The St. Francis boys, CIF-SS and California State Div. IV champs, and the La Cañada girls, 3rd D4 at CIF and State, are the San Gabriel Valley’s best teams for 2022.

The Golden Knights narrowly edged out Arcadia, 5th in Div. I, with a considerable gap to Glendora (10th/Div. II) in 3rd. The girls had even greater strength at the top, with LCHS joined in the top 16 in the Southern Section by South Pasadena (5th/Div IV), Bishop Amat (6th/Div IV) and Claremont (5th/Div II), with an even bigger back to the SGV’s 5th-10th teams.

Lacking a single regional championship meet, and with the 75 schools of the SGV divided across five CIF divisions, we arrived at these results using each team’s final race at Mt.SAC. We made the SGV final “race” ten teams, 12.5% of the 80 teams that make CIF Finals, because the SGV’s population is about 12% of the area covered by the Southern Section.

We arrived at the final 10 by first doing a merge of the top 15 SGV teams on time, then removing teams 11-15 from that ranking, and then doing another merge with the remaining ten teams

So, here is the SGV’s Boy Cross Country Best for 2022…

And here are the SGV girls

The St Francis boys followed up their first CIF Championship with their first ever State Championship, winning the Div. IV race on the rolling 5000m course at Woodward Park in Fresno.

The Golden Knights were the first SGV boys team to reach the podium since Claremont were 3rd in 2019, and the first SGV Championship since Claremont in 2016.

St. Francis were led by senior Hayden Owen who was 14th/15:41 and big performances by juniors Luke Metcaff – 17th/15:46 and Samuel Franco 22nd/15:55

San Marino senior Benjamin Hughes, after a rough day at the CIF-SS meet, moved up to 4th to take All-State honors in the D4 race, and his 15:26 ranks =30th among SGV athletes on this course. Owen ran 15:29 at the Clovis Invite in October, and ranks =37th AT SGV

On the girls side, La Cañada returned to the podium for the second year in a row and for the sixth time ever with a third place finish in the tough Div. IV.

Spartan Soph Maya DeBrouwer was 5th/17:50 to earn All-State honors. Her course best 17:48 from the Clovis Invite ranks her 12th All-Time SGV

Three other SGV girls recorded All-Time Woodward Park performances at the state meet

• Emma Arredondo (Sr, Bishop Amat) – 18:08/=24th All-Time SGV
• Sophia Ebiner (Jr, Bishop Amat) – 18:13/=31st
• Abigail Errington (So, South Pasadena) – 18:20/40th

You can view the updated SGV All-Time lists for the Woodward Park Course and SGV Team performances at the State Meet here: