Updated Florida All-Classification Top 25 Rankings

The district week saw many fast outlier performances from several runners and teams. Was it the cool weather, short courses, or athletes and teams peaking at the right time? Might be a combination of all.

The girls in particular saw quite a few first timers breaking 18 minutes for the first time including Addison Dempsey, Lindy White, and Malinda Underwood. A little gun shy to make drastic moves for any with outlier performances, especially when having solid head to head pecking orders from FSU Pre-State only two weeks prior to look at. However, Dempsey who did not race at FSU Pre-State made the biggest jump in the rankings as her performance at North Port in 17:27 was only 12 seconds slower than the season best performance of top ranked Eliana Black on the same course earlier in the season at 17:15.

Another storyline in these rankings especially for the individuals is the quality of the runners not ranked. There are a lot of runners if these lists were extended to #26-50 can easily see many of them with a great performance or win sliding quickly back up into the top 15 or 20. Just shows how tightly bunched the top tier talent is currently in the state of Florida.

As exceptional as Creekside has looked this season, Belen Jesuit has been just that more impressive including a dominant win at FSU Pre-State Invitational against them and the rest of the elite field in Tallahaseee. They look untouchable for the #1 spot.

The 4A classification in general though dominates the boys team rankings with 8 of the top 13 positions for all classes and just shows how much of a logjam exists of more than a handful of quality teams vying to join likely champion Creekside on the podium as the state runner-up squad. Plant is making a push after a district win over Sunlake and finishing 4th at FSU Pre-State ahead of Viera, Sunlake, Columbus, Buchholz, Hagerty, Niceville, and Ponte Vedra. 

The #1 spot for the girls seems a bit more vulnerable as of late and it is not due to anything that the Bolles girls have done wrong, but how another Jacksonville metro team in defending 3A state champions Ponte Vedra has come on strong as of late including a runaway team win at FSU Pre-State Invitational and then dropping their team average down to 18:30 on a fast district meet course at Matanzas.

The teams match up fairly well. Bolles appears to still have the advantage in the #1 and #2 spots with Jillian Candelino and Ella Mickler despite sub 18 performances from Lindy White and Daisy Ross, but the #3 to #5 spots seem to the toss up battle ground spots between those teams to decide who is ultimately the best team in the state of Florida.

Ponte Vedra #3 Sofia Bushkell (18:20 SB) versus Bolles #3 Elizabeth Csikai (18:38 SB) would be a critical matchup in a hypothetical head to head. Since Bolles raced at the Manhattan Invitational instead of the FSU Pre-State Invitational on that weekend, a lot of hypotheticals come into play.

If Bolles raced up their star sixth grader Sophia Stam on the varsity level for championship season then it probably wouldn't be a question, but looks like she will not be in their top 7 down the stretch as Coach Ryan prefers to wait till at least seventh grade to put runners in that position.   

Both teams had outlier fast courses and races compared to their other average race performances in other meets on the season between Bolles at the Asics Alexander Invitational in Georgia and Ponte Vedra at their district meet, so a wash or more on similar playing field to compare. 

Teams that did not race at FSU Pre-State Invitational who have looked solid and strong all season that cannot forget about include possibly our eventual 1A state champions this year in Pensacola Christian girls and Indian Rocks Christian boys still firmly planted inside the top 5. 

Individuals who did not race at FSU Pre-State Invitational that made great impressions lately include Colton Lawson of The King's Academy dropping his 5K time down to 15:26 at his district meet and winner earlier at Spanish River Invitational, while Dylan Nolan is the only undefeated boys runner in the state of Florida not named Patrick Koon this season as the Clearwater Central Catholic had a strong district win against the Berkeley Prep duo of Kirin Karver and Liam Jordan. 

With several regionals being held at multiple sites including 3 regionals at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, 2 regionals at New World Golf Course in Jacksonville, 4 regionals at Holloway Park in Lakeland, and 4 regionals at South County Regional Park in Boca Raton, there will be a great sample of cross referencing times between each regionals held on same course.