With the loss of 4 from last year's top 7, the Comanches will have their ability to improve from year to year tested this summer.
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.
This team lost 4 of their top 7 from the 2015 squad that finished 2nd in Division 2, including Foot Locker finalist Dylan Scarsone. The Comanches didn't have eye-catching results among returning runners on the track, either. So why does Canyon (Anaheim Hills) make the top 25 in our countdown over teams with better returning numbers? One word: history. Recent history, in fact: over the last 3 years, this team has averaged 30 seconds of improvement in their 1-5 average per year, and has finished an average of 10th in our overall (all divisions) final season rankings. Was that all due to the two strong runners up front that helped push and motivate the team, or can the program continue that level of improvement? With Dalton Tanner (ranked 9th among returning 3 Mile runners in the state) now taking the lead, I'm betting Canyon is not going to fall off much from their success of the past two seasons.
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 25th (3 Miles)
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 31st (35th 3200, 26th 1600)
- Improvement Rating: 5th
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"