The best team in Class 1A never left home, and the team five points behind it spent the summer fixing the exact thing that was wrong with it. Here is how the 1A boys teams stack up once every course is priced against the same yardstick.
Florida Class 1A boys cross country team rankings, after opening weekend: August 21-22, 2026
The best team in Class 1A did not run a step. Pensacola Christian stayed home — not Pine Forest forty minutes up the road, not anywhere — and they are still No. 1, because the five runners they bring back were all inside 17:54 at the state meet and nobody else in the class returns a pack like that.
Five points behind them is Maclay, who did run, and who spent the summer fixing the exact thing that was wrong with them. In July they were a good front three with a hole behind it. At Cecil Field they put four boys under 17:50 and closed their one-through-five gap by nearly two minutes.
If you want to rank on evidence rather than arithmetic, Maclay is first and it is not particularly close. We rank both, and we say which is which.
As always this is data plus judgment, and we will miss somebody along the way. A (P) beside a team means it did not put five runners on a line this weekend and is entered on what its returners ran last November. How we sorted it all out is at the bottom for anyone who wants it. Races are not won until the kids have run. Enjoy.
The statewide lists: Week 1 boys team top 10 and Week 1 boys top 10. The 1A individuals are here. The other class team lists: 2A boys, 3A boys, 4A boys and 1A girls.
1. Pensacola Christian — 84 points — (P)
Returning five: Isaiah Manderson 16:37.6, Carson Ohman 17:02.4, Jed Fears 17:21.6, Walter Goncalves 17:46.4, Moses Peterlevitz 17:53.4. Projected average 17:20.9, one through five inside 1:15.8.
That spread is the whole case. It is the tightest returning pack in 1A and it is built on five boys who all broke 17:54 at a state meet, not on one star and four hopefuls. Three of the five are seniors. Manderson is our No. 9 individual in the class.
The honest caveat is the one the method forces on them: they get no credit for a summer, and they are not charged for one either. If Pensacola Christian opens in September within twenty seconds of these marks, they are the favorite. If they open thirty seconds off, they are third.
2. Maclay (Tallahassee) — 89 points
Cecil Field. Five-man average 17:24.4, spread 1:51.0. David Barton 16:15, Gavin McVay 17:15, Beau May 17:36, Will Cintron 17:50, Logan Phipps 18:06, with Ben Lawson 19:07 and Benton Belcher 20:30 behind them.
The best actual performance by a 1A boys team this month and the biggest single move on the board. Maclay was fourth in the preseason returner rankings at 18:04.9 with a 3:43.6 spread. They came out of Cecil Field forty seconds a man faster and with the spread cut to 1:51.
Barton opened in 16:15, eight seconds up on Sean Cunningham, the No. 1 individual in the class. McVay took a minute and a half off his state mark. The part that actually matters is underneath: the preseason version of this team had one boy under 17:50 and the August version has four.
3. Cornerstone Classical (Jacksonville) — 134 points
Cecil Field. Average 17:38.2, spread 2:19.0. Jack Kline 16:33, Broderick Olson 16:36, Finley Smith 17:52, Liam Rios 18:18, Benjamin Bishop 18:52, then Noah Zimmer 19:13 and Chandler Fike 19:32.
Third in the preseason, third now, and the news came from a direction nobody was watching. Kline was already the third-fastest returning 1A boy. Olson was 55th in 1A at state in 17:51.7 and ran 16:36, a minute and sixteen seconds better, three seconds behind his own teammate. Cornerstone now has our No. 4 and No. 6 individuals in the class on the same roster.
What they do not have is a third man. It is 1:16 from Olson to Smith, and the 2:19 spread is the widest in the top six. Two elite runners and a soft middle scores 134 against Maclay's four-under-17:50 and its 89.
4. Holy Trinity (Melbourne) — 173 points
Cecil Field. Average 18:06.0, spread 1:28.0. Jesus Martinez 17:25, Zamari Blumenberg 17:31, Roman La Starza 18:12, Kaden Nazareno 18:29, Tedd Du 18:53, with Alex Darlington 19:00 and Jack McFadden 19:04 next.
The most improved team in Class 1A, and it happened without their best runner. Holy Trinity was tenth in the preseason at 19:30.3 with a 6:52.3 spread, one of the worst shapes any ranked team had. They are fourth at 18:06.0 inside 1:28.
Three things did it. Martinez took 34 seconds off. Nazareno went from 19:55.7 at state to 18:29. Du went from 23:50.2 to 18:53, a swing of nearly five minutes that is either a boy who was hurt in November or a boy who found the sport this summer. And Blumenberg, an eighth grader at 17:31, did not run the state meet at all.
One caution. Aiden Darlington, their returning No. 1 at 16:57.9 and our No. 8 individual in 1A, finished the Cecil Elite race in 21:09. That is four minutes off, and Holy Trinity is fourth without a single point from him. It is also the kind of number that is sometimes a bad day and sometimes a mix-up — there is a second Darlington in the same race at 19:00. We report it as it appears and project nothing from it. If Aiden Darlington is healthy, this team has another thirty seconds a man in it and the top three gets crowded.
5. Circle Christian (Winter Park) — 184 points
Cecil Field. Average 18:02.8, spread 2:50.0. Matteo Kirwan 16:34, Aschalew Parker 17:19, Jonah Lehman-Saba 17:42, Joshua Chegwin 19:15, Corban Houdashelt 19:24, then Jacob Mcanlly 19:42 and Lium Cook 20:34.
Second in the preseason, fifth now, and this is the ranking most likely to be wrong in their favor. Circle Christian raced without their returning fourth and fifth men: Elias Houdashelt (18:25.1 at state) and William Head (18:59.1) both stayed home. Chegwin and Houdashelt's younger brother scored in their place and the spread ballooned to 2:50.
The front three is excellent and is why they still rank fifth. Kirwan, a sophomore, took 82.6 seconds off his freshman state time. Parker ran level with November. Lehman-Saba is in the Cecil results under the misspelling “Joanh Lehman-Saba” and is correctly counted here — 17:42 in his first race back, forty seconds off his 17:01.9 state mark.
With Houdashelt and Head in the lineup this team is roughly two minutes better across four and five, which is the difference between fifth and second. They are ranked on the squad they entered.
6. Southwest Florida Christian (Fort Myers) — 204 points
Lemon Bay. Average 18:20.2, spread 0:50.8. Nash Akers, Ty Piper, Aiden Stratton, Shepard Anderson and Liam Piper, in that order, all inside fifty-one seconds.
The newcomer, and the tightest one-through-five in Class 1A — seventeen seconds better than any other team in the class and thirty-six seconds better than any other team that actually raced. SWFC had three boys at the 2025 state meet, below the five-man threshold, so they had no preseason team ranking at all. They were invisible. They are sixth.
Two of their scorers are Pipers who never ran state, and a third Piper is their eighth man. Akers came out thirty seconds better than his state time and Stratton thirteen seconds worse. Lemon Bay is a quick course, so their raw times get marked back a fair way before they land here; even if you gave that correction back by half they stay sixth. A fifty-second spread scores well in any format and it travels to a state meet.
7. St. Johns Country Day (Orange Park) — 271 points
Cecil Field. Average 18:45.2, spread 1:48.0. Nathan Kipnis 18:08, Arlo Kistner 18:11, Judson Myers 18:45, Thomas Nichols 18:46, Elijah Larsen 19:56.
Twelfth in the preseason, seventh now, on a clean four-man front — Kipnis, Kistner, Myers and Nichols inside 38 seconds of each other, with Kipnis 72 seconds up on his state mark. The fifth man is the whole issue: Larsen at 19:56 is 1:10 behind Nichols and turns a 1:11 four-man spread into a 1:48 five-man one.
No heroics here, just a complete team on a day when several of the teams above it were not.
8. Jupiter Christian — 275 points — (P)
Frankie Flora 17:21.1, Andrew Stanek 17:37.8, Dominick Gilliam 19:14.4, Bracen Evans 19:33.5, Dominic Puglisi 19:41.0. Projected average 18:42.2, spread 2:19.9.
Sixth in the preseason, eighth now, entirely because other teams raced and they did not. The Flora–Stanek front will score with anyone in this class. The 1:37 gap from Stanek to Gilliam is why they were sixth and not second in July, and nothing has happened to change it either way.
9. South Florida HEAT (Sunrise) — 309 points — (P)
Judah Brown 18:25.0, Treyton Seeman 18:45.2, David Dorn 18:46.5, Jacob Ryle 19:24.3, Carlos Broderick 19:33.0. Projected average 18:59.4, and a spread of 1:08.0 that is the tightest returning five in the class, tighter even than Pensacola Christian's.
It is also the most fragile ranking on this page. They have exactly five returners — no sixth, so no displacement help and no margin if one of them is hurt in October. Nobody raced. Dorn and Ryle are the interesting pair: Dorn ran 18:46.5 at the state meet as an eighth grader and is a freshman now, and Ryle ran 19:24.3 as a seventh grader and is still an eighth grader, still eligible.
10. Harvest Community (Jacksonville) — 316 points
Cecil Field. Average 18:54.6, spread 2:54.0. James Roland 17:03, Sam Jacobo 17:51, Jesse Brewer 19:51, Liam Stevens 19:51, Nathan Owen 19:57, with Wyatt Box 21:05 sixth.
Two points ahead of Marathon, and the two points belong to the boys who showed up. Roland ran in the Boys B race where almost nobody was watching and went 17:03 — 45 seconds better than his state time, our No. 10 individual in 1A, and one of the ten fastest converted 1A marks of the weekend. Jacobo backed him at 17:51.
Then a two-minute gap to a three-man block at 19:51, 19:51 and 19:57. That block is where the 2:54 spread comes from and why this is 316 points instead of about 230.
Just missed
11. Marathon, 318 (P) — eighth in the preseason, and the 3:20 projected spread is why they were eighth and not fourth. Lucian Burns 17:36.4 leads it.
12. Rocky Bayou Christian (Niceville), 348 (P) — Dominic Ferguson at 16:31.0 is the fourth-fastest returning 1A boy in Florida and our No. 7 individual in the class, and the team spread behind him is 5:29.3. He has been running alone since last fall.
13. Indian Rocks Christian (Largo), 374 (P) — sent exactly one runner to Cecil Field, Eli Domico, who went 17:04. No team.
14. Out-of-Door (Sarasota), 407 — ninth in the preseason and this is the fall. Four of five returners raced at Lemon Bay and Jackson Bowling, their No. 1, came back at 19:00.4 against a 17:50.0 state mark. Jakub Zukiewicz, their No. 2, did not run.
15. St. Edwards (Vero Beach), 414 (P). 16. Lakeland Christian, 419 — Ragin' Storm, 1:52 spread. 17. St. Francis, 447 — Cecil Field, Will Bosko 17:43 and then 85 seconds of nothing.
18. Sheridan Hills Christian (Hollywood), 465 — fifth in the preseason, eighteenth now, and it is the harshest result on the board. Santiago Ospina, their fastest returner, sat out Jim Ryun. Of the five who ran, Josh Cadelien and Sebastien Calder improved on their state marks and Tristan Petersen, Hunter Smith and Adrian Lopez came back 3:20, 2:03 and 55 seconds the wrong way. We do not flip a team to projection when four of its top five actually raced, so Sheridan Hills is stuck with a bad day. Expect them back inside the top ten by October.
Not ranked, and worth saying why
Providence (Jacksonville) has the No. 1 individual in Class 1A — Sean Cunningham, 15:47.8 at state, 16:23 at Cecil Field — and cannot be scored as a team. They have four returners from the state meet and put four boys on the course. Five finishers is not a formality, it is the whole sport. Until Providence finds a fifth, Cunningham is running for a place, not a trophy.
Apex and Geneva Classical Academy both put full boys squads on the course at Cecil Field and neither appears in FHSAA's finalized 2026-27 cross country classification document, so neither can be scored in a class ranking. Geneva Classical's five-man Cecil average of 18:10.1 would be sixth in this class on average alone. That is a limitation of the ranking, not a judgment on the team.
How we ranked them
- Courses do not all run the same speed, so we do not compare raw times. Cecil Field is the yardstick, because most of the state's best runners were there. For the other meets we look at boys who raced both that course and last year's state meet, and use the gap to work out what a time was worth.
- Then every 1A team in Florida goes into one virtual race, scored the normal way: five count, six and seven displace, five finishers required, low score wins. This is a 1A-only field, so the point totals here do not compare to the statewide list — only the order does.
- Where a school raced boys across more than one section, its five fastest count.
- Thirty-one 1A teams could be scored: twenty-three raced a full squad, eight are entered on projection and marked (P). A projection is stingy — it credits a team with no summer improvement and no incoming freshman, while a team that raced is stuck with whatever it ran in the heat.
- On the boys' side August and November times run about even, so there is very little arithmetic to argue with. Run the whole ranking with the August adjustment pushed ten seconds either way and the top six never changes; only first place and the bottom of the ten move, with Marathon and Harvest Community trading places.
- Lemon Bay is a fast course and Southwest Florida Christian's times are marked back for it. It is the only team in the top ten whose placement depends on a small conversion, and it holds even if you give half of that back.
- Class is the 2026-27 FHSAA classification, not last year's. A school only appears in our returner data if it has a returning runner from the 2025 state meet, so a program whose one qualifier graduated is invisible to us until we place it by hand from the FHSAA document.
- Georgia and Tennessee runners at Cecil Field are left out.
Week 2 answers a few of these — starting with whether Pensacola Christian is still the team that projection says it is. Check back for the updated top ten, and the full opening weekend recap with all eleven meets is right here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the No. 1 Class 1A boys cross country team in Florida in Week 1? expand_more
Pensacola Christian, on 84 points. They did not enter a meet on opening weekend and are ranked on their returning five from the 2025 state meet, all of whom broke 17:54 there. Maclay is five points behind at 89 and is the highest-ranked 1A team that actually raced.
Why are teams that did not race still ranked? expand_more
A school with five or more returners from the 2025 state meet is entered at those state times plus the August adjustment and marked (P). Leaving them out would produce a ranking of attendance rather than a ranking of Florida. The projection is deliberately stingy: it credits a team with no summer improvement and no incoming freshman, while a team that raced is stuck with whatever it ran in the heat.
Which 1A boys team improved the most over the summer? expand_more
Holy Trinity of Melbourne. They were tenth in the preseason at a 19:30.3 average with a 6:52.3 spread and came out of Cecil Field at 18:06.0 inside 1:28, without their No. 1 runner scoring. Maclay made the biggest move at the top, cutting forty seconds off its average and nearly two minutes off its spread.
Why is Providence not ranked when it has the best runner in 1A? expand_more
Cross country requires five finishers to score a team. Providence has four returners from the state meet and put four boys on the course at Cecil Field, so there is nothing to score. Sean Cunningham is the No. 1 individual in the class and is currently running for a place, not a trophy.