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.
Sometimes a bad race happens at the worst possible time, and that seems to be what ended the season for Beaumont in 2015. After finishing 5th in their Southern Section Prelims race, the Cougars tumbled to 13th in the finals. Just the fact that this team entered the finals with a chance to compete for a state meet spot represents progress: Beaumont didn't make the finals as a team in 2014, and the two individuals that competed in finals both graduated. Over the last three years, though, the Cougars have been one of the best in the state at year-to-year improvement, and I'm predicting this as their breakthrough year. Making the state meet out of Southern Section Division 1 would be a huge accomplishment, and I think Beaumont will be in the mix for that final team qualifying spot.
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 5th
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 46th
- Improvement Rating: 10th
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"