Girls Coundown to XC Day 5: Canyon (Anaheim Hills)

If we were to divide the teams in the countdown into tiers, Canyon would be a bubble team: right at the top of tier 2, with a few stats that border on tier 1. Most notably, the Comanches had the 4th-best team 3200 results in the state during track season (not counting seniors, of course). This is the ONLY California squad with three returners under 11 minutes, which makes for impressive front-running firepower (Isabella Frisone led the team in that event, while returning leader Emma Hadley clocked 4:51 for the 1600). The Comanches only graduated two of their top 13 runners after finishing 7th in Division 2 in 2018, and they had 7 girls at 12:06 or better on the track, so depth should not be a problem either. Canyon's returning 3 Mile times from the fall are slightly inflated from Woodbridge, but they still rank in the top 10 in the state overall for both major distances. This program doesn't have great year-to-year improvement numbers, but that's due to a 2017 season where they underperformed expectations. Aside from that one-year glitch, this has been one of the state's best year-round programs; they rank 6th in improvement over a 5-year span, and 7th over 7 years (more on this data next week). This team has all the hallmarks of a state title contender, and my only reservation is that D2 is so loaded - there are still two teams left on the countdown that grade out a little higher. That should make for a GREAT state meet race!