Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Northern California Top 10 teams Version #3 (Boys & Girls)

Boys
1) Jesuit (SJS)
2) Bellarmine (CCS)
3) Davis (SJS)
4) Campolindo (NCS)
5) Monte Vista (NCS)
6) St. Ignatius (CCS)
7) Willow Glen (CCS)
8) St. Francis, Mt. View (CCS)
9) Bella Vista (SJS)
10) Homestead (CCS)
10) Maria Carrillo (NCS)

Girls
1) Davis (SJS)
2) Monte Vista (NCS)
3) Bella Vista (SJS)
4) Redwood (NCS)
5) Aptos (CCS)
6) Santa Cruz (CCS)
7) Campolindo (NCS)
8) Granada (NCS)
9) St. Francis, Mt. View (CCS)
10) Mitty (CCS)
10) Homestead (CCS)

Comments on above teams are encouraged. This is the 3rd version after the pre-season and mid-season versions. Please include season results in support of any teams that should be moved up or added to above teams. It's very possible a team or two are hovering underneath the radar at this point so please bring up any teams that I have missed.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

The rankings look to be pretty accurate, but we are entering the portion of the season where weaknesses can be exposed and one or two of the big teams suffer an injury that derails their post season run. Davis generated more questions than answers with Fiona O'Keeffe sitting out Mt. Sac and Vernau falling off the pace once Mt. Sac went vertical. I don't believe their boy's team has run with their top 5 returners all year. Luis Grijalva followed a stellar showing at the Bella Vista Invitational with a (by his high standards) mediocre performance at Mt. Sac. Wondering if Jesuit can put together the race of their lives and get top 2 in D1 and a potential trip to NXN. Lastly, did anyone notice Bella Vista's sophomores at Mt. Sac? They won the D3 sophomore race with 16 points and look to have 3 runners who are about a season off from being strong varsity runners. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks, now that the heat has broken (hopefully for the season).

Sal said...

Best head-to-head match at CCS will be SI vs. SF in the D2 race. Where does Willow Glen fit in and are those the three schools that head to State?

Anonymous said...

I've been waiting for those SF & SI fanboys to show up. Saint Francis under performs for the talent they get. I know we aren't talking girls but when you get that elite talent coming in every year you need to do something with it. Same with the boys. They are loaded but just can't seem to find that top gear. SI has done a good job, especially with Lowell stealing some of their talent the last few years. But where does WG fit in? Those kids are tough. I'd plug them in #1 or #2. All those private schools are going to get publiced.

Anonymous said...

I believe Vernau lost a shoe. At least thats what I heard.

Anonymous said...

That would be crazy if Vernau did lose a shoe since Kellen Browning lost one last year at the state meet. Vernau sent a telling tweet after the meet, I don't know him at all, but it seemed clear that he works incredibly hard and was very disappointed with his performance. It highlights the challenge of getting top athletes peaking at the end of the season and walking that fine line of pushing hard and keeping them injury free.

Anonymous said...

On the boys side Saint Francis beat Homestead by over 100 points earlier this month at Clovis...

Albert Caruana said...

Will fix.

Anonymous said...

I think Homestead was missing a few boys at Clovis. However, if you look at the best 7 at Homestead and SF, and take out the 3-mile times at Woodbridge since that is a flat speed course, SF still comes out on top.

Bing said...

I'm having a hard time understanding how St Francis is in top 10, but Willow Glen isn't. Didn't WG crush SF in the championship race at Crystal Springs?

Anonymous said...

St. Francis had their best 7 at Clovis on that day (10/10). The guys that raced WG in the championship race at CS were the "B" team.

Anonymous said...

Individual team rankings aside, hats off to WCAL overall with 3 entries on the boys side and 2 on the girls side.

Bing said...

Crystal Springs aside, I still believe that Willow Glen is right there with Saint Francis. In fact, if you take each team's top times from Toro Park, and compare head to head, Willow Glen comes out on top.

1. Xander Olivero (Saint Francis) 15:40
2. Zach Walker (Willow Glen) 16:02
3. Sammy Euerle (Willow Glen) 16:14
4. Giovanni Dal Canto (Willow Glen) 16:17
5. Antonio Macabantad (Saint Francis) 16:25
6. Owen Kemp (Saint Francis) 16:30
7. Troy Dao (Willow Glen) 16:36
8. Colton Colonna (Saint Francis) 16:40
9. Timothy Arredondo (Willow Glen) 16:46
10. Alex Ward (Saint Francis) 16:47
11. Shyam Kumar (Saint Francis) 16:48
12. Narun Raman (Saint Francis) 16:48
13. Julio Cerda (Willow Glen) 17:09
14. David Curry (Willow Glen) 17:16

Head to head score
1. Willow Glen: 25
2. Saint Francis: 30

Anonymous said...

Vernau's shoe "broke" according to a story in the Davis Enterprise:

---"Davis’ top runner, Michael Vernau, stumbled to a 44th-place finish after one of his shoes broke open a mile into the race. The junior continued for 1 1/2 miles before removing his shoe for the final half-mile to finish in disappointing fashion.

“The racing flats that he has have a really thin carbon sole,” Gregg said. “He busted that. Part of it was hanging out. It’s hard to believe that he could have had an equipment malfunction in a cross country race."---

Albert Caruana said...

For what's it worth, Willow Glen is also ranked higher than St. Francis at the following poll:
http://lynbrooksports.prepcaltrack.com/ATHLETICS/XC/2015/ccs_rank.htm

I moved Willow Glen ahead of St. Francis and the best part is that we will find out who is the better team at CCS and potentially at the state meet. Division 2 is very tough this year with SI, WG, SF, Lynbrook, Serra etc etc.

Anonymous said...

Not sure that the Earlybird at Toro can be considered head-to-head. They run in grades and both teams covered all 4 races. The better comparison is where the teams actually run as a team (meaning all 7 at the same time) at the same course on the same day. That happened at Stanford and SF would win that battle 23 to 38. In fact, SF placed all 7 runners (last in at 16:28) in front of WG's third (16:38).

Anonymous said...

Based on that analysis, I am moving SF ahead of WG and SI and say that all three go to the state meet to battle it out. Does LB even have a chance to edge in there? No.

Anonymous said...

I don't really understand why the Toro times are significant for comparing the teams. There are many confounding variables if you decide to compare those two teams on that course, with the most important being the point in the season those two teams raced that course. It would be different if they had raced Toro within two weeks of each other, but comparing times from six weeks apart is probably not the best indicator of which team is better. The better indicator is each team's latest results from big races, which will more similar to CCS and State. The question is really whether you think St Francis' 16:30 average at Woodward is more or less impressive than Willow Glen's 16:39 average at Toro or 16:09 average at Crystal.
This is difficult with SI because they simply don't appear to run in big races. Coach's strategy, I guess.

Anonymous said...

Well, like Albert said, we will get a chance to find out who is best at the CCS finals. Regardless, Willow Glen deserves to be in the top 10 NorCal rankings based on their performances this season.

Anonymous said...

I don't want to wait, so let's keep going. Why is Homestead ranked so low?

Anonymous said...

Stanford Invitational
St. Francis: 7th place, 301, 1:20:56 team time
Willow Glen: 17th place, 415, 1:22:21 team time
In the one race where St. Francis's top 7 raced against Willow Glen's top 7, St. Francis destroyed Willow Glen. I think these rankings should be based off of the only head to head matchup between these two teams that has occurred in the entire season.

Just my two cents.

Anonymous said...

Interesting comment on St. Francis not making most of the talent that comes in year after year. Totally agree, especially on the girls side where the cross country coach and distance coach for track are different which seems to result in inconsistency in training. They also have different coaches for boys and girls distance. I'm curious to know if most schools (other than the single-sex schools) have their varsity XC train with the same coaches or have separate coaches. Advantages? Disadvantages?

Albert Caruana said...

Seems like most of the co-ed schools in the WCAL have different coaches for the boys and girls.

Anonymous said...

If you can point to a male athlete from St Francis on the guys side that came in with previous experience that has not performed admirably, I will agree. But the only one I can think of in the last couple years has been their top freshman this year, and he seems to be doing alright (I would bet he wins freshman of the year for CCS). The only freshman class they've had in the last couple of years that has been pretty good was last year, and they now have two sophomores with sub 16:30 three mile times. I would say that's pretty good development for the talent.
Secondly, addressing the second argument from the same interesting comment above, I don't really understand the mindset of private school kids being weaker than their public school counterparts. I believe Jesuit and Bellarmine are the two best teams in NorCal this year, and if I'm not mistaken, those are private schools. Also, if I remember a couple of years ago, it was Los Gatos, a public school, who was favored and was so-called mentally weak at CCS and lost to a private school. Granted, one can easily make the argument that St Francis was not mentally tough last year and the other public schools were. I just find it hard to believe whether or not a athlete is mentally tough has something to do with the school they attend and it probably has more to do with each athlete individually.
Sorry for the block of text, but I felt there needed to be a decent defense of a program that seems to incite a lot of emotion (love or hate) on this site. After all, it seems like a lot of venom for a sport played by 15-18 year olds.

Sal said...

Can someone who was at the WVAL meet at CS yesterday explain what happened in the first attempt at the girls varsity race.

Bing said...

FWIW, Wilow Glen averaged 16:00 yesterday at Crystal. That's pretty good. It will be an interesting battle between SI, WG and SF.

Anonymous said...

15:52 average at crystal with five guys under 16
"underperforming"

Anonymous said...

The WG, SF, SI showdown at CCS just got a lot more interesting. Who has the best average 1-5 at Crystal?

Anonymous said...

Sf:15:52
Si:15:57
Wg:16:06

Popular Posts