Utah teams in fine form heading into state 

By Paul Schmitz for DyeStat

It is an interesting time of year in cross country. Many teams are gearing up for their conference and regional/section meets in some parts of the U.S. and in other areas, big regular season invitational meets roll on. It is also the time of year when some of the runners who rested early are working to get into postseason form, while other teams are resting runners in anticipation of meets that count later on the calendar.    

Utah is one of the first states in the country to run its regional meets and all of our top teams from two weeks ago held true to form. No. 1 American Fork won its Region 4 meet over No. 18 Lone Peak 31-57, led once again by a 1-2-3 finish by Casey Clinger, McKay Johns and Patrick Parker. Davis dominated Region 2 with 20 points and a 2-9 finish led by second place finisher Josh Peters. In Class 4A, Timpanogos also won its regional meet over very tough competition in Orem and Skyridge 32-78-83, led by Joe Benson’s 14:46 3-mile. 

It gets a little more complicated on the East coast where previous No. 2 Christian Brothers Academy held out some of its top runners including Drake Anzano and Noah Yuro and still won the Eastern States Championship at the Manhattan Invite. However, in the merged results they were defeated by two teams from Massachusetts, Saint John’s and Lowell. Besides not running head-to-head, and to complicate the stats even more, it was Colts Neck NJ which had the fastest team average on the day.  For ranking purposes CBA still deserves some leeway, but the real tests at Groups and MOC are creeping up.

In California, Great Oak ran with a vengeance and put its best race of the year together and defeated a deep field that included Claremont and Dana Hills at the Clovis Invitational in Fresno. Great Oak has shown huge improvement during this season and moves back up our rankings to No. 8. Replacing Spencer Dodds, Cole Spencer and Isaac Cortes was no easy task, but Great Oak has established itself as the team to beat in California. 

The Top 30, 10/13

1. American Fork UT

2. Neuqua Valley IL

3. Davis UT

4. The Woodlands TX

5. Wayzata MN

6. Bozeman MT

7. Chrisian Brothers Academy NJ

8. Great Oak CA

9. Solon OH

10. Lyons Township IL

11. Timpanogos UT

12. Colts Neck NJ

13. Mountain Vista CO

14. Downers Grove North IL

15. North Central WA

16. Ogden UT

17. Lone Peak UT

18. St. Xavier KY

19. Brentwood High TN

20. Loyola CA

21. Corning NY

22. Southlake Carroll TX

23. Palmer Ridge CO

24. Dana Hills CA

25. Lake Zurich IL

26. Voorhees NJ

27. Claremont CA

28. Loudon Valley VA

29. Saint John's MA

30. Millard West NE