Boys #CountdownToXC Day 7: Loyola

The Cubs depth was on display in the spring, which means they're ready to reload and preparing to defend their Division 2 title.


Cross country is right around the corner, and we're celebrating by counting down to the start of the competitive fall season!  Each day (except today!) we'll release one boys team and one girls team, counting down from 30 to 1 as we approach the beginning of real XC racing.

Did I mention that Division 2 is shaping up to be intensely competitive again this year?

One of the hardest things about predicting the California cross country season using statistics is the fact that many of the biggest boys' programs are loaded with seniors almost every year.  Teams like Loyola lose 3 or more seniors to graduation regularly, which messes up our Improvement Rating somewhat, but they always seem to have younger runners ready to step up.  The problem is, those younger runners don't get to run in section prelims, section finals, and the state meet, so we don't get to see their best times against the best competition.  The Cubs don't have 5 returners with 5K times in our database, although they do have a talented and deep group of returning athletes at 3 Miles, enough to rank 7th in the state. Loyola put up really strong track times as a team, too: seven returners under 10 in the 3200, 9 under 4:50 in the 1600.  In particular, Charles Sherman and Alejandro Salinas had individual times that stood out to me.  Loyola lost more to graduation than their primary challenger in D2, but with their program's tradition and those strong results from the spring, I'm confident that they are ready to defend the title.


Ranking Data:

  • Returning Team Ranking: 7th (3 Miles)
  • Combined Spring Track Ranking: 7th (8th 3200, 6th 1600)
  • Improvement Rating: 36th


The #CountdownToXC is a data-driven set of team rankings determined using the following information:

  • Returning Team 5K & 3 Mile Rankings from 2015 XC: carries the most weight
  • Returning Team 1600 and 3200 Rankings from 2015 Outdoor: less weight, but important
  • Improvement Rating: a long-term statistical evaluation of how each program improves from season to season. This custom metric compares a team's final team average from each season to their returning team average from the previous season, while also accounting for how highly-ranked the team was. As we continue to improve the depth and quality of our data in California, this measure should get stronger and stronger.  Improvement ratings will be the subject of a separate article in August.
  • Returning team from the 2015 CIF state meet
  • A little bit of "gut feeling"