We put all 31 entered teams into our Race Simulator and scored both varsity races at the Buchholz Bobcats Classic. Nease's boys run a perfect 20 on a three-week-old Cecil Field race. Buchholz, Eastside and Bishop Kenny sit inside 13 points for second. Buchholz's girls win at home by 18 over Oak Hall, and the Class 2A champions on the entry list cannot be scored because they have not raced.
Buchholz Bobcats Classic, hosted by Buchholz High School. Santa Fe College, Gainesville, the meet's home in recent years. Saturday, September 12, 2026. Thirty-one boys' teams and thirty-one girls' teams entered.
This is one of the biggest meets in North Central Florida before the district round, and the entry list reaches well past Alachua County: six programs from Duval County, Nease from Ponte Vedra, Oakleaf and Middleburg from Clay County, Belleview, North Marion and West Port from Marion County, Jensen Beach up from the Treasure Coast, and the small schools from Bell, Branford, Trenton, Fort White and Interlachen that make this meet what it is. We took every entered team, dropped them into our Race Simulator, and scored both varsity races the way Saturday will score them. Every runner is entered on the best thing he or she has run in 2026, leveled to a common course. Five score, sixth and seventh displace. Below are the top tens, teams and individuals, for each race. The full standings, all 26 scoring boys' teams and 22 girls' teams with every runner, are one click away.
The short version. Nease 4A runs a perfect 20 in the boys' race, five of the first seven, on a Cecil Field performance that is now three weeks old. Buchholz 4A, Eastside 2A and Bishop Kenny 3A sit inside 13 points for second, and the order of those three changes with the toggle. Buchholz wins the girls' race at home by 18 over Oak Hall 1A, the school across town, which puts a seventh grader and two eighth graders in its scoring five. And the strongest girls' team on the entry list, Bishop Kenny, cannot be scored at all: three weeks into the season the Class 2A champions have not run a varsity race.
Run it yourself. Every entered team is already loaded.
One click opens the Race Simulator with Saturday's field filled in, every team and every runner. Flip it to best times, add a school with the search box, or pull a team out and watch the scores move.
Run the boys' race → Run the girls' race →About the times. Every mark below is the time the runner actually ran, and where. The last column is what that time is worth at Cecil Field, the reference course, and that is the number the scoring uses. A dagger means the course has no rating yet and the raw time stands in. A team needs five runners with a 2026 mark to score; the teams that do not have five are listed after each race. The simulator does not project, so nobody is entered on last November. Most of this field has run one of two meets, Cecil Field on August 21 or the Florida Horse Park on September 5, and both courses rate within a few seconds of each other, so the toggle moves this field less than it has moved others.
Boys: Nease by 122, and three teams inside 13 for second
Nease 4A scores 20, placing 1-3-4-5-7. Rishi Chopra (Sr.) ran 15:39.0 at Cecil Field on opening night, the fastest time anyone in this field has run in 2026, and Matthew Ishee (Jr.) was third in the same race at 15:54.0. Gideon Churchill (Sr.) 16:20.0, Joseph Morley (Jr.) 16:22.0 and Colin Lasota (So.) 16:34.0 close the five in 55 seconds, and Ayden Dixon (Sr.) and Matthew Myers (So.) at 17:00 and 17:08 would be the sixth and seventh men in this field. The 16:09.8 average is still the best five any 4A team has put together this fall and the reason Nease is first in our 4A team rankings. It is also the only race they have run. Saturday is their first start since August 21, and the one thing the simulator cannot tell you is what three weeks of training did to those numbers.
Buchholz 4A is second at 142, and the host's shape is the opposite of Nease's. Andrew Sides (Jr.) is second in the field on his 15:49.0 from Cecil, seventh in our 4A boys top ten, and Finn Richards (Sr.) is eighth at 16:40.0 with Quinn Meyer (Sr.) 16th at 17:02.0. Then a gap of more than a minute to Nathan Clark (Sr.) 18:07.0 and Dashiell Guthrie-Cogle (Jr.) 18:34.0, a 2:45 spread. Every one of those marks is from Cecil Field; Buchholz has not raced since. One name to watch for on the start line: Brennen Bentley, their top finisher at the state meet last November, has not appeared in a 2026 result. If he runs, the back of this lineup looks different.
Eastside 2A is third at 150, three points behind a crosstown rival it beats on best times. Luke Engels (Sr.) is sixth in the field on 16:33.0 from Cecil, and the other four scorers all ran the Horse Park: Elijah Stringer (Sr.) 17:13.8, Chesley McDonald (Jr.) 17:40.6, Griffin Morris (Jr.) 17:45.1 and Ethan Nonato (Jr.) 17:53.5, with Benjamin White (Sr.) at 18:12.7 as the sixth. That Horse Park run moved them from 14th to fourth in our 2A team rankings. The Horse Park rates about five seconds fast for boys, so each of those four gives five seconds back when the courses are leveled, and that is the entire margin between Eastside and Buchholz.
Bishop Kenny 3A is fourth at 155 on the same arithmetic. Quinn Mullaney (Jr.) is tenth in the field on 16:45.6 at the Horse Park and Dayne Kimball (Sr.) 17th on 16:57.7, with Brian Martinez (Sr.) 17:18.4, Jack Mosqueda (Sr.) 18:03.8 and Andrew Mendoza (Jr.) 18:07.9 closing a 1:22 spread, and a freshman, Thomas Hurt, six tenths behind Mendoza as the sixth. All seven marks are from Ocala, where they finished 18th.
Score the same race on best times and second through fourth reshuffle: Eastside 138, Bishop Kenny 143, Buchholz 145. Thirteen points covers the three teams on either clock, and the three have not been on a start line together this year. Nease is 20 either way.
Mandarin 4A is fifth at 171 with three Cecil Field marks up front, Alex Cardona (So.) 17:00.0, Dillon Graves (So.) 17:11.0 and Lucas Giddens (Sr.) 17:23.0, and a 1:25 spread. Belleview 3A (192) and Jensen Beach 3A (194) are two points apart for sixth. Belleview's Asher Inman (So.) is 11th in the field on 16:46.0 at the Horse Park, and three of their scorers are entered on Whispering Pines, which rates about 14 seconds slow for boys and gives them that much back. Jensen Beach is the team the ratings help most: Mason Galdys (Sr.) ran 17:20.7 at the Indian River Fairgrounds, a course that rates 27 seconds slow, and that mark is worth 16:53.3, 12th in the field; on best times he is 18th. Grant Belville (Jr.) is 19th the same way. Wolfson 2A is eighth at 243 on the tightest scoring five in the top ten after Nease, 1:16 from Joseph Barry (Sr.) 17:34.0 to Rian Naik (Jr.) 18:50.0, all from Cecil Field. Fletcher 4A is ninth at 258 with Evan Kirby (So.) ninth in the field on 16:40.6 at the Horse Park, and Oakleaf 4A is tenth at 305.
Two more names outside the team top ten. Peter Curet, a freshman at Atlantic Coast 4A, is 13th in the field on 16:54.0 from Cecil; his team is 11th at 310 on a 3:17 spread. Brooklyn Smith (Jr.) of North Marion 3A is 18th on 16:59.4 at the Horse Park, and North Marion is 20th as a team. Oak Hall 1A, seventh in our 1A team rankings, is 12th here at 311, one point behind Atlantic Coast.
Not scoreable: Fort White 2A, Interlachen 2A and St. John Lutheran 1A each have four boys with a 2026 mark; Palatka 2A has two; Branford 1A has none. Interlachen's marks are from Wildwood and Fort White's from Crystal River and Dueling Summits, none of which has a boys' rating yet, so those runners are entered on raw times.
Boys team top ten
| Pl | Team | Score | Scorers | Five-runner avg | 1-5 spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nease (Ponte Vedra) 4A | 20 | 1-3-4-5-7 | 16:09.8 | 0:55.0 |
| 2 | Buchholz (Gainesville) 4A | 142 | 2-8-16-46-70 | 17:14.4 | 2:45.0 |
| 3 | Eastside 2A | 150 | 6-26-37-39-42 | 17:29.4 | 1:25.7 |
| 4 | Bishop Kenny (Jacksonville) 3A | 155 | 10-17-28-48-52 | 17:31.9 | 1:22.3 |
| 5 | Mandarin 4A | 171 | 14-21-27-47-62 | 17:37.2 | 1:25.0 |
| 6 | Belleview 3A | 192 | 11-32-44-51-54 | 17:48.0 | 1:24.9 |
| 7 | Jensen Beach 3A | 194 | 12-19-41-59-63 | 17:43.8 | 1:31.7 |
| 8 | Wolfson (Jacksonville) 2A | 243 | 29-31-40-57-86 | 18:02.4 | 1:16.0 |
| 9 | Fletcher 4A | 258 | 9-35-67-69-78 | 18:02.9 | 1:53.9 |
| 10 | Oakleaf 4A | 305 | 36-45-56-72-96 | 18:21.6 | 1:16.8 |
Boys, first ten
| Pl | Runner | School | Ran | Where | Worth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rishi Chopra (Sr.) | Nease (Ponte Vedra) | 15:39.0 | Cecil Field | 15:39.0 |
| 2 | Andrew Sides (Jr.) | Buchholz (Gainesville) | 15:49.0 | Cecil Field | 15:49.0 |
| 3 | Matthew Ishee (Jr.) | Nease (Ponte Vedra) | 15:54.0 | Cecil Field | 15:54.0 |
| 4 | Gideon Churchill (Sr.) | Nease (Ponte Vedra) | 16:20.0 | Cecil Field | 16:20.0 |
| 5 | Joseph Morley (Jr.) | Nease (Ponte Vedra) | 16:22.0 | Cecil Field | 16:22.0 |
| 6 | Luke Engels (Sr.) | Eastside | 16:33.0 | Cecil Field | 16:33.0 |
| 7 | Colin Lasota (So.) | Nease (Ponte Vedra) | 16:34.0 | Cecil Field | 16:34.0 |
| 8 | Finn Richards (Sr.) | Buchholz (Gainesville) | 16:40.0 | Cecil Field | 16:40.0 |
| 9 | Evan Kirby (So.) | Fletcher | 16:40.6 | Florida Horse Park | 16:45.8 |
| 10 | Quinn Mullaney (Jr.) | Bishop Kenny (Jacksonville) | 16:45.6 | Florida Horse Park | 16:50.8 |
Girls: Buchholz at home by 18, Oak Hall second with three middle schoolers, and the best team cannot be scored
Buchholz 4A scores 51, placing 3-7-9-14-18, and does it without the girl who was their best finisher at the state meet. Phoebe Verschage (Sr.) is third in the field on 20:04.0 from Cecil Field and freshman Morgan Outcalt seventh on 20:19.0 in the same race. Alanna Doyle ran 20:20.3 at Whispering Pines and Valeria Beaver (Sr.) 20:37.8 there, and both give time back, because Whispering Pines rated fast for girls this year, about 20 seconds, even as it rated slow for boys. Dylan Dublin (Jr.) 21:27.0 from Cecil closes a 1:23 spread, with Rayna Obal (So.) and Amelia Dunn (Sr.) behind. Buchholz is 11th in our 4A girls team rankings and has not raced since Whispering Pines on August 29. Alexandra Rossi, 29th in 4A at state last November, has not appeared in a 2026 result; on that time she would lead them.
Oak Hall 1A is second at 69, the team that sits fourth in our 1A girls rankings, and its scoring five has a 1:15 spread and three middle schoolers in it. Natalie Kay, a seventh grader, ran 20:16.3 at Whispering Pines, the sixth-fastest raw time in this field, worth 20:36.4 leveled and ninth. Reese Allen (8th grade) 20:39.1 and Lola Murfee (Sr.) 20:46.6 are 12th and 13th on Horse Park marks, Macie Bell (8th grade) 21:14.3 is 18th, and Madeline Kay, another seventh grader, closes the five. Alexis Thur de Koos (Jr.) is the sixth. On best times the gap to Buchholz is 19, on leveled times 18. The two schools are across town from each other, three classes apart, and the simulator has them first and second.
Jensen Beach 3A is third at 118 on the strength of its front two. Madelyn Fischer (Jr.) is second in the field and Annabel DeTure (Sr.) fifth. Fischer is an example of what the toggle does: her fastest raw time is 20:00.7 at the Horse Park, but the simulator scores her on her 20:07.6 at Indian River, because Indian River rates six seconds slow for girls and the Horse Park five seconds fast, so once both are leveled the Indian River run is worth 20:01.5 and the Horse Park run 20:05.3. Behind the pair the spread is 3:37, with Allie Morris (Sr.) 22:24.6 as the third.
Wolfson 2A is fourth at 140, all seven from Cecil Field, Elli Kane (So.) 11th in the field on 20:41.0 and then four girls between 22:14 and 23:09. Tenth in our 2A team rankings. Fletcher 4A (202) and Mandarin 4A (206) are four points apart for fifth, built two different ways: Fletcher has Eliza Hutton (Sr.) 14th on 20:56.0 and a 5:57 spread; Mandarin has nobody inside the first 30 and a 1:33 spread, seven girls between 22:33 and 24:08 at the Horse Park.
Middleburg 3A is seventh at 259 and is the team whose place depends most on one number. Lauren Rosset (So.) ran 21:07.2 at Spikes & Spurs on opening weekend, and the simulator rates that course 52 seconds slow for girls, which makes her mark worth 20:15.0 and sixth in the field; on best times she is 14th and Middleburg is tenth. The girls' rating for that course is not measured from the girls' race. It is the boys' figure, built from 14 runners, scaled up, because fewer than 15 girls there had a state time to compare against. Thin sample, said plainly. The same rating moves Agatha Wigham, a Palatka 2A freshman, from 21:18.9 raw to 20:26.7 and eighth in the field; Palatka has three girls entered, so she scores for nobody.
The individual winner is not in question on either clock. Allison Austin (So.) of Atlantic Coast 4A ran 18:56.0 at Cecil Field, tenth in our 4A girls top ten, and wins this simulated race by 65 seconds. Atlantic Coast is eighth as a team at 264 with six girls and a 10:02 spread; Jillian Oberes (Sr.) is their second at 21:59.0. Villages 2A (267) and St. Francis 1A (297) round out the ten. Just outside it, Eastside 2A is 11th with Bridget Gulledge (Sr.) 17th in the field, and Gainesville 3A is 12th with Eve Flory (Sr.) 16th on 21:11.0 from Cecil, so four Gainesville schools score in the girls' race.
One more runner to know: Paislee Guessford (Sr.) of Interlachen 2A is fourth in the field on 20:13.0 from Wildwood, a course with no girls' rating, so that is a raw time standing in. Interlachen has exactly five girls with a mark, all from Wildwood, and is 16th as a team.
Now Bishop Kenny. They are on the entry list. They won the Class 2A title last November with 49 points and moved up to 3A this year, and their five returning state qualifiers, Taylor Lawhon 18:26.0, Camila Giles 18:48.1, Jillian Jakab 19:07.8, Rebecca McEnany 19:29.2 and Ava McEnany 20:02.0, are inside 1:36 of each other on those times. That paper has them second in our 3A team rankings and third in the state. It is paper. Three weeks in, they have not run a varsity girls' race, and the simulator does not project, so they appear in the standings with zero runners and no score. If that five starts on Saturday, Buchholz's 51 is not the number to beat; on last November's times, five Bishop Kenny girls would cross before Buchholz's third.
Not scoreable: Belleview 3A, North Marion 3A and St. John Lutheran 1A each have four girls with a 2026 mark; Palatka 2A has three; Bradford 2A has two; Fort White 2A and Trenton 1A have one; Bishop Kenny 3A and Branford 1A have none. Nease entered only a boys' team.
Girls team top ten
| Pl | Team | Score | Scorers | Five-runner avg | 1-5 spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buchholz (Gainesville) 4A | 51 | 3-7-9-14-18 | 20:41.7 | 1:23.0 |
| 2 | Oak Hall (Gainesville) 1A | 69 | 8-11-12-17-21 | 21:04.3 | 1:15.1 |
| 3 | Jensen Beach 3A | 118 | 2-5-28-35-48 | 21:46.8 | 3:37.1 |
| 4 | Wolfson (Jacksonville) 2A | 140 | 10-25-27-38-40 | 22:16.6 | 2:28.0 |
| 5 | Fletcher 4A | 202 | 13-26-36-39-88 | 23:11.4 | 5:57.0 |
| 6 | Mandarin 4A | 206 | 32-37-42-43-52 | 23:20.6 | 1:33.8 |
| 7 | Middleburg 3A | 259 | 6-57-58-64-74 | 24:05.5 | 5:54.1 |
| 8 | Atlantic Coast (Jacksonville) 4A | 264 | 1-23-49-73-118 | 23:53.0 | 10:02.0 |
| 9 | Villages 2A | 267 | 19-44-50-75-79 | 24:18.4 | 4:41.1 |
| 10 | St. Francis 1A | 297 | 31-46-61-72-87 | 24:41.3 | 4:13.9 |
Girls, first ten
| Pl | Runner | School | Ran | Where | Worth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allison Austin (So.) | Atlantic Coast (Jacksonville) | 18:56.0 | Cecil Field | 18:56.0 |
| 2 | Madelyn Fischer (Jr.) | Jensen Beach | 20:07.6 | Indian River Fairgrounds | 20:01.5 |
| 3 | Phoebe Verschage (Sr.) | Buchholz (Gainesville) | 20:04.0 | Cecil Field | 20:04.0 |
| 4 | Paislee Guessford (Sr.) | Interlachen | 20:13.0 | Wildwood | 20:13.0 † |
| 5 | Annabel DeTure (Sr.) | Jensen Beach | 20:19.6 | Indian River Fairgrounds | 20:13.5 |
| 6 | Lauren Rosset (So.) | Middleburg | 21:07.2 | Spikes & Spurs | 20:15.0 |
| 7 | Morgan Outcalt (Fr.) | Buchholz (Gainesville) | 20:19.0 | Cecil Field | 20:19.0 |
| 8 | Agatha Wigham (Fr.) | Palatka | 21:18.9 | Spikes & Spurs | 20:26.7 |
| 9 | Natalie Kay (7th grade) | Oak Hall (Gainesville) | 20:16.3 | Whispering Pines | 20:36.4 |
| 10 | Alanna Doyle | Buchholz (Gainesville) | 20:20.3 | Whispering Pines | 20:40.4 |
What the simulator cannot see
- Every entered school is in our database this week, including Bell, Branford, Trenton, Keystone Heights and Christ's Church Academy, which were not when we ran the Horse Park field two weeks ago. Branford is entered in both races and has no 2026 result we hold.
- The simulator scores what has been run. Bishop Kenny's girls, Buchholz's Brennen Bentley and Alexandra Rossi, and anyone else without a 2026 result are not in these standings, and the entry list says nothing about who will be on the line.
- Nease and Buchholz have each raced once. Half this field has raced once. A team's "best 2026 mark" and its "only 2026 mark" are the same thing for most of the teams here, and one race is a thin basis for anything.
- Alanna Doyle of Buchholz carries no grade in the results we hold, so she appears without one above.
Notes on the ratings
- A course rating is the gap between what runners ran at a meet and what the same runners ran at last year's state final, re-anchored so that Cecil Field, the biggest sample of the season, sits at zero. Boys use the mean of that gap and need at least five paired runners; girls use the median and need at least fifteen, or the boys' figure is scaled up instead.
- The ratings doing the work here: the Florida Horse Park about five seconds fast for both boys and girls, from 144 and 132 paired runners, the best-measured course in the field; Whispering Pines about 14 seconds slow for boys and 20 seconds fast for girls; the Indian River Fairgrounds about 27 seconds slow for boys and six for girls; Spikes & Spurs about 43 seconds slow for boys from 14 runners, and the girls' figure of 52 is that number scaled, not measured. Wildwood, Crystal River, Lecanto and Dueling Summits have no rating for the race in question and those runners are entered on raw times, marked with a dagger.
- The simulator recomputes its ratings from the current database snapshot, so it can differ from figures carried in our weekly rankings posts by a few seconds. It moves times, not places.
- These are Cecil Field equivalents, not predictions of Saturday's clock. We have no rating for the Santa Fe College course. Expect the actual times to come back different from the last column of these tables, and the places to be what matter.
- Grades and classifications are 2026-27. Middle schoolers running varsity for private schools are eligible and are scored as entered.
Featured image: the Buchholz High School Bobcats logo, the school's own mark, used to identify the host of Saturday's meet.
The same treatment for the first big Saturday of the month: the Florida Horse Park, the Pace Patriot Invitational, the St. Cloud XC Invitational and the Estero 3D Invitational. Results and what they mean next week.