There's no doubt Flower Mound started off the season strong only to come up short. Perhaps they peaked too early, or perhaps, the other Texas teams peaked better as the season progressed. With that said, this past NXR race shows that even with Maier not at his best (after winning the Texas state meet in a phenomenal time the previous week), they are still interchangeable with the top teams on any given day. Perhaps not running Eddie Marcoe in their elite roster line-up was a mistake and might have change things for them, seeing as how FM's bottom runners were under-performing comparatively speaking at State and again at NXR South (then again, Carroll had some guys in the Open race run extremely well also, but we'll never know for sure anyways how they would have ran in the elite race for all these guys).
Fun Fact #1:This is the second year in a row that The Woodlands has won the Texas Boys state meet, only to fail at the NXR Regional race and miss out on nationals. It seems this year the Texas state champion team (again) AND the state individual/fastest champion (Alex Maier) will miss out on nationals. I'm not sure if this system needs some revising or what, seeing as how I find it strange that the Texas state champion team is missing out on the national meet when it's usually only Texas teams every single year being sent from the South region. I think the last time I remember a non-Texas team was either the Tuledo? Girls (and in my opinion, it was a mistake), and maybe there was a boys team somewhere recently?
Fun Fact #2: The girl's team that won Texas State was Coppell (2nd FM, 3rd Prosper). Interestingly enough, both Coppell and the Woodland boys finished 4th at NXR South despite winning state.
Anyways, here are the facts & results for Flower Mound this year (and a small tidbit from 2018):
2017: They finished 14th at Nike Cross Nationals, returning all but their #3 and #4:
14 Maier, Alex JR FLOWER MOUND 15:31.5
53 Kirk, Jarrett SO FLOWER MOUND 15:58.9
161 Flint, Johnathan SO FLOWER MOUND 16:58.5
190 Romanow, Thomas SO FLOWER MOUND 17:28.4
195 Marcoe, Edward JR FLOWER MOUND 18:09.5
Head-to-head against top teams:
Marcus I Invitational
1) Flower Mound - 73
2) Southlake Carroll - 129
Southlake Carroll Invitational
They ran only their top 4 (so they weren't scored) at the Southlake Carroll Invitational, but their top 4 performed really well against all the teams there including Southlake Carroll who won the race in 50 points.
Nike South Invitational
1) Flower Mound - 46
2) The Woodlands - 63
Region 1
1) Southlake Carroll - 79
2) Flower Mound - 95
Texas 6A State:
1) The Woodlands - 99
2) Southlake Carroll - 113
3) Flower Mound - 117
Alex Maier won the state meet, and Kirk finished 7th.
NXR South
1) Eastwood - 121
2) Carroll - 137
3) Flower Mound - 142
4) The Woodlands - 158
1 Jarrett Kirk Flower Mound A XC 15:41.2
32 Alex Maier Flower Mound A XC 16:40.88
38 Johnathan Flint Flower Mound A XC 16:43.22
61 Thomas Romanow Flower Mound A XC 16:55.49
98 Nathanael Villalon Flower Mound A XC 17:14.54
102 Jacob Ricks Flower Mound A XC 17:17.39
123 Colin Lau Flower Mound A XC 17:28.88
Random tidbit on the girls:
There's no doubt this season have been very, hectic to say the least. The girl's is less chaotic, with the exception of state, where Coppell pulled off a huge surprise victory over Flower Mound (who has been completely dominate this season). The top 2 favored teams to qualify for NXR were FM and Prosper, who made it out. Southlake Carroll has been 3rd all season, besides that one surprising victory by Coppell at state--- they have literally beaten Coppell in 3-4 races, once at Woodbridge (by around 8 team places), Region 1 meet, McNeil Invitational, and so forth. I would love to argue for an invite for them, but I do not believe they are a better than comparatively speaking than the FM Boys. They finished 19th last year with a roster than only returned 3 of their previous top 7.