High School Boys Gold
Saucony Flo50 Ranked Teams: No. 9 Wayzata (MN), No. 18 Claremont (CA), No. 20 Edina (MN)
Saucony Flo50 Ranked Individuals: No. 2 Seth Hirsch
Challengers: Hopkins (MN), Dowling Catholic (IA), Minneapolis Washburn (MN)
Start Time: 2:25 p.m. CT
Seth Hirsch's fourth-place finish at the 2015 Roy Griak Invitational helped him build toward dual ninth-place finishes at Nike Cross and Foot Locker Nationals. The senior from Millard West High School in Nebraska is now the No. 2-ranked runner in the nation; he won his first two races this season by margins of 70 seconds and 57 seconds. Now that 2015 event champion Garek Bielaczyc has graduated, there's not much that stands between Hirsch and his first major invitational win.
The Gold race features the first team battle between Minnesota's top two boys teams: Wayzata and Edina, which stand No. 9 and No. 20 in the national rankings. Wayzata lost star Jaret Carpenter (runner-up here last year) but return four of their varsity seven from the squad that placed 14th at NXN last year. They've won their first two meets with an impressive 38-second spread at the Columbus Catholic Invitational and an 18-second spread at the Metro Invitational.
Edina, which placed 13th at NXN in 2015, won the Spartan Invitational in early September and took a narrow one-point loss to No. 19 St. Thomas Aquinas at the Heartland Classic last weekend in Iowa.
But the state of Minnesota is so competitive that NXN qualifiers Wayzata (runners-up at the big show in 2014) and Edina didn't even make the state meet last year. So these nationally ranked squads will get a serious test from Hopkins and Minneapolis Washburn, who went 1-2 at the 2015 Minnesota state cross country championship.
Hopkins went on to win the NXN Heartland regional and place seventh at NXN in 2015. They return just two varsity runners from the squad. Washburn returns their No. 4, No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7 men.
Could a California squad crash the Midwest party? No. 18-ranked Claremont most recently won the Cool Breeze Evening Invitational over Brea Olinda with a 26-second spread. They skipped last weekend's high-profile Woodbridge XC Classic, so they'll be fresh to travel and race here.
Another team to watch is defending Iowa state champion Dowling Catholic, which placed fifth at the NXN Heartland regional last year and returns four varsity runners.
