1. White Plains
Second in Class 4A, and the Wildcats lost Sawyer Conn, Christian Sotelo and Silas Strickland; their two, three and five - plus displacer Andrew Ellis.
What's back is the front. Jaiden Garcia was eighth overall in 4A as a sophomore and owns a 16:40 season best, fastest in this class by two seconds. Jovany Gutierrez was 26th as a freshman. Zayden Pearson was 39th as a sophomore. Charlie Holder is a senior, Bryce Beaver a junior.
Three graduated seniors is the most anyone at the top of 3A lost, and it's why this isn't a runaway. But Garcia and Gutierrez a year older is the best front pair in the classification, and the program behind them just beat thirteen Class 4A teams.
2. Hatton
Twelfth in Class 4A, and only Kayden Pierce is gone.
Jonah Owens was 30th overall as a sophomore. John Boyden is a senior, Drake Yarbrough a junior, Joe Rose and Reece McDonald sophomores, and Gideon Gallahair and Lee Gassaway were both seventh graders filling the eight and nine spots.
Hatton's 1:44 spread is among the tightest near the top of this class, and Owens is the only runner in their scoring five who broke 18:15 last fall. That tells you exactly what this team is: no star, no hole, five men who arrive together -- and now a year older, in a class that just lost most of its stars.
3. Colbert Heights
This team does not appear in the preseason ranking, and it should.
Colbert Heights finished eighth at the Class 3A state meet, ahead of Sylvania and Glencoe, with the tightest scoring spread in the entire race -- 1:00 flat. Michael Frederick, Lane Michael, Nathaniel Frederick, Kaden Corsbie and Ridge Mitchell went 34-36-38-52-58 in the scoring.
They lost nobody. Frederick is a senior, Corsbie a senior, Ridge Mitchell a junior, Lane Michael a sophomore, and Nathaniel Frederick -- who was their third scorer -- was an eighth grader. Carter Perreira and Riley Roberson displaced behind them, with Isaiah Ratliff, Brycen Mattson and Gavin Duke still in the pipeline.
A minute from first man to fifth is championship structure. Add a full returning roster and a No. 3 runner entering ninth grade, and this is the team best positioned to win Class 3A over the next two seasons.
4. Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering
Third at the 3A state meet, and the only loss is the one that hurts: Cason Williams, who was fourth in the scoring, has graduated.
Josiah Richburg takes over the front; 17th overall as a junior, now a senior, with an 18:05 season best. Hutton Schroer and Oliver Smith are juniors, Jude Williams and Jordan Alaniz seniors, Jasper Williams a junior, Ryder Mauldin a senior. Seven back out of nine.
Their returning five is covered by 1:28.82 on season bests, narrowest of any contender here. That's the case, and it's a good one. The question is whether anybody replaces what Williams did at the front; Cyber Tech's 2:12 spread at the state meet was built around him, and without a low stick, packing well only gets a team so far against White Plains and Hatton.
5. Oneonta
Alan Piceno and Tucker Scott qualified individually for the 4A state meet, where Piceno was 35th as a junior and Scott 45th as an eighth grader. Piceno is a senior now; Scott is a freshman.
That's the best returning 1-2 outside White Plains, and it comes with a year of state meet experience. Behind them, Cole Shelton, Jackson Gunn and Jude Salamone scored inside 20:01 and Heinrich Zocher is close.
The 2:22 spread is the work. Oneonta's third runner is nearly two minutes behind its second -- the widest gap of any team in the top five. Close half of it and the Redskins are a title contender. Leave it and they're fifth.