Central Coast Section teams have won their fair share of state cross country team titles in every division except Division I. That goes for both boys and girls. In fact, there has been only ONE Northern California team that has won a Division I team title (boys and girls) in the history of the State Meet since the first one was held in 1987. Without looking, can you name that one team and what year? Answer below.
This year, one CCS team was going to have a tremendous opportunity to join said team as another NorCal team to win a Division I team title. The Bellarmine boys returned their entire team that rolled to an incredible team time record on the historic Crystal Springs course at their league final. Every member of that record-setting team was a junior. They, unfortunately, lost a couple of team members heading to the section meet due to illness but never fear, their team depth swept to another section title.
At the State Meet, the Bells finished in third place to match their best finish at the CIF-State XC Championships. They headed into track season fired up at the prospects of the spring as well as the upcoming fall. Unfortunately, those plans were derailed and now they can only hope to get to test themselves in a few races. I believe they would have been strong favorites to claim their first state team title considering they had three runners capable of dipping under 9 minutes for the 3200m. (Colin Peattie, Nolan Topper, and Galen Topper).
Without too much suspense, the Bellarmine boys are the top section team ranked below. I will also list the rest of the top five counting down from the fifth-best team which you can check out next.
No. 5-Menlo
The Menlo boys qualified to the State Meet with a third-place finish in the Division IV race. Menlo returns its top three runners as well as five of the top seven. Their top two runners (Calvin Katz and Kamran Murray) have been very impressive in several races on the track and will be the best duo in CCS outside of the Bellarmine team. Sophomore Justin Pretre gives the team a strong third runner and with a solid top five, the Menlo boys could move up even higher on this list.
No. 4-Monta Vista
As noted with the girls, Monta Vista has been one of the best-combined programs in CCS. They finished in fifth place in the always competitive Division I race but seem to be one of the teams that has the most returning runners behind Bellarmine. They will be led by senior Rohun Agrawal who finished in sixth place at last year's section race with a time of 15:28.9.
No. 3-St. Francis
While Bellarmine has dominated the last decade in the section, St. Francis has risen as the next best team. They placed second in both the WCAL final and CCS Division II race. Based on what their teams have done in the past few years, I believe St. Francis will continue to reload and be competitive once again in their league as well as Division.
No. 2-Scotts Valley
The Scotts Valley boys had their own historic season as they stormed to a dominant league victory. King City sprung an upset on them at the CCS meet but that proved to be temporary as the SV boys rebounded at the State Meet with a second place finish behind a strong Foothill Tech team. Junior Jeremy Kain will continue to lead the team this year giving Scotts Valley one of the best runners in the section.
No. 1-Bellarmine
See above.
Oh, the only NorCal team to win a Division I state team title was the Del Campo boys in 1995.
Central Coast Section teams have won their fair share of state cross country team titles in every division except Division I. That goes for both boys and girls. In fact, there has been only ONE Northern California team that has won a Division I team title (boys and girls) in the history of the State Meet since the first one was held in 1987. Without looking, can you name that one team and what year? Answer below.
This year, one CCS team was going to have a tremendous opportunity to join said team as another NorCal team to win a Division I team title. The Bellarmine boys returned their entire team that rolled to an incredible team time record on the historic Crystal Springs course at their league final. Every member of that record-setting team was a junior. They, unfortunately, lost a couple of team members heading to the section meet due to illness but never fear, their team depth swept to another section title.
