Girls Coundown to XC Day 22: San Luis Obispo

When you can put 4 returning girls under 5:30 and 6 at 5:35 or faster in the 1600, you have a strong group of year-round runners that can help your cross country program improve. That is the case for the Tigers, who are coming off an 11th-place finish in the Division 2 state meet and return 5 of their top 7 from that squad. This is shaping up to be a classic and formidable pack-running team with as many as four girls that could be essentially interchangeable up front (returning #3 Shaylee Grimm had SLO's best 1600 time on the track, for example). The aforementioned spring results help easy my biggest concern, which is depth: the Tigers' returning stats from 2018 show a big gap after the top 4 and another after the top 6. The emergence of rising soph Coco Steel during track season should help with that. San Luis Obispo is the favorite to repeat as Central Section D2 champs (which means they will soon be in danger of being moved to Division 1), and if this team has had a good summer they could reach as high as the top 5 in Division 2.