The Warriors have a strong team back from 2015, when they fell only 19 points short of a D2 title. Expect them to be right in the hunt for the championship again after a move to D3!
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 is where my internal rankings make a pretty big jump - we've entered the top tier of teams, the clear-cut championship contenders. Starting with West Torrance, every team left in the countdown is a cut above the rest according to the measures I use. The Warriors finished 3rd in Division 2 last year with only two seniors on the squad (only one in the top 5), and they have a load of talent back. That was backed up during track season, when this team posted the 7th-best team 3200 results, led by a huge 4:13/9:18 season from returning #2 runner Carson Bix. If Caleb Terrill is back up to speed (he seemed to struggle in the spring), that will form a very strong 1-2 combination, followed by solid depth - 6 guys returning that ran between 15:29 and 16:08 for 3 Miles last year. The only one of the stats I checked that doesn't really like West Torrance is the Improvement Rating, and that's because our database lacked enough data on them from 3 years ago (we've gotten much better since then). All told, the Warriors have all the hallmarks of a title contender in Division 3 this year, which is where they are projected to land in the newest alignment.
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 3rd (5K)
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 14th (7th 3200, 21st
- Improvement Rating: 36th
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"