A look back 5 years ago - Where are the top middle school prospects now?

25. Manny Putz class of 2025 (4:36.92 equivalent - rural WI): Won XC states 3 times in a row, won the 1600 and 3200 his junior year, and came 2nd at NXR twice in a row. 5k best of 14:32. He's a senior this year and recently committed to University of Wisconsin.
24. Carter Cutting (4:36.83 - suburban Portland, OR): Moved briefly to Utah then back to Oregon again, where he came 3rd at XC states. Won state in the 800 and 1500 his senior year with a 1:50 and 3:47. Committed to BYU, took a redshirt season and just broke 4 in the mile last weekend.
23. Will McCoy (4:36.57 - suburban San Diego and Sacramento, CA): Didn't beat this mark - or even break 5 again - until his junior year, when he ran 4:34. Focused on the 800 after that. Committed to American River College in town, stuck at 2:01. Didn't run this past season.
22. Colton Thress (4:36.53 - rural central OH): Finally broke out his senior year when he ran a 15:38 5k. Specializes in the 800, committed to Ashland University and runs a personal best of 1:50.
21. Quintin Lowe (4:36.48 - suburban Chicago, IL): won his competitive conference in XC his senior year, came 4th at state in the 800 that year with a 1:53. Committed to Purdue University and has run decently.
20. Micah Blomker class of 2024 (4:36.14 - suburban Kansas City, KS): won XC states sophomore year and again senior year, 5k PR of 14:49. Committed to University of Tulsa and is currently taking a redshirt season.
19. Steven McCartney (4:36.00 equivalent - suburban Atlanta, GA): never beat his 5k PR of 15:48 from freshman year. Committed to Charleston Southern University, redshirted, finished top-10 in conference in the 1500. Raced infrequently this XC season.
18. Alexander Lodewick (4:35.51 equivalent - suburban Bay Area, CA): won CIF North Coast XC section his senior year (for D3 - together with Badcock in D1) and logged a 3200m PR of 9:13 that spring. Committed to UC Berkeley but has raced infrequently.
17. Aidan Cox (4:35.30 equivalent - southeast NH): Won XC states in 10th and 11th grade, won the 1500/1600 and 3000/3200 at indoor and outdoor state championships in 12th grade. His greatest achievement might be at RunningLane Nationals in 2021 though, where he ran 14:18 - faster than anyone on this list in high school - placed 7th, and beat every non-senior other than the Newbury Park boys. Committed to UVA and hasn't raced much (redshirt, then maybe injury) but logged an impressive 14:10 5k on the track.
16. Braydon Honsinger (4:35.21 - rural eastern MI): This was the fastest mark set in any middle school regular season. Improved slowly, but eventually ran 15:34 for the 5k his senior year and placed 3rd at state in the 800 with a 1:54. Committed to Saginaw Valley State University.
15. William "Billy" Carlton (4:34.70 equivalent - suburban Atlanta, GA): Never beat his 5k PR of 15:37 from freshman year. Nevertheless, won the 800 and 1600 at his competitive county championships two years in a row. Committed to Georgia Tech, took a redshirt season and logged a 3:52 1500 and 24:33 8k.
14. Broen Holman class of 2025 (4:34.56 equivalent - Sierra Nevada, CA): I don't know if anyone has ever run this fast as a 6th grader. Won Sac-Joaquin D4 section three times in a row, placed 2nd at D4 state championships this year, broke 14 in the 3-mile at Woodbridge, and placed 5th in the Arcadia seeded 3200 with an 8:54. Recently announced his commitment to Northern Arizona University.
13. Jared Khalil (4:34.10 equivalent - southeast NH): Though he's a fabulous runner, Khalil's primary sport has always been basketball, for which he has forgone the former to play at Plymouth State University, a D3 school, close to home.
12. Alex Leath (4:33.50 equivalent - Birmingham, AL): Became big mid-distance guy. XC performance was decent. Won the 800 at all four championships (indoor and outdoor) from junior to senior year, and the 1600 at three of them. Committed to University of Virginia with Aidan Cox and improved his 800 to 1:47, fast enough to take him to nationals.
11. Zack Munson (4:33.50 equivalent - Bellingham, WA): Won XC states senior year, came 6th at NXR Northwest. Won all three distance events at track states that spring. Committed to Northern Arizona University, redshirted, logged a 13:55 track 5k and 23:24 8k.
10. Jared Fortenberry (4:33.40 equivalent - suburban Atlanta, GA): Improved his times to 4:15 and 15:14. Placed 2nd at states his senior year. Committed to University of Maine and has run decent but not amazing.
9. Reese Vannerson (4:32.82 equivalent - Houston, TX): Broke 15 his senior year, won back-to-back UIL 6A races (maybe the most competitive state championship out there) with a 4:08 1600 and 8:49 3200. Has found major success in triathlons.
8. Ty Garrett (4:32.46 equivalent - IN to CO and back again): He is the only XC runner in the entire class of '23 to place top 5 in two different states. Committed to Wake Forest University, redshirted (is now a fellow freshman of phenom Jojo Jourdon), has run alright.
7. Marcus Reilly class of 2024 (4:32.13 - central MA): The fastest on this list who would've returned if not for COVID. 3-time podium finisher at XC states, has run a 4:03 full mile twice. Committed to University of Michigan, currently a redshirt.
6. Hunter Jones (4:32.00 - rural northern MI): Went on a rampage senior year, winning every single meet he ran up to NXR Midwest and Footlocker Midwest on consecutive weekends, the former in 14:21. (May have also set a record for most XC meets run in one season: 16.) Won the 2-mile and 5000m at Nike Indoor Nationals that winter. Also committed to Wake Forest but did not redshirt.
5. Zack Gilbertson (4:31.00 equivalent - southern NC): Went nearly undefeated senior year and won state. 1600 PR of 4:07. Committed to University of Mississippi but has only run one race.
4. Bryce Stachewicz (4:30.49 - suburban Minneapolis, MN): Improved considerably toward the end of high school, won state in the 1600 senior year following an undefeated season. Committed to University of Wisconsin and built on his times, running a 4:02 full mile, 23:57 8k, and recently an 8:08 3000m on the indoor track.
3. Nathan Lopez (4:28.70 - suburban Boston, MA): 3-time state XC podium finisher, won state in the 1600 once and the 3200 twice, the latter with an 8:59 senior year. Committed to University of Michigan and continues to improve, shaving off 90 seconds from last year's 8k.
2. Drew Costelow (4:26.29 - IN to CO as well... I'm curious to know why both moved at once): won both the 800 and 1600 at Colorado states two years in a row, reaching 1:50 in the former at Arcadia. Committed to CU Boulder, took a redshirt season.
1. Elliott McArthur (4:22.40 - suburban Minneapolis, MN): I don't think anyone paid much attention because it was from a high school meet, but McArthur was in fact the fastest middle-school aged runner in 2019. Stayed pretty consistently in the mid-4:10s all through high school. Committed to NC State, took a redshirt season. Broke 25 in his first 8k.
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What strikes me is how few of the runners setting the top marks today are part of this list. No Lex and no Leo. No Aaron Sahlman. No Tyrone Gorze. No Rocky Hansen, no Carson Noecker, no Connor Burns, no Kole Mathison (barely), no Simeon Birnbaum, no Kevin Sanchez. And it wasn't just I couldn't find any results for them. They just weren't as good!...
Similarly it's amazing how there are so many athletes at the top of the ranks who just disappear off the radar.
To all the young high school runners out there who feel like everyone has a headstart on you, just remember it means less than you may think. The whole playing field can change in just a couple years. Keep at it!

You have WAY too much time on your hands.

Great info! You sure have put in a lot of work into this!

Height wise, McArthur looked like a college student in 8th grade. He ran at NXN with his team both in 8th and 9th grade. He wasn’t close to winning the state meet senior year because others who caught up to him / surpassed him used to be way shorter than him in 8th and 9th grade

I'm stuck between utter fascination at this data, and utter fascination at how much time this must have taken you. Kudos, I genuinely hope it was worth it. I've done a lot of running research over the years, and it is NOT easy.

Perhaps what stands out to me most is how successful the kids on this list are. I've never thought of Middle School success as a strong predictor, but in the age of year-round and travel sports, maybe it's not as surprising that kids are already specializing at that age.

One reason why there are a couple of Minnesota runners on top of your list is that this one of the several states that allows 7th and 8th graders to compete at the high school level. For the girls, it’s a HUGE game changer (because some of them peak in middle school), but not as much for the boys

I ran in HS elsewhere in a state that did the normal 9-12 varsity thing, but later moved to MN where all my kids did XC. It took a while to get used to seeing schools roll up with a boys team that looked a little bit like a college squad would look, and a girls team full of tiny middle school squirts.

I know North Dakota does the same thing. One of my teammates moved from there and he'd been on his team's varsity squad running 17-minute 5ks in 7th grade. absolutely bananas

It's that glorious suspended animation between finals and the trek home for the holidays

Dude, this was a LOT of work. I'm not sure how important it is, but I ALWAYS recognize greatness when it shows itself, and brother, this is greatness. VERY impressive.

Please do a list for girls. I'd be very curious on that.

Take at look at the 8th grade x XC results from the big Bob Firman meet.

athletic.net

Track & Field, Cross Country Results, Statistics

Meet results and team scores.

Open link

Not everyone stays at the top, but it usually shows early.

When you are running sub 4:40, you don’t need much improvement to have success in HS. You will note how few of these guys were on the top 50 lists as seniors.

That was a lot of work to write up. Thanks

Personally I saw a massive leap in running ability through puberty / a growth spurt between freshman and sophomore year of high school. I can’t imagine trying to judge my potential based on 8th grade. It would be fascinating if we had all these kids growth charts and mpw. I’d guess the “failure” stories consist of kids training harder in middle school and having grown more by the time they put up these marks.

Also interesting how as you get to the top you see more phenomenal success stories even though their times aren’t that much better in 8th grade. Like upper 4:30’s vs lower 4:30’s.

This is great stuff. I didn't even know there were middle school track rankings.

Our middle school is grades 6-9, I guess these rankings are for up to 8th grade.

I played baseball thru freshman year only starting track as a soph and xc as a jr. I was only decent, as a high school sr, but still ended up running in college. So for sure plenty of time to start running.

Probably because there are 10x as many people running in the 4:40 range as opposed to 4:30, so you’re gonna see a wider distribution of outcomes. But because of this, there are probably more successful runners who were running 4:40+ then there are running under 4:40.

For example:

Kole Mathison - 4:40.13

Lex Young - 4:45.09

Aaron Sahlman - 4:46.57

Carson Noecker - 4:47.96

Rocky Hansen - 4:50.57

Connor Burns - 4:51.11

Leo Young - 4:53.89

Tyrone Gorze - 5:05.78*

Kevin Sanchez - 5:12.41

Dang, I’ve heard of places with grades 7-9 but almost never 6-9. Was it one of those independent schools in Mississippi? That’s all I can think of.

For rankings, they’re kinda on and off depending on the place I’ve realized. Many states have near-complete results on athletic and milesplit.

Some states’ leagues are more organized than others. Places like Ohio, Oregon, Kansas etc use nearly the same format as their high school counterparts. Tennessee and Illinois use their own special leagues. North Carolina and Virginia are free-for-alls. Texas is a complete mess, and they sometimes only time the top 6 athletes in each distance event which baffles me.

A lot of northeastern states have virtually no results at all, other than a few private leagues here and there. A lot of the ones above I got from club teams.

A 5’1” Nico Young, ran 5:05 in middle school.

this dude turned 19 in November. Before his XC state meet. He got to compete even after choosing to repeat a grade