Sweepstakes Girls
Desert Vista (AZ) makes the trip to SoCal to take on Great Oak. If that seems familiar to you, it's because that just happened two weeks ago, for the Cool Breeze Invitational. US #1 Great Oak won that showdown without Destiny Collins, and they'll be without her again this weekend as she gets some of her recruiting trips out of the way in the early season. The Wolfpack has proven to be strong enough to win without her, as Evelyn Mandel is more than capable of filling the #1 spot! Desert Vista (US #7) would love to get one back on Great Oak, and with Baylee Jones driving the pace up front it's certainly possible; using 2015 times, the Thunder is only a 14-point underdog coming into this race, according to our virtual meet.
Lurking behind those two teams is Serrano, considered a "bubble team" in our Saucony Flo50 rankings - the Diamondbacks would almost certainly propel themselves into the top 25 with a strong performance against two top-10 squads. If Serrano can't engage the front two teams, though, they might find themselves in a difficult battle to hold onto third place: Arcadia, Canyon (Anaheim Hills), Clovis North, and Capistrano all have significant firepower. Oh, one more thing - don't believe the ranking for Sunset (OR) in the virtual meet, as they don't run 3 Mile courses often. The Apollos have the top returning team in Oregon, according to our database, and could break into the top 5 here.
Looking a little deeper, we tagged Arcadia's girls as a potential surprise top-10 team in California this year based on strong track results, so this is the Dragons' first of many chances to show their improvement. Buchanan and Trabuco Hills were also in the top 20 of our Preseason Countdown, and both should be looking to establish their credentials in this early test.
Individually, the lead pack could be pretty intense, with Mandel and Jones challenged by several runners capable of taking home the win. After winning the Seaside Invitational in heat so intense it caused the cancellation of the last three races, Moorpark's Michelle Magnani (in green above) has to be considered the favorite to cross the line first. Burbank's Candela Fernandez had the state's 4th-best 5K time last year, while Amanda Gehrich (Tesoro) moved into the top tier nationally with an impressive string of 1600/mile races in May and June; both are making their season debuts this weekend. The same is true of Ally Palomino (Bishop Amat), who hasn't gotten the chance to race yet this season due to an unfortunate series of minor illnesses. This is a tough race to use as your season opener, but Palomino has great experience on this course - she ran 16:46 here last year, finishing 6th. Among out-of-state runners, Allie Chipman (Mountain Vista CO) clocked 17:52 at NXN SW last November, and she already has a 17:55 on her profile this season. The Canyon duo of Sara Leonard and Nicole Zielinski have started off 2015 very strong, finishing just behind Mandel and Jones at Cool Breeze. Lauren Moffett (Clovis North) could be a sleeper here - she finished 19th in this event last fall, but she had a very strong track season.
More Woodbridge Classic Coverage
- Meet Page (results from previous years, recent records, and more)
- Virtual Meets Hub