Crystal Springs Course History
The Crystal Springs course is one of the most historic and unique courses in California (if not the entire United States). The idea for the course was hashed out in the late 60s and the current course configuration was established in the early 70s. Much of the labor and devotion for the course has been handled by former College of San Mateo coach, Bob Rush. The maintenance of the course is now being handled by multiple people including Serra HS coach Jim Marheineke who headed much of the work done over the summer. If you have some free time on your hands and want to learn more about the history of the course, you can go to this LINK.
Central Coast Section Meet
The CCS meet will once again be held at the Crystal Springs course on Saturday, November 12th. For many years, the Crystal Springs course was the host site until the section made the move to alternate their championship meet between Toro Park and Crystal Springs in 2002. On even-numbered years, CCS is held at Toro Park while Crystal Springs is the host on odd-numbered years. Unfortunately this year, due to some issues to the Toro Park course, the CCS meet will once again be hosted by the world-famous course.
Aside from several practices and league meets, this will be the largest meet held on the Crystal Springs course this year leading up to the Central Coast Section meet.
Saturday's Championship Races
The schedule for Saturday can be seen below. Teams will be divided equally between the blue and gold races. The boy's races will also include varsity and a championship varsity race. You can check out what teams will compete in what races at this LINK. In the championship varsity boys race, the race will feature Central Catholic from Oregon. The video below is courtesy of Colleen Thompson, a Central Catholic parent. Her son Kyle won that 2013 race in 14:57.8 leading 6 additional teammates to sub 16:00 times as well as one of the fastest team times in course history. This is by far, my favorite video of the Crystal Springs course!
Although Central Catholic (Teammates Wesley Shipsey and Charlie Black above) may be more famous for one of their alumni, (Galen Rupp), the team has secured many state championships (11 state titles since 2003) and three NXN qualifying efforts (2005, 2007, and 2013). Their coach, David Frank, competed at Stanford University and was a teacher/coach at St. Francis, Mt. View at one point. He has brought his boys back to this meet multiple times including this year.
Tomorrow will also be the Clovis Invitational which does take a few notable varsity teams from this event including Bellarmine, St. Ignatius, St. Francis, and one of the top teams in the state, Granada.
Central Catholic (above at the Champoeg Invitational courtesy of coach Robyn McGillis) will also be featured in the girls' championship varsity race although this may be the first time attending this meet. As mentioned above, some of the top teams will be competing at the Clovis Invitational but this race could still be quite competitive. Aside from CC, Aptos, Granada, and Tamalpais should field strong teams and try to prevent the visiting Oregon team from scoring a clean sweep of the two championship varsity races.
Live Results Link
https://www.rttimingsolutions.com/results.html
Course Records
Boys Individual: Mitch Kingery San Carlos HS 14:28 1973
Girls Individual: Ellen Lyons Bishop Kelly, Boise Idaho 16:30.6 1979
Boys Team Time: Bellarmine (CCS) 76:09.6 2019
Girls Team Time: Carlmont HS (CCS) 91:20 2007
Course Map