Which high school XC team produces the best college athletes?

Great run of performances the last 5 years or so for American Fork High School alumni.

Brayden Mclelland - 62nd 2018 NCAA XC Championships
Clayton Young - Multiple All-American finishes, NCAA 10k Champ 2019
Connor McMillan - Multiple All-American finishes, 3rd 10k Championships 2019
Casey Clinger - Multiple All-American Finishes, 8th 2021 NCAA XC Championships

Southlake Carroll Reed Brown finished Senior year pretty good with 3rd at Indoor Nationals and good go at US Nationals. Girls have had 52 Division 1 scholarship winners. Boys 38 Division 1 scholarship winners.

This isn't complete, but I took some of the top alumni and compared their HS PR vs. College.

Courtney Kriegshauser 2013 17:08 Vanderbilt flat
Tatum Foreman 2019 17:30 Samford 17:04
Cate Tracht 2016 17:32 Mississippi 16:42
Gillian Mortimer 2016 17:33 Vanderbilt 16:52
Alison Esparza 2016 17:34 SMU 17:17
Grace Williamson 2019 17:39 University of Oklahoma freshman
Shelby Chapin 2013 17:40 Arkansas ?
Tig Archer 2014 17:41 West Virginia University 17:08
Katherine McElaney 2019 17:45 Texas A&M freshman
Jenna Holland 2019 17:46 Vanderbilt sophmore

Reed Brown 2017 14:37 Oregon 14:12
Neal Smith 2010 14:42 OSU 14:10
Connor Hendrickson 2013 14:59 University of Texas 14:45
Joe Sansone 2013 15:05 UNC 14:24
Charlie Gardner 2017 15:11 Yale 14:44
Jack Myers 2019 15:11 University of Texas sophmore
Timou Toure 2014 15:12 ?
Trevor Gilley 2013 15:15 Mississippi 14:03
Nicholas Fernandes 2016 15:17 Houston flat
Eli Canal 2015 15:17 Texas A&M 14:52

Colby Lowe went 13:42 at OSU.

At Flower Mound I think Natalie Cook, Humphries sisters, and Fox will all have great college careers.

Wonder if we can say this about Newbury Park. Nico got second this year, and was already doing well in his first year of college XC

Colin Sahlman and Samantha McDonnell didn’t score at nationals. Maybe because it’s their first year of doing 10k’s?

We will see how they and Lex/Leo do next year and the coming years

Nick Goldstein is scoring for Furman. Jace Aschbrenner didn’t make Colorado’s top 7, but this team had a lot of seniors so he’s got some time

Bolles might be one to mention. They made NXN in 2017/2018. Charles Hicks won nationals

Ben Foltz of Bolles has run low 14's and now trains for triathalons. I believe his does a lot of his training with Trevor Foley, who has been climbing up the Ironman rankings.

American Fork and York have made the best NCAA men. Newbuey will join their ranks in due time once the class of '22 and '23 has graduated college

Natalie Cook and Alex Maier both went to Flower Mound HS, both were top 7 at NCAA XC this year.

Skyridge UT might be one. Davin and Creed Thompson scored for BYU as sophs. This high school was created only 6 years ago and I think they probably would have made NXN in 2020. They had no seniors in 2019. This program also always seems to reload.

Riverton UT - Joey Nokes made the top 7 for BYU

Sandburg IL - won state last year. And have made NXN in the past. Dylan Jacobs got 4th at ncaa. What has Lukas Verzbicas done in college?

Hicks is a great runner, but Bolles hasn’t produced much else in terms of collegiate talent as far as I’m aware. He seems like more of an outlier to me; the exception, not the rule.

Thoughts on Springville UT (finished high at NXN 2017, and qualified in 2016)?
Brandon Garnica - #2 for BYU
Caleb Garnica - 214th at ncaa
Devin Pancake - 44th at Mountain West Championships
Also is Grant Gardner still running in college?

Never mind

Thread on York college athletes

Does he run for a collegiate program? His 5k is listed as 17:05 on TFRRS?

Wayzata MN (2nd at NXN 2014. You have been able to find them at NXN for many years, including this year
Jaret Carpenter - 10th at ncaa 2019
Connor Olson - 25th at ncaa MW in 2017
Khalid Hussein - 92nd at ncaa nats in 2021
Josh Thorson - 40th at ncaa d2 nats
All 4 of them won state senior year

Hopkins MN (7th at NXN 2015, second at state but didn’t make NXN in 2014)
Joe Klecker - 2015 grad - 2nd at NXN 2019

Oh yeah, not really college, but Klecker (Olympian/US Champ) and Reed Fischer (1:01/2:10 guy) were high school teammates.

Yes. Reed Fisher was midpack JV in 9th grade but made state from a hard section in XC in 2012. He had a great college career too. 52nd in XC at nationals

There were also other Hopkins alums who ran for the UMN like Owen Hoeft, Hunter Staack and those that are on the team now like Eli Hoeft, Ben Haberman, and Seth Eliason. They aren’t / weren’t doing anything special like Klecker / Carpenter but their coaching is not very great

I think it could be argued that, considering how many great HS runners York has produced, they haven’t done much in college. Bakken is a great example of someone who only trained under Newton for one year, and was successful. He didn’t go through the meat grinder.

Caleb Garnica finished in the top 30 at NCAA XC one year. Grant is running for BYU. He recently got back from his mission, so he's not ready to be racing yet. If he can stay healthy, I could see him doing really well in college.

If you followed the link provided it explains how York has only had maybe a few blue chip runners in the last 22 years. Most of the guys were not scholarship runners. Your perception of "great" is pretty wide. I can tell you guys who run 9:10-9:15 are not "great". No Footlockers winners, only MacNamara won the first NXN meet and he did pretty well at Michigan.

Other Hopkins guys
John Klecker - 9th at NSIC XC Championship 2016
Bit Klecker - 52nd at big ten 2020
Sarah Klecker - 134th at griak 2017
Besufekad Shannon-Tamrat - 53rd at mw region 2011