
2) Quinn Schmidt / Dougherty Valley 9:42.19 (at DFAL Varsity Finals)
3) Sebastian Andersson / Berkeley 9:51.73 (at NCS Bayshore Meet)
4) Tommy Bell / Dougherty Valley 10:00.78 (at Dublin Distance Fiesta)
5) Jake Eschner / Dougherty Valley 10:05.64 (at Acalanes at Dougherty Valley)

Boys top 5 individual rankings by 2015 XC 3 mile PR (regardless of course, though eveyone's PR appears to be from the Hayward High School course):

1) Neil Braganza / Dougherty Valley 15:49 (at North Coast Section Championships, though he ran a full 5k in a faster time of 15:34.8 at the Stanford Invitational)
2) Sebastian Andersson / Berkeley 15:55.86 (at Mariner Invite)
3) Arman Pabla / James Logan 16:16.18 (at Mariner Invite)
T-4) Quinn Schmidt / Dougherty Valley & Vincent Friesen / Castro Valley 16:27.0 (both at North Coast Section Championships)

(Personal) Predictions based on these two lists and Albert's:

1) Neil Braganza / Dougherty Valley (heading up all three breakdowns by comfortable margins, it seems unlikely that anyone else in this field will best him)
2) Quinn Schmidt / Dougherty Valley (assuming he can translate his 3200 times into XC performances, Schmidt should help score big (small) for Dougherty Valley)
3) Sebastian Andersson / Berkeley (the only athlete besides Braganza to have both a sub-10 3200 and a sub-16 3 mile to his name should be Berkeley's "low stick")
4) Tommy Bell (if Bell can turn 10 flat 3200 speed into a solid 3 mile time he too will help Dougherty Valley in a major way)
T-5) Arman Pabla / James Logan & Jake Eschner / Dougherty Valley (if Pabla can dip under 16 come championships he will be a very solid scorer for James Logan, but Eschner's 10:05 3200 abilities bode well for Dougherty Valley to put a potential 4th runner in the top 5)

...ladies soon to come

Anonymous said...

Andrew, do you think you are going to be making rankings this year? Specifically for division 2?

Anonymous said...

Albert, How can the NCS make such a radical change in their XC qualifying system to benefit their teams, but the CCS can't make a simple change to the track qualifying system? Is it ignorance, arrogance, stupidity, laziness on the part of the CCS, or some other reason I just can't figure out?

Albert Caruana said...

I don't believe it's any of those. The CCS office has to support any changes that are approved and follow the right protocol. Unfortunately, our proposal didn't make it past the ADs and then was tabled when proposed by a different league.

Paul's Gang said...

Albert, my understanding is that the WCAL representative which was making the proposal did not attend the meeting and the proposal needed to be tabled. Things need to follow the right protocol.

Pierre Chan said...

The date of the post season meeting was changed at some point from the tuesday after state to monday, and many league reps were not aware of it.

Murr said...

Leave it to the CCS to get wind of a proposed change that would impact their favored leagues, change the date so nobody could attend, and use that as an excuse to "table" an amendment that they want to kill. Shame on them for playing favorites and exposing the kids to their outrageous bias. Where do we go to vote them out?

Anonymous said...

Of course, the CCS divisions used to be set the same way as this new NCS change (the divisions cut offs were set at the state level and all sections used the same enrollment cut offs). What happened was similar, very few D1 teams with the most competitive divisions being DII and DIII. When very good DII and DIII teams didn't make the state meet while weaker D1 teams did, schools complained and CCS allowed smaller schools to move up divisions if they wanted. That led to a lot of gamesmanship with the top schools switching divisions just to increase their chances of making the state meet. In addition, other sections complained about the fixed enrollment divisions and the state made a change allowing each section to determine the cut offs within a certain range. You have the remember, allowing the sections to determine their own cut offs was something the sections wanted. For CCS, with the ability to adjust to cut offs now in place, the leagues voted to eliminate division hopping and we have the system we have today.

My guess is that in a few years, the original situation will repeat. "Weak" DI teams from NCS will consistently make the state meet while "stronger" DII and DIII teams will stay home. More significantly, with significantly fewer schools in DI, it will be much easier for individuals to qualify for the state meet. Let's see the outcry when a 16:30 5K kid makes it to state in D1 while sub-16 guys in DII and DIII stay home. Judging from the hyperbole here, there will be statements along the lines of this being the most obviously unfair system and that all administrators are stubborn idiots out to hurt kids (never mind the fact that if the coaches can't convince their own ADs and principals of any change, then it's on them).

Granted, it may not be exactly the same as before as the lower divisions now have the opportunity to earn extra state meet spots, but even with the re-alignment it will be difficult for DII or DIII to ever earn more than 4 team qualifiers (and even getting 4 is tough). So maybe more rational minds will prevail and accept the fact that any system will have particular winners and losers and understand just because your kid doesn't get all the advantages it doesn't mean that the entire system is the worst.

Albert Caruana said...

Sections including CCS follow what is passed by coaches which in turn has to be approved by the board of managers. There are layers that proposals have to pass in order to become active.

Albert Caruana said...

Sections including CCS follow what is passed by coaches which in turn has to be approved by the board of managers. There are layers that proposals have to pass in order to become active.

Andrew said...

@Anonymous 8:37 PM - No. For one, I'm no longer coaching at Berkeley. #2 If I were to do rankings, I would still do D1 because that's where my team remains. D2 is Coach Brewer's domain and his wonderful takes.

Albert Caruana said...

The honorable Mr Peter Brewer now resides in Division III.

Albert Caruana said...

The honorable Mr Peter Brewer now resides in Division III.

Andrew said...

Lol, you're right, Albert! Looks like it's up to Ozzie again

Albert Caruana said...

I am working on division II as we speak. Will have it posted shortly.

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