The Mustangs have strong talent back and a recent history of very strong summer improvement. Will it be enough to make them a contender in D2?
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.
Mira Costa lost their top two runners from the squad that finished 5th in Division 2 last year, but their returning talent is enough to rank 5th in the entire state in the 5K coming into the season (and 18th for 3 Miles). Those 5K times might be a little inflated (most came from the ultra-fast Sundodger Invitational), but that's not what really grabs my attention about the Mustangs. This boys' program has the 7th-best recent record of season-to-season improvement among the 60+ schools for which I gathered data. That means they have a strong, consistent summer training program, and that helps me project them into the top 15 overall, and as a contender in Division 2 this fall. Another key strength: this team is very deep, with a 50-second split from 1 to 7 (and only 23 seconds from 2 to 7) among returning runners. With their 2015 #2 runner, Michael Yaskowitz, having an excellent spring track season (4;19 for 1600), this Mira Costa team has a legitimate chance to be better than last year.
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 5th (5K)
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 31st (37th 3200, 25th 1600)
- Improvement Rating: 7th
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"