Boys Race Preview
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Flo50 teams: 9 The Woodlands
Top returning individuals: Carter Blunt (not running), David Strome (not running), Reed Brown, Sam Worley, Daniel Viegra, Devyn Keith, Adam Breaux, Jacob Janzen, Daniel Golden, Carter Persyn
The first weekend of regional championships was pure madness, with two completely separate huge controversies over one qualifying spot, four top ten-nationally ranked teams failing to make the top two in their regions, and four more ranked teams not grabbing auto spots. This meet will not be that--especially with Jenks of Oklahoma not running. The Woodlands are so much better than everyone else, as they nearly beat the entire state of Texas two weeks ago. If you put a state all-star team together of runners not from The Woodlands, they would have only beaten The Woodlands 25-32.
As it actually was, competing against other high schools, they won by 90 points. The team they beat by 90 was their bitter rivals Southlake Carroll, which only finished eight points ahead of Flower Mound and twenty points ahead of College Park. Neither of those teams, though, has ever automatically qualified for NXN, and Carroll is the four-time defending regional champs. More importantly, the UIL meet was the very best shot that Carroll could give any other team. It was the absolute best chance that any other Texas team could get at beating Carroll, and only Woodlands could do it. Carroll won't run that poorly at the regional meet.
Carter Blunt and David Strome are only running Foot Locker, so these five qualifying spots are very much up for grabs. The boys who ran faster than Blunt at Round Rock were Daniel Golden, Noah Wells (both Portland locks as they run for The Woodlands), Erick Arambula, Jeffrey "Nick" Butts, and Buster Roberts. Add Brown and Daniel Bernal (who was 74th at states but was undefeated this fall prior to that) and probably a dark horse or three, and that's who'll be in the running for the five individual trips to Portland.
THE PICK: Even my contrarianism has its limits. 1. The Woodlands 2. Southlake Carroll