We highlight the best boys performances by the Future Stars of the sport nationally from the first month of the high school country season. Presented by Hoka One One.
Lets begin with the freshmen. We already have a handful of boys running under 16 minutes for 5K nationally led by Ryan Raff of Lehi High School in Utah, who posted a US freshmen best of 15:51 at the Aggie Invite.
Down in Florida, Joey Fitzpatrick is one of those 5 sub 16 freshmen nationally and the Florida middle school state last spring in the 1500 and 3K is continuing that trend of first place finishes into high school winning the Florida Horse Park Invite this past Saturday.
Remember just over a dozen years ago a high school runner by the name of Ritz from a school called Rockford in Michigan? Yeah he was pretty good. Well Rockford has another star in the making with Cole Johnson, who just missed dipping under 16 minutes for 5K at the Michigan State Spartan Invite last Friday.
Albuquerque Academy coach Adam Kedge has annually produced some great teams in New Mexico. And it turns out that he's produced some great runners for his sons as well. The Albuquerque Academy defeated many of the top teams in Colordo last week at Liberty Bell and one of the key contributors was Coach Kedge's freshmen son AJ along with sophomore brother Aric. Little brother AJ was just ahead of big brother Aric with both just over 16 minutes flat.
In that same meet at Liberty Bell, Monarch sophomore Isaac Green won the boys race with the nation's fastest sophomore time at 15:24. Known more of a middle distance running posting impressive times of 4:16 in the 1600 and 1:54 in the 800 at altitude in Colorado last spring, Green is showing a vastly improved range this fall.
Not far behind Green on that national 5K list is David Principe of US top 10 ranked LaSalle Academy boys of Rhode Island. Principe and his team were trucking in their first race of the season two weeks ago at the Injury Fund Festival with Principe winning the race in a time of 15:27.
Green and Principe definitely lead an incredible rising sophomore class and we will be excited to see what all the sport's Future Stars can do in the next month of races.
Watch the Future Stars girls early season highlights video as well and look out next week for Future Stars Spotlights on top freshmen across the country!