Liam Anderson took another big step forward with a fantastic spring season, and now he wants to help Redwood move up from their 10th-place finish in Division 3 last fall.
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 racing in late August. The goal here isn't necessarily to predict the top 30 teams in the state, and certainly not the exact order - there are WAY too many variables in play to be that accurate before the season starts! Instead, these are teams that we expect to have an impact on the upcoming season, in their sections and in their state-wide divisions.
The 30 teams from each gender were determined using the following information:
- Returning Team 5K & 3 Mile Rankings from 2016 XC: carries the most weight
- Returning Team 1600 and 3200 Rankings from 2016 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, as well.
- Returning team rankings from the 2016 CIF state meet
- Returning team rankings from each section
- A little bit of "gut feeling"
Today we take a look at the handful of teams that just missed making the countdown. These teams could very well end up in the top 25 by the end of the season, and a couple of them are definitely sleepers to watch this season!
Boys #CountdownToXC Honorable Mention & Sleeper Teams
California (SS) (Team Page)
Claremont (Team Page)
These two teams both got hit hard by graduation, but they also have an excellent recent track record of year-to-year improvement, so don't expect them to stay down for long. Both squads also have solid returning 3200 times from track season that indicate progress is already being made.
Redwood (NC) (Team Page)
With a tremendous front-runner and a strong program history, it could be time for the boys' team to rise, but they need depth.
Buchanan (Team Page)
The Central Section is wide open this year, and this team got valuable experience at the 2016 state meet.
Granada (Team Page)
Their returning 5 from the 2016 state meet are 13th best overall, so with some added depth this looks like a team on the rise - but the NCS is looking tough this fall.
Newbury Park (Team Page)
Snuck into the state meet as the 7th team out of the Southern Section, then turned that opportunity into a 10th-place finish - and they have 6 runners back from that squad, plus solid team 1600 results in the spring. With a strong summer, this could be a top 25 team in the fall, and could be a dark horse to threaten for the top 5 in Division 1.
NOTE: there are at least 8 more Southern Section teams that I could also list here, who could very well have been in the top 30 of this countdown. The SS is super deep this year! Those teams are all very similar using the data I gathered, and in good conscience I couldn't choose just a handful while excluding others. For that reason (and in the interest of brevity) I did not include them all here, but rest assured that I will be watching for their early results.