About

While running is predominantly an individual activity, Cross Country is a Team Sport. A complete Cross Country team consists of 5 to 7 runners. If a team has 4 or fewer runners, it is considered an incomplete team, and those runners are not included in the team scoring. The runners from all the complete teams are re-numbered without the runners from incomplete teams, and the places of the top 5 runners of each team are added up. The lower the score, the higher the placement for a team. The lowest (best) score a team can achieve is 15 if their top 5 finishers take 1st to 5th place. (At last year’s Division I State Championship, Newbury Park had a score of 16). If two teams have the same number of points, the tiebreaker is comparing the place of the 6th runner of the tied teams. So while the 6th and 7th finishers for a team don’t contribute to the points, their placement is still very important in case of ties, as well as causing anyone finishing after them to have a higher placement. Very often, team places are decided by 1 or 2 points so every place and every team member counts. A good team needs more than 1 or 2 amazing runners but needs 5-7 very solid runners to be successful.

The California State High School Sports Authority is the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF). The State is broken into 10 Sections. We are in the Central Coast Section (CCS).  The League we are in is the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League (SCVAL). In almost all sports, SCVAL is broken up into 2 divisions, the De Anza League (DAL) and El Camino League (ECL). Sometimes, DAL and ECL are referred to as divisions, and sometimes, referred to as leagues. For most sports, DAL is considered the “higher” division, and ECL is considered the “lower” division. Each sport has its own by-laws for promoting the top teams in the ECL and relegating the lower teams in the DAL (how often it’s done, how many teams move up and down, etc).  In Track & Field, for example, the top school in ECL gets promoted and the last school in DAL gets relegated every two years, taking into account the overall performance over a 2 year period of all 4 track teams (Varsity Boys, Varsity Girls, Frosh-Soph Boys, JV Girls) of the schools.

SCVAL Cross County does not promote or relegate.  The teams in each division are always fixed. We are in the DAL along with the other schools in our district: Monta Vista, Fremont, Lynbrook, and Cupertino, plus Saratoga and Los Gatos. ECL used to consist of 7 schools: Palo Alto, Gunn, Los Altos, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Wilcox, and Milpitas. The Santa Clara School District opened a new school this year, MacDonald HS, and MacDonald was added to the ECL. MacDonald only has 9th graders this year and will keep adding incoming frosh each year until it becomes a 4-year high school.

CIF Cross Country is broken into 5 divisions: I, II, III, IV, and V, with Division I having the largest schools in terms of student enrollment, and Division V having the smallest schools. But each Section gets to choose how to split the schools in their section into different divisions. (As a consequence, the size of the schools in Division I can vary dramatically from Section to Section.) Each Division crowns its own Champion.

For postseason purposes in Cross Country, DAL and EC are considered separate leagues. CCS rules are that the top half of the teams in a league’s championship qualify for the CCS championship, with the number rounded up for odd numbers. So for DAL, the top 4 teams out of 7 in the League Championship qualify for CCS. However, a league gets to send at least 1 school to CCS in each Division if it has at least 1 team. For example, in the past many years, Saratoga was in Division III, Lynbrook was in Division II, and all the other schools in DAL were in Division I.  As a consequence, Lynbrook and Saratoga automatically qualified for CCS regardless of how they did at League Finals. Additionally, teams can also qualify for CCS if their team times meet certain standards set each season (“at-large times”). There are also rules for individuals who finished near the top but are not on a qualifying team to qualify for CCS.

CCS Cross Country this year changed how it defined its divisions. CCS used to break up its ~125 schools equally with ~25 schools in each division. However, our average school size in Division I was significantly smaller than the average school size in the Southern Section (comprising most of Southern California). To help somewhat make up that disparity, we switched to a breakdown with fewer Division I teams, and more teams in the other divisions. As a consequence, we are the only Division I team in DAL this season, so we automatically qualify for CCS (But we still want to try to win our League Championship!). So for our Varsity Team members and those aspiring to be at the end of the season – keep the CCS championship weekend open.

Each section gets allocated a certain amount of qualifying spots in each Division for the CIF State Championship each year based on the performance of that section's teams at the State Championship over the past 4 years. This year 2 Boys Teams and 3 Girls Teams from CCS Division I qualify for CIF. (And again, there are also qualifying rules for top individuals who are not on qualifying teams) The CIF State Championship is always on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend at Woodward Park in Fresno (the same course as the Clovis Invitational that we will compete in.)

Coach Sealy has been the Head Cross Country Coach and Head Track and Field Coach at Homestead High School since 2005. Prior to his career as an educator and coach, he ran collegiately (at West Valley College and Northwest Missouri State University) as well as professionally.

Coach has led Homestead to an unprecedented level of success in the 2010s. The Varsity Boys Team qualified for the CIF State Championship 4 times (2013, 2015, 2016, 2019), and the Varsity Girls Team qualified for the State Championship 5 times (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017).  Many individual athletes on non-qualifying teams also qualified for and competed in the State Championship.

The pinnacle of the era was 2017. That year, Homestead won the DAL Championship for all 4 teams (VB, VG, FSB, and JVG). Additionally, the VG team won CCS for the 4th consecutive year that season. We are one of only two schools to accomplish that feat in Division I Cross Country (the other being Carlmont HS). At the State Championship, the team consisting of (in order of State Championship Finish): Sr Elena Kamas, Sr Rebecca Hassar, Jr Katie Williams, Jr Anisha Chandra, Fr Teia Chou, Sr Jillian O’Brien, and So Melissa Chen, finished in 9th place in the State, the best ever finish for a Homestead Cross Country team. And a mere 4 points separated the difference between 6th and 9th place (every point counts!). Elena graduated as the top girl runner in Homestead Cross Country history, breaking numerous Homestead records over her 4 years, many of them formerly belonging to Joan Fox, who graduated in 1979 (and who was a classmate and friend of mine from my Homestead days!). Elena and Rebecca finished as two of the overall top distance runners at Homestead, both breaking the 5:00 min mark in the 1600m during their track careers. All 7 girls on the 2017 team were capable of running sub-5:30 miles – demonstrating you need more than stars, but a solid team of 7 for a Cross Country team to be very successful.

Covid has disrupted so many things, including athletics in general, and our Cross Country team the past couple of years. But with the dedication and hard work of all our current and future team members, we hope to achieve a similar level of success in the 2020s!