1. Cold Springs
Second at the state meet, eight points off the win, and only Garrett Scheer is gone.
Logan Perdue was ninth overall as a junior and is a senior with a 17:26 season best. Samuel Hunt was 25th and Carson Rice 32nd; both are seniors now. James Baggett was 24th as an eighth grader. Caleb Dill was 53rd as a freshman, Blake Belcher 96th as a junior.
That's a returning group with three seniors at the front and a ninth grader who already scored inside the top 25 of a state meet. Cold Springs ran a 1:06 spread at Oakville, second-tightest in the race, and a 1:26 spread on season bests.
2. Pleasant Valley
Third at the state meet with the tightest scoring spread in the entire race, 30 seconds flat, and the Raiders did not lose a single scorer.
Max Jernigan was 19th as a junior, Corey Griffith 20th as a sophomore, Eli Shew 23rd as a seventh grader, Aiden Bonds 27th as a sophomore, Lane Walker 30th as a junior. Tripp George, Wesley Nelson and Levi Duncan are all back behind them. Only displacers Cooper Patterson and Knox Taylor graduated.
Thirty seconds from first man to fifth is the kind of number that wins championships in any classification. Pleasant Valley has that, plus a scoring five where the youngest runner is entering eighth grade and the oldest is a senior.
Cold Springs is ranked ahead by 25 points on 2025 season bests, and I've kept that order. But if you want to argue Pleasant Valley should be first, no graduations and the best pack in the state and a seventh grader already scoring, I'm not going to fight you very hard.
3. Sand Rock
The best front pair in Class 1A-2A, and it isn't close.
Brody Johnson finished fourth overall as a sophomore with a 16:39 season best, fastest returning mark in the classification. Dalton Oliver was eighth as an eighth grader. Johnson is a junior now; Oliver is a freshman.
Behind them, Bryson Cleere was 62nd as a sophomore, Liam Loveless 83rd as an eighth grader, Tim Snow 93rd as a freshman, and Tanner Moses, Riley Walker and Carson Cleere were all eighth graders. Only Adan Linares and Bobby Wilburn, the three and seven, have graduated.
Sand Rock's 3:36 spread is the problem they could face. Johnson and Oliver are more than 90 seconds clear of the third man. But a team with two top-eight individuals and a roster full of ninth graders is going to be a serious problem before long, and possibly this fall.
4. Marion County
Sixth at the state meet, and the they lost more than anyone at the top of this class: Carter Stephens (second overall), Reagan LeDuke and Daniel Hernandez, all graduated.
What returns is young and already proven. Kiptyn Knight was 38th overall as a seventh grader. Korbyn Smith was 54th, also a seventh grader. Audie Bozeman and Kendle Clark are seniors, Abel Trejo and Loden Knight were eighth graders, Samuel Trejo a sophomore.
Marion County's 1:10 spread on returning season bests is the second-tightest in the classification, behind only Pleasant Valley. Losing a runner-up hurts and the ranking reflects it. But two seventh graders who scored at a state meet are now eighth graders, and this program clearly develops them.
5. J.B. Pennington
Fourth at the Class 3A state meet, and now in 1A-2A after the reclassification moved them down.
They lost Kevin Ruiz and Charly Ponce, the one and two from that scoring group. What's back is Gavin Watts, whose 17:30 season best is the fourth-fastest returning mark in this class, plus Kullin Johnson and Leo Serrano, both freshmen at state and now sophomores, along with Martin Briggs, Santos Zuniga and Tanner Phillips.
Watts is the outlier to watch. He ran 19:28 at the 3A state meet, 59th overall, more than two minutes off his season best. Whichever version shows up in November decides whether Pennington is a top-three team or a top-eight one.