The Dolphins' girls are set for a major rebound after a disappointing end to their last cross country season.
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.
The 2015 season ended a weekend too early for the Dana Hills girls, who finished 8th in the ultracompetitive Southern Section Division 1 finals, missing a spot in the state meet by 12 points. There is plenty of evidence that race was an anomaly, though - the Dolphins won their prelims race the weekend before, and they ran at finals without #3 runner Jennifer Daly (and the whole championship season without Leila Keyvan, who clocked 18:59 at Mt. SAC in the regular season). Despite losing two seniors from a squad that failed to make the state meet, I feel confident projecting the 2016 Dana Hills girls team as being significantly improved. That's primarily because of eye-opening results during track season: the Dolphins put 6 returning runners under 5:20 in the 1600 (led by Keyvan's 5:04), not to mention 7 under 12 minutes in the 3200 (with Kathryn Kaloroumakis nearly breaking 11 at the top of the list). Those are the numbers of a Division 1 contender, let alone a state meet qualifier, and I think Dana Hills will use the premature end of their 2015 season as motivation to rebound in 2016.
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 3rd (3 Miles)
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 4th (3rd 3200, 4th 1600)
- Improvement Rating: 45th
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"