It's not surprising that one of the biggest cross country teams in the state would have large numbers participating in the winter. What might surprise some people is the diversity of events in which the Wolfpack competes.
I wanted to find out which teams really take winter competition seriously, so I looked back at the 2016 winter track season using our Team Power Ratings report. This lets us measure the depth of quality performances that a team produced during the 2016 winter season, including both true indoor and all-comers outdoor meets. Then, I looked at both the girls' and boys' power ratings to see which programs seem to put the most emphasis on winter competition overall. With no Run for the Dream in either 2016 or 2017, it seems that Northern California just didn't get as excited about the winter season, as the power ratings are dominated by SoCal squads that were close to the Winter Championships.
The list below is NOT a ranking, just a set of schools (in no particular order) that have a lot of their top athletes competing during the winter. For actual rankings, you can use these links:
2016 Winter Track Team Power Ratings: Boys - Girls
2017 Returning Winter Track Team Power Ratings: Boys - Girls
Great Oak
This one is pretty obvious: the Wolfpack ranked 1st for both boys and girls at the end of the 2016 winter season. Great Oak had 7 boys and 10 girls record top 20 performances either indoors or at all-comers, not counting relays. You might expect that a team with an enormous cross country program would score mostly in the distances during the winter, and you would be partially right - the Wolfpack does indeed have a ton of distance runners competing, but they also have throwers, jumpers, and sprinters. This was arguably the most well-rounded team, and certainly the deepest, participating last winter.
Bishop Amat
Big participation from the distance runners is the name of the game for the Lancers. They had 5 girls and 3 boys make the top 20 for the season, all but one of them running some combination of the 1500 and 3000. There are many other teams that follow this pattern (Saugus and Arcadia for example), using winter distance races for speed work or checkpoints during training. Bishop Amat seemed to have the most success and participation of the distance-heavy squads last winter.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Their girls were down just a bit last year after a strong 2015 graduating class, but the boys had a huge winter that foretold their strength in the spring. This is also a highly balanced team, with nearly equal numbers of sprinters and distance runners scoring in the top 20. And most of them are back this winter, and those distance runners got a LOT better during cross country - so the Broncos could be the best team this coming winter.
Los Alamitos
Boys 10th and girls 8th last winter. but not as deep as the teams above. The Griffins did most of their damage in the field events (Allison Parsons, Jose Rubio) and long sprints (Ashley Willingham). They have multi-talented athletes: only 7 individuals recorded a total of 12 top 20 performances last winter.
Tesoro
Boys 10th and girls 12th last winter if you go 50 deep instead of 20. Aside from Amanda Gehrich and Michael Mitchell, who both graduated, there weren't many stars on the Titans roster, but they did have a lot of athletes participating.
Marina Boys; Oaks Christian, Mission Viejo, & Calabasas Girls
Interestingly, the 2016 power ratings are highly gender-specific - most of the top scoring squads are only rated highly for one gender, and have much less participation for the other gender. The five schools on top of this list are the only ones with both boys and girls rated highly! These three single-gender squads stand out for having lots of top performances, though. Marina is loaded with field event athletes and sprinters, while Mission Viejo has primarily long sprinters and distance runners (a harbinger of their very strong medley relays in the spring season). Oaks Christian, of course, has a handful of national-caliber athletes that are strong enough to travel to indoor meets around the country, including New York for NBNI. Calabasas was eager to develop their young talent, with ambitions toward becoming one of the better teams in the state by the spring.
Notably Absent: Vista Murrieta Boys, Carson Girls
It's worth noting that the eventual state champions did NOT participate actively in the winter season. I don't know if that means something or not, but it will be interesting to see what happens this winter and spring to find out if there is any kind of pattern here.