The torch has been passed from Nicole Zielinski to Sara Leonard, but with a strong supporting cast the Comanches are looking even better in 2016.
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.
It's rare to see a team ranked this high when they lost their #1 runner to graduation, especially when she was a Foot Locker Finalist like Nicole Zielinski. Behind her, though, the Comanches had 6 underclasswomen on the squad that finished 10th in Division 2 last fall. They even have a ready-in-waiting #1 runner in Sara Leonard, who was on Zielinski's heels last fall and then clocked 5:07 and 10:51 in the spring. The whole Canyon team showed solid improvement with their track times, giving me the sense that this program is ready to make a step forward over the summer and into the fall season. The Comanches just barely made it into the state meet last year, edging Arroyo Grande out of the last spot from the Southern Section by 1 point, and the experience gained from that trip to Clovis may turn out to be the springboard to something special this fall.
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 12th (3 Mile)
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 17th (14th 3200, 21st 1600)
- Improvement Rating: n/a
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"