CIF Preview

Girls Fight Morro Bay For Final(s) Slot

Only 5 teams from each heat advance to the Finals and the first 4 slots are pretty much taken.  The fifth and last one is up for grabs and it increasingly looks like a match race in the rain between Morro Bay and San Marino for that last ticket.  It should be exciting.  The two teams are closely matched.  Alissa and MB’s Rachael Jelstrom are roughly equivalent and figure to offset each other.  After that, it is a story of two packs for Morro Bay  It appears that a healthy Veronica can beat that first pack.  Sarah may also be faster.  The question becomes: Can Caitlin break into their first group?  If the two sets of times are comparable, then she can.

The real battle takes place after the first 4 girls cross the finish line for each team.  The winner may be determined by the performance of the fifth girl.  Morro Bay has depth at this position and can place any one of their three remaining girls ahead of us.  That is a clear scoring advantage as they can use the power of the 6th and 7th runners to displace us.  We will need the race of the season from Lindsay or Marissa or Marina.  One of them will need to crack that pack.  Rain or no rain, this is going to be fun!  And memorable.

Weather Forecast

Men

OCvarsity.com Rankings as of October 4th:

1. Don Bosco Tech
2. Salesian
3. Crespi
4. Big Bear
5. Laguna Beach
6. Nordhoff
7. JSerra
8. Harvard-Westlake
9. Twentynine Palms
10. Fillmore

Notes: Don Bosco Tech retains the No. 1 spot, with Crespi slipping past Salesian into the No. 2 spot. Laguna Beach moves up a spot despite a second place finish at the Orange Coast League cluster last week. JSerra falls two spots to No. 7 after finishing fourth at the Trinity League preview meet.

Dyestat has it this way as of October 10:

1. Don Bosco Tech
2. Salesian
3. Crespi
4. Big Bear
5. Fillmore
6. Notre Dame/S.O.
7. Harvard-Westlake
8. JSerra
9. Laguna Beach
10. Nordhoff

Notes: Fillmore was highly touted in preseason but seemed to get out of the gates slowly. The Flash is now picking up steam with the home stretch still to come. Nordhoff drops a few spots while Notre Dame moves up after a nice showing at the Mission League cluster meet.

Remember, we need to place 7th or better in order to go to State.  We can use South Pasadena as a proxy for us when we look at the competition.  They have competed in a lot of invitationals against many of these teams.  We are about 4+ minutes slower than SoPas.  That indicates that we would have run about 1:28:00 at the Clovis Invitational.  The slowest of the ranked teams at Clovis was Laguna Beach - at 1:26:40.  Obviously, we have our work cut out for us.  We need to get a minute and a half faster.  Who will step up?

Girls

OCvarsity.com rankings as of October 10th:

1. JSerra
2. Harvard-Westlake
3. Mayfield
4. La Reina
5. Flintridge Sacred Heart
6. El Segundo
7. Laguna Beach
8. Paraclete
9. Bishop Montgomery
10. Notre Dame/Sherman Oaks/Morro Bay

Notes: JSerra heads the top of the rankings again and should gain a berth into the sweepstakes race at the Orange County Championships. Mayfield and La Reina switch places in this week’s rankings, as Mayfield moves to third and La Reina drops to fourth. Laguna Beach moves into the rankings at seventh this week.

Dyestat has it this way as of October 10:

1. JSerra
2. Harvard/Westlake
3. Mayfield
4. La Reina
5. Flintridge Sacred Heart
6. El Segundo
7. Laguna Beach
8. Paraclete
9. Bishop Montgomery
10. Morro Bay/Notre Dame S.O.

Notes: Mayfield's upswing continues while La Reina's health battles remain an issue. Paraclete is the only 2011 newcomer to the girls rankings, appearing for the first time.

Once again, we’ll use South Pasadena as our proxy at Clovis.  Our girls are about 9 minutes lower than SoPas.  That would put our Clovis team time at about 1:49:00.  Here are the team times for the ranked teams that ran Clovis: