ANALYSIS

Boys Teams - Division 2

Monroe looks to be the dominate team in Division 2. Their top 5 runners rank in the top 11 for division 2 runners based on Prelim results. William Rojas has been their front runner thus far but Rigoberto Castellanos has been improving quickly and could challenge.

Both Bravo Medical (ranked 2nd in division 2) and University (ranked 3rd) are well off the pace, with Bravo the decidedly better team between the two.

Venice’s James Jiminez had a brilliant Prelim, winning his heat and race in 16:08.7; the 2nd best time on the day. James may get some pressure from Monroe’s William Rojas but should take the Division 2 individual title. If he does, that will be the second year in a row that a Venice runner has won the Division 2 individual title; Juan Hernandez won in 2019 with a time of 15:45.73.

Boys - Division 3

There is a lot at stake in Division 3 in terms of both team and individual City titles. Franklin has never won a LA title title and has a very legitimate chance of accomplishing just that this Saturday. Though earlier in the season the probabilities appeared much more in their favor. In September Franklin’s top 5 were all breaking 18 minutes. At the time Verdugo Hills’ top 5 were struggling to break 20. But the optics may have been skewed. Franklin was running the very flat and fast LA State Historic Park course while Verdugo Hills was running Pierce. The fairer test was League Finals 2 weeks ago where both teams ran Pierce and Verdugo posted a much faster time; almost 2 minutes ahead of Franklin. Our intuition tell us that the City Finals will be a much closer contest!.

Individually, the City title will be a grudge match pitting Franklin’s Francisco Rodriguez and David Martinez against Reseda’s Jude Sandridge. Jude won their first head-to-head contest at the combined League Finals race 2 weeks ago. That race was nose-to-nose until the last 400 meters when Jude surged for the victory. Francisco has been Franklin’s top runner for most of the year but David Martinez has the ability to win this race as well.

This will be a fun one!

Boys - Division 4

East Valley and Maywood CES look to be the clear favorites in the Division 4 team rankings and we are picking East Valley to win. Maywood’s converted Elysian Park time is actually slightly better than East Valley’s Pierce time but East Valley wins on points in a hypothetical race and the experience on Pierce should be a benefit to East Valley in the final race.

East Valley’s Alexis Ramirez was the Valley League champ but he will face stiff competition from LACES Lucas Jia who posted the best Division 4 time at Pierce, 18:43.4.

Boys - Division 5

Oscar Del Hoya, Sun Valley, Stern, New West Charter, and Alliance Marine scored within 12 points of each other at the Prelims (this scoring includes Felix Carmona who was DQ’d because a parent/coach was pacing him up Puke Hill - we assume that won’t happen again) and anyone of these teams could win but in a final with 11 teams (2 more than prelims) Oscar Del Hoya looks tough to beat with the highest placing 5th runner of the group.

New West’s Brandon Adreani and William Bujake took 1st and 2nd in convincing fashion at Prelims and their 3rd runner Carson Severson took 4th. These front-runners for New West were so dominate that their team-time was 1:20 minutes better than Stern but they still lost on points. This disparity between their 3rd and 4th-5th runners will incur even more of a penalty at City Finals. Sun Valley Magnate senior Isidro Valdez should have a place in the top 3 but will be pushed by Stern’s top runner, sophomore Christian Alvarado Ortiz, who’s 18:34.6 performance at Prelims ranks him 3rd in Division 5. Alliance Marin’s top runner, barring any DQ’s, should be Felix Carmona.