That's where the Mustangs finished in the East Bay Athletic League last year. Usually after a year like that, a team might hope to finish a spot or two higher, perhaps even make it into the top three.
The Mustangs' goals were in another stratosphere this year. They wanted to peak at the North Coast Section championships.
Check.
They wanted to finish in the top 10 at the California Interscholastic Federation championships in Fresno.
They did that, too.
How can a team turn its fortunes around so quickly and dramatically?
It started one week last summer, according to first-year head coach Mike Davis. Davis was an assistant on last year's team, a younger group without a senior in its top seven runners.
Not only was the team a tad inexperienced, it also suffered injuries to key juniors Bhavik Kanzaria and Danny Bartz during the season.
Knowing he had a lot to work with going into 2007, Davis sent his kids off to the Northern California redwoods in Arcata.
"We went to a running camp for the first time. We'd always had a summer running program that was inconsistent (in prior years)," Davis said. "Both the boys and girls went to Humboldt State running camp."
For a team whose previous season was hampered by injuries, the workouts and stretching program the runners learned at Humboldt, a perennial NCAA Division II cross country power, were important. The work ethic they brought home might have had even more of an effect.
"There were a lot of hard workouts. We did two workouts a day," said Bartz, a top-seven runner and team captain for the Mustangs. "It set the tone for the rest of our season and how hard it was going to be."
Davis had a plan to make sure the team peaked at the end of the season, but it was a group of closely-matched runners that made it happen by getting the most from every workout.
Monte Vista had a new motto this year, one that pushed the runners to their limits each training day.
"When we did a tough workout day, eight to 10 repeats of some distance, Danny would say 'we're doing 10, go big or go home,' " Davis said.
By going big during practice, the Mustangs saw their times improve all year long.
"The last couple years we weren't taking it as seriously as we did this year, we would go out on fun runs," said Kanzaria, the team's top runner. "This year we would always go for the highest amount that we had to do."
Monte Vista's depth helped as well. Not only were the Mustangs the largest group in the EBAL at over 150 kids, their top runners ran together.
"We all trained together during our workouts, we would concentrate on packing," said junior Mike Roderick, a consistent top-three performer for the Mustangs. "The difference between our first and fifth runner and our first and seventh was important."
Their pack mentality helped push the Mustangs to get better as the year went on, but it was Amador Valley High that made it a necessity. Amador was a dominant team, regularly finishing just ahead of Monte Vista throughout the year.
After losing again to the Dons at the EBAL championships, Monte Vista had one more chance to defeat its toughest nemesis at the season's most important race, the North Coast Section championships in Hayward.
"We should have won our league meet. Training our next two weeks for NCS we could see we were closing on (Amador) through the year," Davis said.
At the North Coast Section meet, the Mustangs ran the race they had been waiting for all season and won the team championship, beating second-place Amador Valley 66-91 and earning trips to the CIF championship for Kanzaria, Roderick, Harry Nunns, Clinton McAdams, Connor Donley, Dustin Harris and Bartz.
Once they reached their goal of making it to the state meet, the Mustangs decided they weren't just happy to be there, even if simply getting to state was the goal when the year started.
"We thought if we went to state we could just relax and have a good time," Kanzaria remembered. "But when we got to state we wanted to do something big."
After getting better all year long, their last race may have been Monte Vista's best. The first results posted showed the Mustangs finishing in eleventh place, just one point behind Davis High. Fittingly, that result got even better after the race was over.
"Fifteen minutes later somebody came up to us and said, 'Congratulations on 10th place.' They messed up the results the first time." said Kanzaria, who led Monte Vista with a time of 16 minutes, 01 seconds on the 3-mile course in Fresno.
The Mustangs were suddenly the fastest team in Northern California, an amazing feat for a team that finished second-to-last in it own league just a year before.
"We went crazy. We made a deal with our coach before, if we made top 10 he would take us golfing ... I've never really golfed before but I'll enjoy it," Kanzaria said.
Monte Vista's girls team didn't make it to state, but its improvement from 2006 was nearly as remarkable as the boys' leap forward.
"The girls were actually last in league last year," Davis said. "They did the same thing, they went to camp, they trained in a pack, they really did the same workouts the guys did."
Like the boys, girls saved their best for last, going from fourth in the EBAL to finishing fourth in NCS, the second best EBAL squad at Hayward behind Granada.
"(The girls) didn't make state but just two away. Kind of a young team without any proven superstars so I was really proud of them," Davis said.
