The Wildcats are ready to bounce back from the loss of one of the state's greatest runners ever, and this team is capable of defending in 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.
No Austin Tamagno? No problem! Well, that doesn't really tell the whole story, of course. The Wildcats actually lost two seniors from the squad that edged Baldwin Park by 1 point for the Division 3 title. It looks like Brea Olinda will be a different kind of team without their star of the past 4 years, shifting to a more pack-oriented approach. It's shaping up to be a tough pack, too, with only a 37-second split between the 1st and 5th returner. Even with the loss to graduation there is plenty of talent returning for the Wildcats, and based on results from track season it looks like Kevin McNulty (4:19 this spring) may be ready to push Gio Orellana for the #1 spot this fall. The strongest piece of evidence that indicates Brea Olinda will reload and be back in the hunt for a championship this year: only one other boys program in the state has done a better job of year-to-year improvement over the past 3 seasons. The competition will be stiff, especially with West Torrance likely to move down from Division 2 this year, but this team is clearly a contender.
Ranking Data:
- Returning Team Ranking: 3rd (3 Miles)
- Combined Spring Track Ranking: 18th (21st 3200, 14th 1600)
- Improvement Rating: 2nd
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"