Though it is taken for granted that the California State Cross-Country Meet is dominated by the Southern Section (S.S.) and by division 1 teams, to my knowledge that dominance has never been quantified. The same is true of other sections and divisions. In the below, I have quantified the relative strength of each section and division, both inter- and intra-divisional.
In the 1st & 3rd columns, I compared the median for each section/division to the overall median and standard deviation* (1:25:51 & 0:04:27 for boys, 1:42:03 & 0:04:41 for the girls). This gave a z-score that shows the relative strength of each section/division across all divisions. On the boys side, of those divisions with sections faster than the overall median, d. 1 has 6 representatives, d. 2 has 5, d. 3 has 4, d. 4 has 1 and d. 5 has none. On the girls side, d. 1 and 2 have 5, d. 3 has 3, d. 4 has 1 and div. 5 has none.
In the 2nd & 4th columns, I compared the median for each section/division to the median and standard deviation* within each division. This shows the relative strength of sections/divisions within divisions.
Columns 1 & 3 show that, at the inter-divisional level, the (S.S.) division 1 boys & girls (boys z = -1.083, girls z = -1.261) dominate. When compared to teams only within divisions, S.S. d. 1 still comes out stronger than everyone else, but less so. The S.S.'s relative strength becomes obvious using this 2nd metric. Only North Coast Section (N.C.S.) d. 5 girls interrupt total S.S. dominance of the top 5 for each sex.
S.S. d. 1 boys median team-time is 1:20:43. This puts it fully 2,2% (1:45) faster than the 2nd fastest median, that of the San Diego Section (S.D.S.) d. 1 (1:22:28). S.S. d. 1 girls median is 1:36:09 compared to 1:37:53 (1,8% faster) for the 2nd fastest group, S.D.S. d. 1.
Outside of the S.S., section strength is fairly evenly spread. On the boys side, of the 15 sections/divisions performing faster than the intra-divisional median, the N.C.S. has 3, Central Coast Section (C.C.S.), S.D.S. & Central Section (C.S.) have 2 and the Sac-Joaquin Section has 1. On the girls side, of the 11 sections/divisions performing faster than the intra-divisional median, the N.C.S. has 3, S.D.S. has 2, and the C.C.S. 1.
*because California State Cross-Country results are so skewed to the right of the curve, the mean is not of much use. I use medians for this reason. I also base the standard deviation ("sigma") on the median. This is to say that I determine outliers by eliminating times from the mean until it and the median are as close to equal as possible. Occasionally this means eliminating times on the left side of the curve, but nearly always it means eliminating those on the right side.
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