Owen Powell of Mercer Island (Wash.) goes from unranked to No. 5 in the latest rankingsPhoto: Raymond Tran/MileSplit California
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Only five states in the country have more than one athlete nationally ranked. The sport has never been more diverse.
One of those pairings comes from the same team in Crater, Ore. Another comes from California, where it must be assumed they will eventually have nationally relevant contenders, but it has been a slow start for the perennial juggernaut. Two of those pairings come from the Southeast, where the finishing order has rotated throughout the season. The last pairing comes from Utah, which dominated the team podium at NXN the year prior, and again sees team frontrunners vying to lower their score.
Woodbridge Cross Country Classic was the highlight of the past two weeks, showcasing six nationally-ranked athletes. There, Owen Powell and Josiah Tostenson turned the finish into a full-out sprint. It played out exactly as it did six months earlier on the track, where the pair sprinted to the finish in the Mile at Hayward, with Powell taking the edge over the Oregon senior. As noted with the girls, the course is as close to the track as you can find, and the hills back home may produce different results.
The shuffling of the Southeast Region has provided plenty of racing opportunities for top individuals. Wingfoot in Georgia, and the earlier Southern Showcase in Alabama, have provided as much clarity on who the top contenders in the area are, as it has proven the rankings can only be so accurate. Our National Rankings, much in the same way speed ratings are, can be found to be analogous to seed times. While they can give an accurate accounting of what may happen based on past performances, they are not absolute, and anything can happen on meet day. That's why the races are run.
At the top of the list, many of the best athletes from the year prior are in maintenance mode. Manny Putz has taken a few weeks off from racing after an early season effort. Tamrat Gavenas and Robert Mechura both beat ranked athletes in their debuts, but neither produced efforts that would demonstrate a rationale to move them up or down.
Quick Team Check-In
The biggest shake-up in the rankings comes from Christian Brother's Academy's (Lincroft, N.J.) Joe Barrett. He ran the third-best performance ever at Bowdoin Park, behind only two better marks by DJ Principe (La Salle Academy, R.I.). This is significant for two reasons; firstly, this course serves as the NXR-Regional course, meaning the best of the Northeast and New York have tackled this course. Secondly, Barrett did so in service of his team, which went on to break the 5-man average on the course by five seconds. The record was held by Fayetteville-Manlius in 2013 (their 2014 Championship team didn't get a chance to run Bowdoin at a significant level due to a snowstorm the night of Regionals) and was also conquered by the CBA team of 2011 that went on to win NXN.
This puts CBA on a collision course with Herriman, the number-one-ranked team in the country. The raw speed ratings of Bowdoin were adjusted downward slightly, but both teams are statistically even. On paper, this race is a toss-up, with each squad having their rationale for the win. Both carry six-person interchangeability, have NXN-seasoned coaches, and have a national title to their name. Currently, Herriman has the edge, as they are both the reigning national champions, and they have bested other nationally ranked teams this year, but CBA is capable. They were slated to be a podium contender in 2023 before an unfortunate case of COVID entered their program the week they were set to board the plane. With an extra week of rest added to their Regional-National gap, expect them to be ready to race.