BOYS PRESEASON PICKS
Divisions 2-5
Boys Division 2
The Monroe team is daunting, both in terms of the talent of their top 5 scoring runners as well as the depth of the overall team. They are the clear favorites in Division 2 with 7 seniors filling the varsity roster. The Vikings have 4 returning runners from their varsity ’19 team including RigoBerto Castellanos, who is in top form after winning the 1,600m Invitational race at the City Championships in June. William Rojas, Andrew Camarena, and Jefler Alonzo also return from the ’19 varsity team and will be joined by a vastly improved Daniel Rivera as well as Nicolas del Angel, and Branden Valadez who have also improved over the last 18 months.
Helen Bernstein looks to have an early season advantage over Bravo Medical Magnet for the 2nd spot with Anthony Ragasa, Brandon Rivas, and relative newcomer Ferbin Orellana showing well early in the season. However, our sense is that the Bravo running machine, a program that is +100 athletes strong (boys and girls), will overtake Bernstein for the 2nd spot. Fabrizzio Romero and Oscar Sanchez return from the ’19 varsity Bravo team and join Christian Trujillo who has shown nice progress. Bernstein should get 3rd ahead of a Venice team who only has one returning runner, James Jimenez, from 2019 team.
Boys Division 3
Franklin made quite a stir at the City Track & Field Championships this past June when Francisco Rodriguez and David Martinez placed 2nd and 3rd, respectively, in the 1,600m and 3,200m Championship races. Early season XC results indicate this wasn’t a fluke. Based on their performances at the Cool Breeze Invite last week, where they both threw down massive PR’s, they now hold the top two City 3-mile times. In the process, Martinez set a new school record (15:38.6). They weren’t the only Franklin runners to show big improvements. Henry Montano ran almost a minute faster than his City Final time back in 2019. And senior Franklin Gonzales, in his 1st XC season and 3-mile race, ran a respectable 18:22. This team has a bunch of upside potential but not a lot of depth. If they can rally a 5th runner to a low 18-minute 3-mile by November, and stay healthy, the Panthers should be able clinch a City XC title for the 1st time in their school’s history.
Perennial contenders Verdugo Hills and Canoga Park will be looking to stop Franklin. Verdugo lost everyone except Fabrizio Valdivia from their ’19 Championship varsity team but have seniors Jeremiah Galloway and Jonathan Castro who were solid runners as sophomores back in 2019. They’ll need to recharge with some talented underclassmen to fill out their score card and compete in 2021.
For Canoga, Junior Carlos Argueta is the only returning runner from a ’19 team that was predominantly upper classmen. Sophomore Jesus Gonzales ran well this spring and should help The Hunters prospects this year. But like Verdugo they’re going to need some help from new runners. Canoga is running in their first race this weekend at the Ojai XC Invite so we’ll have a better idea of what this team looks like next week.
Coming out of the 2019 xc season Manual Arts, Los Angeles and Abraham Lincoln all had solid teams with talented younger runners that put them in good standing for a shot at the division 3 City title in 2021. But these schools had limited or non-existent track and cross-country seasons over the last 18 months and so we’ve ranked them below the teams that have maintained a running presence during COVID. Abraham Lincoln had two outstanding runners from 2019, Aidan Garcia and Sebastien Castaneda, that we’re hoping return this fall. Lincoln has their first league meet on September 27 at LA State Historical Park so we’ll see what these teams have in a few weeks.
Boys Divisions 4 & 5 - Overview
Division 4 and 5 schools look to have been more harshly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic than the other divisions. In the best of years these running programs are small. As a result they have fewer upper classmen overall and therefor tend to shore-up their varsity ranks with younger runners; typically the underclassmen make up close to 40% of the varsity team. We expect the team sizes to be even smaller this year, by a factor of at least 25%, and this shrinkage will effect juniors and seniors more. So our estimate is that underclassmen will make up closer to 65% of the varsity ranks on these teams. And, since most of these programs had no track or XC season in the intervening months, the remaining upperclassmen will need time to get back in form. So, our projections are that performance levels for these divisions will be lower overall for the remainder of the ‘21 XC season.
In addition to the factors above, there are several others that make forecasting division 4 and 5 teams difficult. For most of these teams there is no available data since November ‘2019, and then often only for a single post-season race. So, the dataset for these teams is typically very small and stale. Not ideal for forecasting! And the prospect for getting better insights on these teams as the season progresses isn’t much better, largely for the same reasons. With those caveats here goes…
Boys Division 4
In Division 4 Oscar de La Hoya will make a bid for the City title, continuing to show big improvements since 2018. After their 2nd place finish in 2019, Elizabeth Learning will be looking for a City title as well. Both Oscar de la Hoya and ELC have a large contingent of potential returnees from 2019 so the fate of these teams and the City title may rest with the team that can bring more of these runners into the ’21 season. City legend Roman Gomez has stepped down from head coaching duties at Belmont so we suspect this program will have to deal with a coaching change in an already difficult year.
Jesus Brito of Washington Prep has the best time of potential returning runners from 2019 but he hasn’t run since the City championship that year.
Boys Division 5
Sun Valley Magnate should dominate Division 5. Their returning runners from 2019 could compete at the division 1 or 2 levels; they were that good! The question is how many of these runners will return in ’21. Their top 2 returning runners, Mark Flores and Isidro Valdez, have been running since spring so hopefully they’re back and in top form. We’ll get our first look at the ’21 Sun Valley Magnate XC team at Woodbridge on September 18th.
New West Charter’s Brandon Adreani and Carson Severson are the top individual returnees from 2019. Miguel Macias from Central City Value was the only other returning runner to break 18 minutes at Pierce in ’19. But none of these runners have run a race in 2021 so race for the individual title could be wide open.