Hunter Jones will get top 5 at nationals this year

Impressive. He also ran an 8:59 time trial this month, a 21 second improvement from the spring. The xc time is an 8 second drop from last year. Good to see athletes drop this much as seniors. As a Michigan athlete, he has to be taken seriously as a national contender. However, of course, if you were to go down the list of the top juniors from last year, it will be tough to crack the top five.

Best returners from Runninglane:

#1 Leo Young 14:05,

#2 Lex Young 14:05,

#3 Aaron Sahlman, 14:14,

#4 Aidan Cox 14:18,

#5 Kole Mathison 14:23,

#6 Tayson Echohawk, 14:24,

#7 Rendon Kuykendall 14:25,

#8 Jimmy Wischusen, 14:33 (a sophomore!),

#9 Jacob Nenow 14:35 (son of Mark Nenow, former AR in the 10000m, 27:22),

#10 Danny Simmons, 14:37 (also a sophomore)

You also have sub-4 returners in Connor Burns, 3:58.83 (2M 8:45.52) and Simeon Birnbaum, 3:59.51, plus Rocky Hansen, who ran 4:00.76/8:46.97, and Chris Caudillo, who ran 8:48.24. Tyrone Gorze ran a 14:00.34 5000m on the track, Jones ran his 14:20 on the track, and a sophomore, Ferenc Kovacs, ran 14:08. So, there is a ton of talent in the mix.

Kovacs is back in his home country. cox has been injured during track. Don’t know about his current status. I can also see this year be like 2019. 1-10 being seniors.

this year it seems pretty wide open behind Lex/Leo/Aaron Sahlman

You also gotta watch out for sophomores like Keegan Smith and Josiah Tostenson

Schneider and Recupero from Blanchet WA are dark horses.

I will be curious how Newbury Park’s 4 (Seymour) and 5 (assuming it will be Doshi) will do this year

Don’t forget about Sam Scott (9:01 2-mile as a sophomore) and Noah Breker (8:54 in the 2-mile). Both from MN

Please tell me that this was not on his home course. This kid is very good but BENZIE COURSE IS SHORT. For 30 years the BENZIE course is short and for 30 years they claim it isn’t.

Pretty sure Recupero is injured (stress fracture?) based on his strava.

I was at the Pete moss invite. His time was off. He ended up running 14:28. He ran with no competition the whole race. The next closest person was in the 16 minute range. What’s also cool is you can see everything he runs on strava

I actually raced there today. Due to school renovations on sight the course was changed and ended up being 3.1 to 3.15 based off of my teams gps recording. Hunter jones has his strava account with the distance as well, his watch having recorded 3.13 miles

I just looked he ran 15 flat there last year I gotta guess he is in shape for ~14:10 at running lane

5 seconds under Riley Houghs course record

I have seen Jimmy Wischusen from a couple of times, he was dinged up after Cross and still put together a Soph Track Year that was incredible.8:56.x Two Mile, 4:09.90 mile and 15:35 Soph Record at Holmdel. At this stage, he is the best I have ever seen from NJ. The Track times are after missing Indoor and not racing for four months after XC.Very very gifted. Son of WFAN and other media stuff, Bob Wischusen.

Due to CoVid..Hough and Kessler ran away from all in separate races in 2020. Ritz all time leader at an absurd 14:10, as good as he was, it's hard to believe exact same layout was run. I am not sure what Hough ran last year and we know what Kessler ran on the Track 8:39 two mile and 3:34.x 1500. Thats how good Ritz was in Cross. Had Hough and Kessler been in same race, surely they would have cracked 14:45 or so?

Ritz 14:10

14:49.62
Riley Hough
Hartland
2020
LP Division 1
14:51.0
Jason Hartmann
Rockford
1998
LP Class A
14:51.79
Hobbs Kessler
Ann Arbor Skyline
2020
LP Division 1
14:52.5
Grant Fisher
Grand Blanc
2014
LP Division 1

also worth noting that that 14:49 was ran by Hough his junior year. Ritz's junior year time was ~20 seconds slower. Hough didn't go all out his senior year because he had nationals coming up which he wanted to peak for, whereas Ritz was more focused on running all-out at state since he was already the returning champion from Footlocker and he didn't need to save up for it as much (you can see this in his slower senior year performance compared to his junior year at FL) Hough was the other way around. There was no real national meet his junior year, so he could go all out to beat Kessler's time, whereas his senior year he had the two aforementioned national meets to prep for. Even if he did go all out as a senior he obviously probably wouldn't have gotten Ritz's course record but this is still worth noting.

You are not even comparing Hough and Ritz in any grade year or eon are you ?

in cross?

Cox did actually open his season. I don’t know how Milesplit didn’t notice that.

Also, it seems that Milesplit is starting to agree with OP that he will get top 5.

Top 5? More like top 3? 202 speed rating