Lex Young brought it today

The #1 American true freshman should be better than 74th, especially one that ran 13:34 in high school all while breaking a variety of HS records along the way. Many true freshman (Americans) have placed in the Top 25 (much higher than Lex) with far less HS accolades. With that said, the NCAA XC National meet is the hardest race to win in college. Just makes you realize how special guys like Kennedy and Goucher were. Goucher was 2nd as true frosh in ‘93 and Kennedy won as true frosh in ‘88.

I'm curious if any of them will qualify for nationals in indoor.
Don't forget that guy from Washington. He'll have a lot of teammates. I think he and Luke Houser might make a good run at the 3000

We all know very well those aren’t really freshmen. Denis Kipngetich is 22 for crying out loud!

I'm with you on this dear Rojo! I know how it's like being ripped as a legit RF King on LRC here so I don't know how anybody can rip a legit starlet like Lex!

You can't make that comparison, this current era of running is way tougher than Ritz's. That being said, Stanford really sh!t the bed yesterday.

Out of all the superstar high school distance running seniors from this past spring . . . only Lex, Leo and Hunter Jones/Wake Forest were able to make it to NCAAs yesterday . . . and Jones finished 171.

Rocky Hansen was the only guy from that elite hs senior group who made heads turn this fall . . . until he got injured . . . but that's part of being great at anything . . . the best ability is availability . . . and Lex, Leo and Hunter were the only ones available.

In my book, those 3 did all right . . .

The race was in March when Nico got 4th. Lex probably finishes around 40ish (back end of all-Americans) given another 4 months of training.

What?

As a senior, Ritz was also third at World Junior XC behind Bekele, while the freshman Matt Tegenkamp, the U.S. junior champ, was 5th.

As a Coloradoan that thought Cole Sprout was the greatest runner in CO HS history (and he probably was/still is), he has been fairly disappointing in the NCAA. I am guessing he had some injury issues I don't know about, but aside from the one year he was 15th he's really fallen behind his peers.

Nico had a much longer build up to the NCAAs that season -- four additional months to get in the training.

Sprout has been very inconsistent but he's had some really solid moments, he was All-American 4 times in track last year and ran 13:24, so I wouldn't call his career disappointing, but I do agree that if he wants a pro contract he's got to step it up just a little bit

Someone needs to make a graph of the ncaa finishers with their best 3k/5k/10k time. I expect 13:34 is more like top 25 on average than top 75. Granted as you get back that far, 15s can be a ton of places..

Top true US frosh at 2022 NCAAs: Izaiah Steaury/ND . . . 63rd.

Back in 151st: Colin Sahlman/NAU.

I would postulate that the days of a true US frosh male runner . . . even at age 19 . . . making top-10 at NCAAs . . . just 5 months after graduating from hs . . . are long over . . .

Long over? Nico Young was 4th his frosh year in 2020 (yes…i know it was ran in March 2021).

The challenging thing right now is all the Covid kids (those who got an extra year) that are still in the NCAA system…many running up to 24 years old (a few even older).

Used a figure of speech . . . but yes . . . Nico was the last true-frosh US male to make top-10 that we will see, maybe in our lifetimes . . . and Nico did it during the Covid year when NCAA Indoors was held a few days before . . . when coaches had to decide which event to attend . . . so the xc field was well watered down.

Try this on for size: does anyone believe that the Nico Young who finished 4th in March 2021 . . . could have made top-10 on Saturday? . . . or even at last year's NCAAs? . . . just look at all the sub-28:30/10k & sub-13:30/5k stars he would have had to beat . . .

Not trying to bag on Nico at all . . . he's been fantastic for US distance running . . . but he simply took advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime situation offered to him a couple years back . . . and made the most of it.

Of course hunter jones finished the season his coach probably had him running 6min pace and 50miles a week all season. Hunter Jones ran faster as a freshman in high school than this years xc season….Wake Forest is a massive disappointment…. Rocky was probably running off of talent versus training. The best recruiting class in history for Wake and they were terrible.

Max Murphy from U of Iowa was 240th at the 1k mark and then climbed up to 69th by the finish of the race 👀

This is a fallacy. You're just looking at times and making assumptions but the truth is Lex and Dathan have little in common besides High School PRs. Ritz was an XC guy and had good chops for road racing as well, particularly the half marathon. The track was never truly his forte, despite the level of performances he put up like his sub 13:00 5k in Zurich and his 10k at the world championships, in I think '09?

Ritz was a world junior bronze medalist in XC as a high schooler which is more impressive than any of his performances on the track in HS, including qualifying for the USATF championships where he ran 13:44. All due respect to Lex Young, but he didn't even win at NXN as a senior.

XC and Track are not the same. You're on here comparing a very good high school runner's progression to arguably the best high school XC runner of all time. Truth is most true freshman don't race so well at NCAA's. Guys like Ben Sorrel and Edward Cheserek, and certainly Ritz are outliers (but i bet you don't even know who Sorrel is.) Luis Grijalva was 65th in 2017 as a true frosh. Cooper Teare was 41st. Both guys are top level talents now but these things take time. Lex may never be as good of a grass runner as he is on the track, which still won't matter because all the money is on the roads.