Official Idaho HS XC 2023 Thread

Cody Lucas wins the boys race

Rocky pretty easily wins the boys race... 37 to 76 over Centennial. Centennial still missing 3 of their top 5 on paper. All 3 guys have better track credentials than Rocky's 2 and 3 in this meet.

Rocky missing Parker Goggins (looks like injury) and Heemeyer still.

IF way back, still not running top 2 guys. Timberline finishes with 86.

Cody Lucas ran 16:15 for the win. Corbin Johnston ran 16:36, Ihmels ran 16:42.

After runners are pulled out and some added back in that were missed, Rocky wins 58 to 63 over Timberline, Preston scores 67, Thunder Ridge scores 68.

Boise is pretty clearly the top girls team. Timberline is battling with Rocky for 2nd when they run their full girls team.

Cardinal classic speed ratings

Seems significantly lower rated than previous speed ratings on the course. Time will tell if it seems accurate for those who ran, but I didn’t have the sense it ran faster than an average year. Just looking at the Boise kids, it seemed to rate them much lower than I would have expected based on past performances. 5800’ and hot for the varsity races.

CDA is actually 7-deep based on this

athletic.net

Track & Field, Cross Country Results, Statistics

Meet results and team scores.

Link:www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/221...

50 second spread 1-7, 40 1-5.

Cervi-Skinner was closer to Stadtlander than Lucas was, and Jacob King is about the same.

31 points and 3 in front of Antonnen, who was 6 seconds up on Rocky’s 2nd fastest runner at Caldwell.

CDA put their 4 and 5 3 and 6 seconds behind Antonnen, where Rocky put their 4 and 5 23 and 27 seconds behind him at Caldwell.

CDA is very, very good.

CDA also had a freshman run 17:10 to win the JV section by a ton.

On JV, CDA’s top 4 were 3 freshmen and 1 sophomore

"Landon will be back for Firman" For those who didn't watch

Heemeyer and Lucas have a chance to be the better 1-2 punch against CDA. With Tuft running as their #3 at Tiger Grizz only 9 seconds behind Bryson Blaser and their #4 beating Carter Burdick by 8 seconds (15:59 guy from Caldwell, right behind the Capital kid Antonnen), it seems like Rocky's 3/4/5 have the potential to make the race with Boise and CDA interesting. Awesome to see 3 quality teams in the state right. All realistically Top 20-25 teams nationally.

My 5A Power Rankings:
1. CDA

2. Boise
3. Rocky Mountain
4. Centennial
5. Timberline
6. Mountain View
7. Eagle
8. Highland

Girls:
1. Boise
2. Rocky Mountain
3. Timberline
4. Thunder Ridge
5. Owyhee
6. Mountain View
7. Eagle
8. Highland

I think that Mountain View, Eagle, and Highland are probably pretty interchangeable for spots 6-8 on both genders. I think the top 4 teams are pretty clear at this point and it would take an off day by one or more runners for them to drop out of the top 4. 5A District III qualifies 7 teams. I think it will be Rocky, Boise, Mountain View, Timberline, Capital and Eagle that qualify in both genders. I think Centennial boys and Owyhee girls will grab the outstanding spots. The Capital girls are the team most likely to not qualify out of the teams listed, IMO. Borah could definitely grab that other spot. Capital and Borah are both very weak at 5 right now, but every remaining team in District III has bigger issues than they do.

In the spirit of the team power rankings, here are my 5A boys power rankings. Note that some of this is factoring last season track results as we are still pretty early in the season. This should shift around a lot by Firman.

1. Stadtlander- 3 for 3, 3 course records, has beat every big name at least once. Hard to argue that he isn't the guy to beat right now.
2. Heemeyer- It's hard to put him lower than 2 unless he comes back and struggles or the return takes longer than expected.
3. Max Cervi-Skinner- won the Libby Invite with a high speed rating, ran closer to Stadtlander than an Idaho guy has so far this year at Farragut.
4. Lucas- Under the old course record at Caldwell, but got dominated in the last 300m. Won TigerGrizz convincingly in a good time.
5. Helder- Raced well at Bogus, ran a good time at Cardinal Classic, has really good track credentials. Wish that the East Boise meet was still on so we could see him on a proven course.
6. Ringert- Probably the first guy where track credentials are carrying him a little bit in the rankings. I'm guessing it's a slower start to the season. Ran same time at Caldwell as he did last year, but then ran basically the same time at Firman a few weeks later and was the #3 Idaho guy there last year.
7. King- Has run well at 2 successive meets, looks to be CDA's #2 this year. He ran at the previous course record for Farragut, and has one good speed rating with a second likely incoming.
8. Blaser- I know that he lost to Ihmels head to head, but does have the win at Jimmy Driscoll in a superior speed rating, has better marks on the track, and TigerGrizz can be difficult for miler types.

9. Kemper- awesome track marks from 400-3200m. Hard to believe that his mark at Cardinal Classic is anything more than a rough day, but he definitely could get bumped down if he doesn't put a race together.

10. Ihmels- 2 high placements in a row, seems to have had a good summer, kind of seems like the first guy that doesn't have the potential to be top 5 on this list.

11-25 I'll just list without writeups.

11. Cervi-Skinner

12. May
13. Barton

14. Sheesley
15. Antonnen
16. Burdick
16. Carr

17. Tuft
18. Dodds

19. Richardson
20. Jensen (RM)
21. Brooks
22. Jensen (MV)
23. Orton
24. Jensen (Cent)
25. Marlatt

11-25 is such a crap shoot. To me, almost any one of those guys could be 11th or they could be 25th (or 30th for that matter). Some guys, like Lachlan May, have had a little slower start to the season but could easily be a top 5 guy at State.

I do feel like there will be someone who was top 10 at state last year with an awesome resume that finishes something like 15th and maybe not even because they had a bad day, just an okay day.

I do think that one thing that needs to be kept in perspective about when people are judging these teams is that any weakness 1-5 could result in someone finishing much lower than people anticipate.

The depth is so good this year that bad days are going to be really amplified. Boise, Rocky, and CDA are fairly well insulated against one guy having a bad day since they have multiple top 10 guys, but Timberline and Centennial could 100% finish in 8th place if the right guy struggles.

Your individual rankings seem fair based on what we’ve seen, but unless his injury is a major setback I still expect Heemeyer to be well ahead of everyone else at the end of the season. His best speed rating from last season was 45s faster than any speed rating Stadtlander has been given so far. Heemeyer also has much fast let 1600 and 3200 times.

That said, with a 49s 400 I would expect Stadtlander to win any race where he is allowed to be within kicking range at the end.

I think that's a fair point, however, with Stadtlander sitting on Cody Lucas until the 4700m mark and then beating him by 14 seconds, I think a few things:

1. There was a much better performance in Stadtlander.
2. I don't think Landon could have run 14:23 regardless of injury at any point in the last year and a half on that Caldwell course, and I don't think he's 1 minute better than Cody Lucas. 3. If Landon's performance is somewhere between 14:23 and 15:08, could he have run fast enough to run the kick out of Stadtlander?

I'm not sure the answer to that is yes, and I think that having to try to run the kick out of Stadtlander means that Landon will have to hammer early. That's hard enough when you have a complete buildup. It's going to be very difficult when you miss significant time.

Plus, I think Rocky is ready to roll earlier in the year than a lot of other teams. Not a criticism of them at all. Jeff Howard does a great job getting good performances for a couple of months on end. I don't think Stadtlander is in the same boat. He's a supreme talent and we're seeing his maturation.

Correction- Ringert was #5 Idaho guy at Firman. I meant #3 5A guy. The order was Heemeyer, Stockton Stevens, Sainsbury, Samuel Fish, Ringert, Clough, Cervi-Skinner, Hill, Stockett, Uitdewilligen.

Here are my girls rankings for 5A:

1. Bruce- easy enough. Hard to argue with her being the top girl.
2. Johnson- Win at Caldwell, 2nd at Tiger Grizz, 16 seconds up on Earl at Tiger Grizz.
3. Orme- 2nd at Bogus, 2nd at Cardinal Classic, good track credentials.
4. Courtney Earl- 3rd at Cardinal Classic, 3rd at Tiger Grizz. Barely lost to Orme at Cardinal Classic, lost by a decent amount to Johnson at Tiger Grizz.
5. Paisley Taylor- Opened with a 4th place finish at Caldwell, losing to Johnson, Pollock, and Sullivan, but turned around and had a 24 second win at Farragut over Sullivan and Carr (CDA Charter).
6. Stevens- Win at Jimmy Driscoll, narrow loss to Courtney Earl at Cardinal Classic
8. Sullivan- 2nd at Jimmy Driscoll, 3rd at Caldwell, 3rd at Farragut. Putting together a really nice season resume.
9. Ihmels- 6th in her HS opener, 4th at Tiger Grizz. I think she's getting the hang of racing and can likely move up.
10. Pollock- Struggled in a big way at Bogus, 2nd at Caldwell, 5th at Tiger Grizz. Seems like she can yo-yo back and forth on finish quality, especially considering the meltdown she had Districts track last year. Absolutely could be a top 5 girl, could also be 30th.

Same format- 11-25th ranked without comments.
11. K. Earl

12. Livingston
13. Sanford
14. Heywood

15. Baruch

16. Terry
17. Chitwood
18. Keyworth
19. Bonville
20. Misner
21. Kunkel
22. Hom

23. Cooper
24. Draney
25. Clark (Boise)

The Rocky Mountain girls are really hard to rank. Heywood struggles at Bogus, runs well at Caldwell, then is 10th at Tiger Grizz. Hom is 10th at Caldwell but then 17th at Tiger Grizz. Draney is 5th, but then 27th. When the Rocky girls are on, I think you could see them run closer to Boise than any other team, but if they are off, they could be 4th.