After a year hiatus, the Stanford Invitational is BACK although the course will be different than the past few years as you see above. The first ever Stanford Invitational was actually held in 1974 on a Thursday (October 3rd). The course was 2.8 miles long (handwritten map below) and was also held on the Stanford golf course thanks to meet director, Menlo Atherton coach, Plato Yanicks. You can check out the results from that meet at this LINK thanks to Central Coast Section historian, Hank Lawson. When I competed in the meet in the mid-80s, the meet was held on a Monday and the course back then included a hill that was fairly challenging. German Fernandez established the course record on a different course in 2007 at 14:42 during his incredible senior season. He was the only runner to break 15 minutes that year. The first year for the course that was last used in 2016 was the following year in 2008. Ammar Moussa of Arcadia (SS) established the new record of 14:37 in 2010 and that record was broken last year by another Arcadia runner, Phillip Rocha (winning time of 14:32.5). Before 2008, Marie Lawrence of Reno held the course record with her 17:06 in 2006. Once the new course was established, Carrie Verdon of Campolindo (NCS) became the first girl to break 17 minutes by running 16:58.8 in 2011. The following year, Amy-Eloise Neale of Glacier Peak lowered the course record to 16:51.4. Fiona O'Keeffe Davis (SJS) and now current Stanford Cardinal runner, ran 16:39.8 in 2014 and an even faster 16:32.1 last season.
For this Saturday, the races will take place in the following order and you can see the time schedule below. It looks like with the Clovis Invitational taking place the following weekend, many of the top teams from the southern part of the state will save on their travel budget by staying closer to home. The weather will, however, cooperate with a projected temperature of around 70 degrees for most of the day.
Race Time Race Race Division Distance
9:00 a.m. Varsity Boys Division 4 5K
9:25 a.m. Varsity Girls Division 4 5K
9:50 a.m. College Women Open 6K
10:30 a.m. College Men Open 8K
11:00 a.m. Varsity Boys Division 1 5K
11:30 a.m. Varsity Girls Division 1 5K
12:00 p.m. Varsity Boys Seeded 5K
12:30 p.m. Varsity Girls Seeded 5K
1:00 p.m. Varsity Boys Division 2 5K
1:30 p.m. Varsity Girls Division 2 5K
2:00 p.m. Varsity Boys Division 3 5K
2:30 p.m. Varsity Girls Division 3 5K
3:00 p.m. Varsity Boys Division 5 5K
3:30 p.m. Varsity Girls Division 5 5K
Here are all the teams that will be competing in the entire meet and which teams will be in the featured seeded races. The boys' race will have a strong favorite in 2017 NXN participant, St. Francis, Mt. View. They should take the team title over league rival and a rising Bellarmine squad led by super sophomore Colin Peattie. In the girls' race, the top two teams will be Granada and Claremont and these may be the two teams that will battle it out at the state meet in hopes of locking up the second NXN spot from California. Redwood senior Liam Anderson will make his season debut at the Clovis Invitational which means that the individual title in the seeded race could come down to talented Jesuit junior, Matt Strangio and St. Francis senior, Colton Colonna. Individually, the favorite in the girls' race will be La Costa Canyon senior Kristen Fahy who may be demonstrating her running prowess in front of potential college suitors. The lead runner for the Granada girls will be Colleen McCandless. She sat out of the Pacific Tiger Invitational last week after a top effort at the Woodbridge Invitational. The top runner for the Claremont squad is Sydney Hwang who led her team to victory at the Cool Breeze Evening Invitational with a 5th place finish.
//files.milesplit.us/articles/248475/files/2018_hs_division_assignments_(9.27.18).pdf
Boys' Seeded Race
Team Favorite: St. Francis, Mt. View (CCS)
Individual Favorite: Matt Strangio Jesuit (SJS)/Colton Colonna St. Francis, Mt. View (CCS)
Girls' Seeded Race
Girls' Team Favorites: Granada (NCS)/Claremont (SS)
Individual Favorite: Kristen Fahy La Costa Canyon (SDS)
Live Results
http://www.rtspt.com/events/stanford/xcinvite18/
Old Course Records
Boys: Philip Rocha Arcadia 2015 14:32.5
Girls: Fiona O'Keeffe Davis 2015 16:32.1
Previous Course Map
