If any school can overcome the loss of their top 2 runners to still make the top 10 in Division 1, Ventura's deep, consistent program can.
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.
Ventura took a hit from graduation in 2016, losing their top 2 from last fall's state meet. The Cougars have a deep and consistent program, though - they rank in the top 10 for year-to-year improvement out of the 60+ teams we examined. The returning top 5 below has only a 41-second 1-5 split, which really helps when you lose a powerhouse front-runner like Garret Reynolds. Track results echo that this team will need to rely on pack-running: aside from Reynolds, nobody stood out individually for blistering times, but Ventura had a whopping 13 runners between 4:29 and 4:50 in the 1600. The potential is there for the Cougars to not only return to the state meet but to be back in the top 10 in Division 1 again, especially with three rising seniors back from the team that finished 5th in 2015. This is a team that generally doesn't put up huge numbers on flat, fast courses early in the season, but when it comes time for the postseason, you can count on seeing that big capital V running well!
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 20th (3 Miles)
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 27th (31st 3200, 23rd 1600)
- Improvement Rating: 9th
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"