Most Underrated High School Distance/Mid-D Runners

The Schumacher kids at Jesuit HS in Portland OR. Yes, Jerry's kids. Expect great things soon.

Logan Mackay from Davis HS in Utah, he ran a US #3 1:50.5 on friday and broke Ben Saarels overall state record, completley solo I'm pretty sure.

Also Casey Clinger

Josh Hoey, only a sophomore and won Penn Relays mile.

Here is the biggest helping hand to all the college coaches near and far.......Maybe the best talent in the country that basically nobody outside of west Texas knows about yet:

Jake Merrell - Turkey Valley, Texas HS

Has run 1:51.6 and 1:51.8 this year. In the race he ran his fastest time he won by 18 seconds (Yes 2nd place was 2:09). We are talking the smallest of small meets you can imagine. His other race he won by 12 - 14 seconds.

He is 6 foot 2 and only a sophomore. Plays football, basketball, cross country and I think baseball. No teammates faster than 5:55/2:19 and most likely no amazing coaches. This is a school district with with 217 kids from Kindergarten through 12th grade.

So you want to know the most underrated or completely unknown high school mid distance runner, there you go.

In response to the above post regarding Jake Merrell...

He is now a senior, and just ran the 800m in 1:50.45 to win his region by about 12 seconds. Amazing that he can do that solo from a 1A school, the smallest classification in Texas. Although I wasn't there, it was likely very windy at the meet with it being in west Texas (Levelland, near Lubbock).

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/MeetResults.aspx?Meet=345009&show=all

How about Colton Bogucki of Loudoun Valley after his 3:00, 1:51, 4:10 triple at NB Indoor Nats

Great call on Jake 2 years ago. He is going to Baylor. Colton has never been underrated. He is a great distance runner going to Virginia.

Jake had a verbal from Baylor before track season was over his sophomore year. I'm not saying he'll light the world on fire (I'd think a 1:51 soph would do better than 1:50 as a senior), but other schools had their chance, indeed.

Hastey is the most underrated.

Every single track athlete on the planet is properly rated via their time. That’s the convenient thing about a timed sport with standard distances.

These threads are all stupid and all started by morons.

Not entirely true. Some runners are champions but they don’t run against the clock.

Predictor wrote:

Not entirely true. Some runners are champions but they don’t run against the clock.

Whatever.

ChadBrad wrote:

Predictor wrote:

Not entirely true. Some runners are champions but they don’t run against the clock.

Whatever.

Yeah, but if you are one of those "talents" who always has a great pr, but always comes in 6th place even though your within a second of winner, guess what? 6th place in the 100 meters is still 6th place. You can't get points, you suck for you're team. Place matters, wins matter.

If 100 HS boys can break 4:15, give me the ones who win the most. The guy who has a 4:12 but never wins is a less valuable recruit than 4:14 with 20 wins.

Thad wrote:

ChadBrad wrote:

Whatever.

Yeah, but if you are one of those "talents" who always has a great pr, but always comes in 6th place even though your within a second of winner, guess what? 6th place in the 100 meters is still 6th place. You can't get points, you suck for you're team. Place matters, wins matter.

If 100 HS boys can break 4:15, give me the ones who win the most. The guy who has a 4:12 but never wins is a less valuable recruit than 4:14 with 20 wins.

Noted. Thad thinks slower runners are better than faster runners.

ChadBrad wrote:

Noted. Thad thinks slower runners are better than faster runners.

I think there's a little bit of sense to it.

A fast runner that is a huge standout from their teammates and runners from around the same area is probably more talented than a fast runner that runs just as fast as their own teammates and local competition.

The fast runner who isn't a standout at all probably trained in an intensive program with faster teammates, and had fast competition to race against each meet.

The fast standout runner probably didn't run in a very intensive program and was able to do better off of less training, indicating more talent. They were also able to achieve their times without as much competition, meaning that they weren't pushed to their limit as much.

slowmsrunner wrote:

ChadBrad wrote:

Noted. Thad thinks slower runners are better than faster runners.

I think there's a little bit of sense to it.

A fast runner that is a huge standout from their teammates and runners from around the same area is probably more talented than a fast runner that runs just as fast as their own teammates and local competition.

The fast runner who isn't a standout at all probably trained in an intensive program with faster teammates, and had fast competition to race against each meet.

The fast standout runner probably didn't run in a very intensive program and was able to do better off of less training, indicating more talent. They were also able to achieve their times without as much competition, meaning that they weren't pushed to their limit as much.

You can concoct any scenario you want to make either runner look better. Maybe the slower guy with more wins just happens to be in a conference with two other guys who are exactly half a second slower and he barely wins and he has excellent coaching. And the faster guy poorly coached and is chasing five 4:08 kids.

Here’s what you know: one is faster. If the other guy runs faster than him, he’s faster. That’s how you rank them.

There’s a reason you qualify for track championship meets on time and not wins. And the winner of the championship meet runs the fastest time.

Most meets these days are not that fast. Runners at all levels are strategic in their races. The NCAA holds 2 regionals but doesn’t like to call them that. Yes you qualify on time but then it is all in place to move to nationals. One regional could run 4:00 in the 1500 while the other runs 3:40. The same number of guys qualify. King Chez is one of the best examples of a guy who seemed to run just hard enough to win. Centro is very good at controlling the pace of his races. The bottom line is that good times can’t be overlooked but some guys are very good at winning even though they don’t have the same PRs.

Grace Ping