California HS XC 2023 CIF

It's a little early for XC predictions. We need to see track results, then summer mileage, double tempos, and super shoes.

I think on the boys side, Ventura will be the favorite if seniors FastHorse, DeGeorge, Grossman, Costa, and Hummel are healthy come state. They also have incoming soph Harris who could add depth. And a couple of incoming juniors fighting for the 7th spot.

For rest of the NXN spots, it will be a fight between Trabuco Hills, San Clemente, and Great Oak. Oakdale will be on the outside looking in.

Not sure how many at-large teams there will be in CA this fall.

I think the top guys not on qualifying teams will be:
Jason Parra (8:46), Grant Morgenfeld (8:49), Evan Noonan (8:49), Carter Spralding (8:50), Emmanuel Perez (8:50), Andreas Dybdahl (4:08), Aydon Stefanopoulos (8:57), Joshua Bell (8:55), and Broen Holman (9:01).
Anthony FastHorse (8:51) will be up there but his team will go to NXN if all goes well, leaving room for other individuals to qualify

Doshi from NP is a darkhose to go to NXN. He ran a 9:02 in track in 2022 as a soph

Dev doshi is ROLLED!

bro is washed he was out the entire 2022 xc and 2023 track season essentially

He did race XC in 2022.
He also raced the 2-mile - 9:33 at New Balance Nationals indoor.
Also a 4:23 1600 outdoors at Thousand Oaks invitational

He is also at the Big Bear with Lex/ Leo/ Cantu/ Seymour
The problem is that he won’t have those guys to train with during the season.
He will have Shetty but a 9:15 isn’t really good enough to qualify for NXN individually

You can’t really tell from track times, besides Chris Caudillo and maybe Donis, none of the NXN individuals from California ran any insane times the track season before

Another huge jump like the one he made from XC 2021 to XC 2022 to track 2023 and Shetty may have a shot

On the girls side, Buchanan will be a clear #1 again.

Other spot(s) for NXN will be a battle between JSerra Catholic, Cathedral Catholic, and Campolindo.

Los Altos and Newbury Park are both looking to have a very good top 3, but will need to have a 4&5 up with their 3rd to make NXN

Word on the street is that JSerra is getting two or three really good transfers to add to their loaded roster. They have as much talent as Buchanan and should be really tough to beat. Since Campolindo is not in a super competitive division at CIF, they might be the odd ones out in the merge this year.

Campolindo has Cathedral Catholic in their division, so they will have someone to push them. There’s also a chance that CA can send an at-large team

WOW, Ventura has to have a new coach lined up?

Cathedral Catholic seems to be a more mid-distance focused school than an XC powerhouse. They improved a lot in track but Campolindo beat them pretty handily last season, so I expect more of the same this year. Cathedral Catholic's #1 returner from XC is transferring to JSerra too.

Wow…so JSerra returns all of their 1-5 from NXN and adds 2 or 3 valued transfers (one of them being the top returner for Cathedral Catholic), so this team is now getting deeper too. They may be in the conversation of teams to win NXN this year, or at least make the podium.
Buchanan is losing 2 of their scorers

Any thoughts on Oaks Christian?
They took 5th at state last year, but they were only 4-deep, so now they have an elite 1&2 but they will need to have 3 more to step up to qualify

Looks like Buchanan and JSerra will be the favorites to qualify for NXN on the girls side