Would also be good to have Highland and Lauren-Ping-lead Desert Vista girls team on the watch list. Both teams Finished in the top 2 at the Arizona state meet and these teams will mostly consist of seniors this year
Projected top runner for boys in each region: New York - Matt Rounds Heartland - Simeon Birnbaum California: Lex or Leo Young Southeast: Rocky Hansen Midwest: Connor Burns Northwest: Tyrone Gorze Northeast: Devan Kipyego South: Marcelo Parra Southwest: Tayson Echohawk
Projected top runner for girls in each region: New York - Karrie Baloga Heartland - Abbey Nechanicky California: Sadie Engelhardt Southeast: Irene Riggs Midwest: Tatum David Northwest: Kate Peters Northeast: Ellie Shea South: Samantha Humphries Southwest: Bethany Michalak
To be completely honest, on the boys side for New York it’s a toss up in terms on who the best runner will be in that region. It will either be Ashton Bange or Peter McMahon. They always finished close to each other in XC races last fall and the order is not always the same in terms of who finishes in front of who. I picked Matt Rounds because he won the region but the other 2 did not run NXR.
Ronan Luff and Sebastian Marietta ran a sub-9:10 at Loucks Games. But those times were way faster than in other races they ran.
I believe Cox was injured prior to runninglane as well. Raced sparingly and didn’t have any stand out performances during the season. Ran slower than his sophomore years times at Derryfield park and mine falls. Along with a fairly lackluster new England’s placing at thetford. I still don’t even know how he managed that running lane race, but that may have been last great performance we’ve seen out of him in high school.
Yeah he probably raced out of his mind at Garmin. Other than that he seemed inconsistent. At the black bear invite he lost to a bunch of nonseniors.
Burns and Hansen are great milers, not so much XC. They probably won't finish top 5 at either national meet. Gorze should be higher up, he got 6th at Eastbay behind 4 seniors.
Burns is NOT a miler. He is a long distance guy.
Also know that Burns and Hanson went sub-8:50 in the 2 mile. They were the only 2 that did that this past spring. Pretty impressive although the Sahlmans and Youngs did not run in that.
Projected top runner for girls in each region: New York - Karrie Baloga Heartland - Abbey Nechanicky California: Sadie Engelhardt Southeast: Irene Riggs Midwest: Tatum David Northwest: Kate Peters Northeast: Ellie Shea South: Samantha Humphries Southwest: Bethany Michalak
I just saw that Abbey Nechanicky ran a 10:10.07 in the full 2 mile (converts to a 10:06.53 3200) @ NBNO. She was less than 7 seconds behind the winner, Angelina Perez. And yet Nechanicky still is running low miles while recuperating from a stress fracture.
Yeah, I think she's got the momentum going into the Fall XC season.
Boys 1. Leo Young - finished second at RunningLane. Lex had a faster 3200 time but Leo finished his season sooner 2. Lex Young - fastest 3200 in the nation. But finished behind Leo at nationals 3. Aaron Sahlman - 3rd nonsenior to finish at RunningLane 4. Chris Claudillo - fastest 3200 time by someone not named Lex or Leo Young 5. Connor Burns - 8:48 3200, and a 4:58 mile 6. Rocky Hansen - 8:51 3200, and 4 flat mile 7. Aidan Cox - best nonsenior at RunningLane not from Newbury Park 8. Devan Kipyego - really stepped up his game with his 4:05 mile! 9. Kole Mathiason - fastest nonsenior at Eastbay champs 10. Tyrone Gorze - second fastest nonsenior at Eastbay champs Watchlist: Kevin Sanchez, Keegan Smith, Zach Munson, Jason Parra, Simeon Birnbaum, Milo Skapinsky, Gus Clevenger, Jacob Laney, Patrick Koon, Wes Shipsey, Grant Pierce, Ford Washburn, Jimmy Wischusen, Brayden Seymour, Jackson Heidesch, William Schneider, Hunter Jones, Tayson Echohawk, Rendon Kuykendall
Also NBP’s Martinez and that 9:02 Soph from NBP no one talks about.
Boys 1. Leo Young - finished second at RunningLane. Lex had a faster 3200 time but Leo finished his season sooner 2. Lex Young - fastest 3200 in the nation. But finished behind Leo at nationals 3. Aaron Sahlman - 3rd nonsenior to finish at RunningLane 4. Chris Claudillo - fastest 3200 time by someone not named Lex or Leo Young 5. Connor Burns - 8:48 3200, and a 4:58 mile 6. Rocky Hansen - 8:51 3200, and 4 flat mile 7. Aidan Cox - best nonsenior at RunningLane not from Newbury Park 8. Devan Kipyego - really stepped up his game with his 4:05 mile! 9. Kole Mathiason - fastest nonsenior at Eastbay champs 10. Tyrone Gorze - second fastest nonsenior at Eastbay champs Watchlist: Kevin Sanchez, Keegan Smith, Zach Munson, Jason Parra, Simeon Birnbaum, Milo Skapinsky, Gus Clevenger, Jacob Laney, Patrick Koon, Wes Shipsey, Grant Pierce, Ford Washburn, Jimmy Wischusen, Brayden Seymour, Jackson Heidesch, William Schneider, Hunter Jones, Tayson Echohawk, Rendon Kuykendall
Also NBP’s Martinez and that 9:02 Soph from NBP no one talks about.
Yeah, I don’t know how close these two guys will be to the other nationally elite runners. They got 55th and 68th at Garmin last year. I wouldn’t be surprised if Doshi makes the top 10 in 2023 if he keeps improving the way it is.
Out of curiosity I took a look at 2019 to see how well 2019 spring track 3200 results predicted the fall 2019 NXN results.
8 of the top 10 at NXN had a top 23 3200 in the spring. Decent correlation, I think. The other two were Connor Ohlson and Carson Belnap.
For this fall, 27 returning runners ran sub 9 this spring. This suggests most of the top 10 at NXN (or Runninglane or Eastbay) will have already run a sub 9 3200. Just a couple might be big surprises, but maybe the odds aren’t great in picking anyone who hasn’t already gone sub 9 to finish in your top 10.
Nothing earth shattering, but I thought it was interesting.