Oakland Section XC Season Preview

The distance stars of the Oakland Section, Caroline Garrett (1005) and Eleanor Wikstrom (1329), ran in stride during the Division II race at the State Championships last November. (Credit: DeAnna Turner)

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The smallest section in the state has eight individual returners who competed at the 2018 CIF-State Meet, representing just two schools, Oakland Technical and Skyline.

William Webster, now a senior at Oakland Tech, is the top returning boy. He placed 83rd in D-II at State last November. Despite limited racing, he showed significant year-over-year drops as well as in-season improvement.

Eleanor Wikstrom, a senior this year at Skyline, is the top returning girl from the State Meet, not to mention the second-best distance runner in the history of the OAK.

Wikstrom and the just-graduated Caroline Garrett of Oakland Tech re-wrote the girls distance running records in the OAK, on the XC course as well as on the track. While Garrett holds the section marks for 5K on the section XC championship course and 3200-meters on the track, Wikstrom is No. 2 on the course, No. 2 at the eight-lapper and No. 1 for 1600m, as well as a perennial CIF-State Championships qualifier, having gone all three years in cross country and twice in track.

Wikstrom ran a 5K best last season of 18:18.80 for 14th at the Stanford Invitational and then placed 31st in Division II (18:33.90) at the State Meet. She is a top-20 returner from that race at State. 

Her time from Stanford ranks 48th among returning girls in CA for 5K. Her 3-mile PR of 17:00.10 from the Woodbridge Invitational ranks No. 21 among returning girls at that distance.

(Noteworthy: Of the top 22 returning times for 3 miles in CA, 13 are from the Woodbridge meet, including the top four and five of the top six. It was the only 3-mile race on Wikstrom's schedule last season.)

Wikstrom was second in the Oakland Section finals as a sophomore and fourth as a freshman. Because of poor air quality as a result of the Camp Fire, last year's section championship meet was not held.

Along with the chance for non-team champion individuals to qualify for the State Meet, what also was lost was the chance to see Wikstrom and Garrett push each other to lower the Joaquin Miller Park 5K course record, held by Garrett at 20:33.4 from 2017. Wikstrom's time that year of 21:23.5 ranks No. 2 all-time.

The OAK went to the 5K distance at the section meet in 1994 and the Miller course has been the site of the championships every year since then except 1996 and 1997 when the section final was held at Lake Merritt. 

As a point of reference, the previous girls record was 21:46.6 set by Oakland Tech's Johanna Ross in 2016, and the boys course record of 18:01.0 was set by Skyline's Andrew Sylvester in 2006. 

Garrett, who graduated and is now running at Wake Forest, holds three of the top 10 spots on the girls all-time list. Wikstrom has two, including her No. 9 all-time mark of 22:31.2 set as a freshman in 2016.

Webster, who was 12th as a sophomore at the section meet, had run 16:55.40 as a 5K PR at the Stanford Invitational last season -- a two-minute drop from his sophomore best - before crushing that PR at the State Meet. How low might he go in 2019? Note that the last boy to crack the top-10 list at the section final was Zachary Katzman of Skyline who ran 18:30.4 in 2015 to rank ninth.

Returning Oakland Section girls from the 2018 State Meet