* Sadie Engelhardt squared off with Rylee Blade at the Clovis Invitational on Saturday
Photo Credit: Nick DeGeorge
- - -
Saturday's Clovis Invitational saw a host of early season shakeups, shifting the status quo as teams jostle ahead of the November championship season.
Here are the top storylines coming out of that meet.
Can Engelhardt lead Ventura to a state championship?
Junior Sadie Engelhardt has dominated since the day she entered high school, but the Ventura squad she leads hasn't seen much high-level success, finishing fifth, 17th and 10th over the last three CIF Division II championships.
That could change this season. The Cougars placed second at Clovis, led by Engelhardt's 16:39.5 win on the 5K course that beat out the closest runner by nearly seven seconds.
Crucially, her teammates also came through. Sophomore Aelo Curtis ran a 17:56.5 for 10th place and junior Tiffany Sax posted an 18:19.6 for 28th.
Those finishes led to a 113-point team score, which was enough to beat out the historically strong Buchanan. But more importantly, the Cougars also jutted past Los Altos, Newbury Park, St. Francis (Mountain View) and Palo Alto -- each of the four teams that finished ahead of Ventura in last year's Division II championship race.
The squad will also no doubt be pleased with the fact that it managed to pull ahead of Santiago (Corona), the only California team other than Buchanan and JSerra Catholic that beat the Cougars at the Woodbridge Classic last month.
The Cougars will need a strong supporting cast around Engelhardt if they hope to secure a team title.
The team's result at Clovis was a great start.
Related Links:
Photo Credit: Nick DeGeorge/MileSplit
Dana Hills rises; can Oakdale keep up?
The Dana Hills boys are on fire. Junior Evan Noonan posted a time of 14:44.3 to finish third, leading his team to a five-point win over Great Oak, the meet's favorite.
Top-25 finishes from seniors Jayden Hernandez and Garrett Woodruff -- who, along with every other scorer on the team, mounted impressive kicks over the last mile to move up a collective 46 places -- also helped the team beat out Ventura and San Clemente, which both finished ahead of the Dolphins at Woodbridge.
Oakdale, the defending CIF Division III champion which was third at Clovis, has some ground to make up if it hopes to repeat its title over Dana Hills.
Oakdale senior Omar Alsaidi, who finished eighth with a 15:10.5, will need to battle with Noonan for gold in the state championship race.
Last year, Noonan placed first, ahead of Oakdale's now-graduated Dax Daley at second. Alsaidi came fifth.
But the bigger question will be how much depth each team has. Oakdale won last year because -- despite missing the individual title -- its top four runners came in at 2-5-7-16. Its first three finishers crossed the line before second-place Campolindo could even get its first man to the finish, and Dana Hills, which finished third as a team, got its second runner over the line a full 26 places behind Oakdale's fourth.
Noonan and Alsaidi should both finish in the top 10, so the team title will depend on whose second-through-fifth runners manage to beat out their matchups.
Most of those runners are veteran upperclassmen, and each has a matchup on the other team that they could probably beat on any given day. The Division III title race should be a good one.
Can anybody catch the JSerra girls?
The Lions won Clovis with a whopping 72 points, building off of an impressive second-place finish at Woodbridge behind Air Academy (CO) and a 43-point, first-place finish at the Cool Breeze Invitational.
It would, frankly, be an upset if JSerra did anything but run away with a third-straight Division IV state title in November.
Junior Sophie Polay, who transferred from Santa Margarita and completed her CIF-mandated sit-out period just before Clovis, made an immediate impact, leading the team with a 17:52.2, 10th-place finish.
Every scorer came within the top 30. Junior Brynn Garcia, a veteran returner who came 24th, brings much-needed experience to the young team. And freshman Reese Holley, who finished at 19th, is only getting better.
The only team who poses a credible threat to JSerra's three-peat hopes is Oaks Christian, led by senior Payton Godsey, who took the individual title last year.
Oaks Christian finished just 11 points behind the Lions at least year's state meet. But the squad was a lukewarm 14th-place at Clovis. And at Woodbridge, all seven of JSerra's runners crossed the line before Oaks Christian's third runner.
Hypothetically, if CIF officials decided to cram every division at the state meet into one race, JSerra would still be the favorite -- although tangibly, California's meet merge does make a difference for Nike Cross Nationals qualifiers.
But that of course won't happen, which means the Lions won't have to face powerhouses like Ventura, Buchanan or Los Altos on their way to a state title.
The bigger question may be whether JSerra can see success at the national level, after a second-to-last place finish at the Nike Cross Nationals last season that Coach Chase Frazier called a "learning opportunity."
Related Links:
Ventura Sweep! Fast Horse, Engelhardt Claim Clovis Titles