Two hundred thirty-five Florida schools, eleven courses worth different amounts, and twenty-seven teams that never left home. We put them all in one virtual race. Belen Jesuit wins by 61 points, and the team ranked sixth never pinned on a number.
Florida boys cross country team rankings, after opening weekend: August 21-22, 2026
Two hundred thirty-five Florida schools are ranked here. Two hundred eight of them raced on August 21 or 22, on eleven different courses that are not worth the same thing as each other. The other twenty-seven did not race at all, and leaving them out would produce a ranking of attendance rather than a ranking of Florida.
So there are two kinds of evidence on this page, and they are marked.
Two kinds of evidence, one scale
Every boy who raced has his time converted to a Cecil Field equivalent using the course offsets at the bottom of this page. Every team that did not field five runners is entered at its returning five from the 2025 state meet, converted forward by 0.6 seconds — which is to say, essentially unchanged, because the 158 boys who ran both the state meet and Cecil Field came in dead even.
That is worth sitting with for a second. The girls' field needed a 28.8-second conversion to compare August to November. The boys' field needed nothing. Same weekend, same heat, same courses.
Then all 235 teams go into one virtual race scored the normal way: top five count, sixth and seventh displace, low score wins.
Be clear about what the projection assumes. It credits an absent team with no summer improvement and no incoming freshman, and it credits a team that raced with exactly what it ran, good day or bad. Teams marked (P) are ranked on projection. Everyone else raced.
1. Belen Jesuit, 3A — 108
Cecil Field. 15:54.4 average, the only team in Florida under 16:00, inside a 1:17 spread. Armando Cruz 15:06, Jack Michalak 15:47, Liam Salom 15:54, Nicholas Veloso 16:22, Dominic De Armas 16:23. They won the Cecil Field team title 75-158.
Marcelo Mantecon did not run, and here is what that is worth in this format. Belen's returning five, with Mantecon in it, projects to a 15:47.3 average and a score of 93 — better than the 108 they actually earned. They are ranked on what they ran, which understates them, and they are still 61 points clear of the field.
Our preseason projection had Belen's 3A team score at 20 points, the lowest of any boys team in Florida in any class. Nothing about August moved it.
2. Nease, 4A — 169
Cecil Field. 16:09.8 average with a 0:55 spread, the tightest one-through-five of any team that raced. Rishi Chopra 15:39, Matthew Ishee 15:54, then Gideon Churchill, Joseph Morley and Colin Lasota in a fifteen-second knot from 16:20 to 16:34. Chopra took 37.7 seconds off his state time and Ishee 25.7.
Projected second in 4A at 99 points, second at Cecil Field, second here. There is nothing to argue about. Whatever Nease did over the summer worked across the program: their girls are tenth in Florida after ranking twelfth in their own class on returners.
3. Flagler Palm Coast, 4A — 254
Take Spikes & Spurs at face value and Flagler is a 16:47 team average, behind Bolles and well behind Lake Minneola. We price the course at 27.8 seconds slow. Convert, and Flagler's average is 16:20.1 — third in Florida, ahead of both.
Douglas Seth's winning 15:59.5 becomes 15:31.7. Behind him Dylan Ciardi, Mateo Almeida, Enzo McGovern and Owen Stackpole all land inside 16:52, and the whole five fits in 1:19.7. They won the meet with 23 points to Ponte Vedra's 54.
They had one returner from the 2025 state meet. There is no history holding this up. It is one Saturday on a course we can price, and it is the strongest single-day performance in Florida outside Cecil Field.
It is also the shakiest course number we publish. Only fourteen boys ran both Spikes & Spurs and the state meet, and they scattered badly enough that the average of that group says the course runs 43.7 seconds slow while the middle of it says 17.1. Run the whole ranking again at either end and Flagler is third at one end and second at the other. They are the one Spikes & Spurs team the uncertainty cannot hurt. It hurts Ponte Vedra instead, which is a problem we get to further down.
4. Bolles, 2A — 378
Cecil Field, 16:37.6, spread 0:56, and not a single runner in the state's top twenty. Brantley Rigdon 16:04, Aidan Chandler 16:28, Armaan Sharma 16:44, Wyatt Cleek 16:52, Vincent Barragan 17:00, sixth man 17:05.
Projected first in 2A at 52 points, and now looking over its shoulder at a 2A team four places back that did not race.
5. Lake Minneola, 4A — 398
Their 16:23.0 average is the second-best number in Florida, better than Flagler's and fourteen seconds better than Bolles's. They rank fifth, because standard scoring does not care about averages.
Quentin Thompson 15:16, Jacob Kelly 16:07, Drew Sasson 16:08, Matthew Lydiard 16:26 — a front four nobody outside Belen can match. Then Joshua Ping at 17:58, place 295 in the virtual field, and a 2:42 spread that is the widest in the top ten.
Close that gap by a minute and Lake Minneola is second in Florida. Until they do, an average is a number and a score is a result.
6. Bishop Kenny, 3A — 558 (P)
The team that changes this list.
Bishop Kenny returns five from the state meet at a 16:53.2 average with a 0:40.7 spread. Thomas Milton 16:36.5, Ethan Reid 16:37.1, Brian Martinez 16:41.9, Quinn Mullaney 17:16.2, Dayne Kimball 17:17.2.
Put that spread in context: no team in Florida averaging under 17:30 actually ran a tighter one-through-five in August than Bishop Kenny returns on paper. The closest anybody came was Nease at 0:55. Bishop Kenny's five are separated by forty seconds.
They did not enter a meet, and sixth is where the only scale that puts everybody in the same race puts them.
The risk on a team like this is obvious: five returners is the minimum, so there is no margin if one of them is hurt or gone, and nothing here reflects a summer of work we cannot see. The upside is that a forty-second pack is the hardest thing in cross country to build and the easiest thing to keep.
7. George Steinbrenner, 4A — 575
Jim Ryun, where Holloway Park took 38.2 seconds off everybody. Jack Bronder's 16:41.3 converts to 16:03.1, and a raw team average of 18:07 becomes 16:52.7. They won the meet with 76 points.
If you distrust course conversions, this is the ranking you distrust. It is also the best-supported conversion we have outside Cecil Field — forty runners raced both Holloway and the state meet, and they agree with each other — so we are standing behind it. Steinbrenner did not get a gift. They got a translation.
8. Gulliver Prep, 2A — 589 (P)
Seven returners, a 16:56.0 state average, a 1:06.3 spread, and no meet this weekend. Adrian Iziliaev leads at 16:24.5. Projected second in 2A at 64 points.
Which means two of Florida's top eight teams are 2A schools, and one of them has not been seen since November. Whatever 2A was supposed to be this year, it is deeper at the top than 3A is behind Belen.
9. Creekside, 4A — 624
Cecil Field, 16:57.8, spread 1:30, Eli Scharf 16:21 and Samuel Cassiani 16:33. Two returners from state, so like Flagler they are ranked mostly on new evidence, and unlike Flagler they got there without a front-runner.
10. Niceville, 4A — 647
The most uncomfortable entry on this page, and the best illustration of what this method does and does not do.
Niceville is our projected 4A favorite at 37 points, built on six returners averaging 16:22.3 with a 0:28.1 spread — a tighter pack on paper than Bishop Kenny's. Had they stayed home, this method would have entered them at 16:22.9 and scored them 237, third in Florida, ahead of Flagler Palm Coast.
They raced instead. Bryant Olson ran 15:44 for fifth at Cecil Field, twenty-six seconds better than his state time as a sophomore. Then 16:56, 17:17, 17:21, 17:26 — a 1:42 spread from a group whose state times say 0:28.
Tenth is where the weekend put them. Third is where the paper puts them. That gap is the single largest disagreement on this list, and it is the honest cost of the method: showing up can only hurt you here, and staying home is scored as a promise nobody has to keep. August is not the month that settles it.
Nine through thirteen is not an order
Creekside 624. Niceville 647. Vanguard 648. Ponte Vedra 651. Leon 652.
Twenty-eight points covering five teams in a 235-team field. Read it as a five-way tie that a ranking format forces into a line.
Vanguard (16:59.0) has four runners inside twenty-five seconds from 16:31 to 16:56 and a fifth at 18:00, which is the whole story.
Ponte Vedra (16:55.6) has Luke Ross converting to 15:37.1, the sixth-fastest individual mark in Florida on the weekend, and then a 1:23 wait for its second scorer. They are also the team most exposed to the Spikes & Spurs problem: price that course at the middle of its sample and Ponte Vedra falls out of the top fifteen; price it at the average and they are sixth in the state. Twelfth is our best estimate and it is genuinely an estimate.
Leon, 3A (16:58.7) won Dueling Summits by 27 points on a course we can price from four runners. At our estimate of +56.4 they are thirteenth. At the middle of that same four-runner sample, +60.7, they are ninth and Niceville drops out of the top ten. Somebody needs to get the Big Bend onto a course we can measure.
Vanguard and Ponte Vedra were both inside the top ten before the projected teams went in. Neither has done anything wrong. They were passed by two teams that did not run.
The rest of the teams that stayed home
Wiregrass Ranch (890, P) is a special case: they raced, and entered none of their five returning scorers, so a 19:14.9 August result tells us nothing about their varsity and they are scored on their 17:16.9 projection instead. Projected fourth in 4A at 173.
Pensacola Christian (928, P) is the projected 1A No. 1 at 59 points and did not race. Melbourne (964, P) is fifth in 4A. Lincoln (1048, P) is fifth in 3A on a 0:58.4 returning spread. None of them threaten the top ten, but all of them sit ahead of teams that showed up, which is worth knowing before September.
Also considered
Fort Myers (691) has Reed Hagen and Trae Britton one second apart and then a 46-second hole. St. Cloud (776) and Tavares (797) both came out of Holloway behind Steinbrenner. Hagerty (805) had two inside 16:28 adjusted and nothing behind them, and like Ponte Vedra they move a long way if the Spikes & Spurs number moves. Fleming Island (889), Chiles (914), Bartram Trail (958) and Buchholz (993) each have a top-30 individual and a spread over two minutes, which is the same team four times.
Winning a meet is not the same as being good
Gulf Breeze swept Pine Forest — the slowest course in the state at plus 61.8, the largest credit we handed out — and ranks 63rd. Timber Creek won Ocoee and ranks 98th. Sunlake swept Lecanto and is 29th. Osceola (Seminole) swept the Ragin' Storm XC Challenge and is 42nd. Villages won its own invitational, where one returner ran, which is not enough to price a course at all.
That is not a knock on any of them. It is what happens when the field is the variable and the clock is the constant.
The top 10
| # | Team | Class | Score | Adj. 5-avg | 1-5 spread | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Belen Jesuit | 3A | 108 | 15:54.4 | 1:17.0 | Cecil Field |
| 2 | Nease | 4A | 169 | 16:09.8 | 0:55.0 | Cecil Field |
| 3 | Flagler Palm Coast | 4A | 254 | 16:20.1 | 1:19.7 | Spikes & Spurs |
| 4 | Bolles | 2A | 378 | 16:37.6 | 0:56.0 | Cecil Field |
| 5 | Lake Minneola | 4A | 398 | 16:23.0 | 2:42.0 | Cecil Field |
| 6 | Bishop Kenny | 3A | 558 | 16:53.8 | 0:40.7 | (P) returners |
| 7 | George Steinbrenner | 4A | 575 | 16:52.7 | 1:26.7 | Jim Ryun |
| 8 | Gulliver Prep | 2A | 589 | 16:56.6 | 1:06.3 | (P) returners |
| 9 | Creekside | 4A | 624 | 16:57.8 | 1:30.0 | Cecil Field |
| 10 | Niceville | 4A | 647 | 16:56.8 | 1:42.0 | Cecil Field |
Next five: Vanguard (3A) 648, Ponte Vedra (3A) 651, Leon (3A) 652, Fort Myers 691, St. Cloud 776.
If you only count the teams that raced: Belen Jesuit, Nease, Flagler Palm Coast, Bolles, Lake Minneola, George Steinbrenner, Creekside, Niceville, Ponte Vedra, Vanguard.
How this was built
Every boys varsity finish from August 21-22 was converted to a Cecil Field equivalent, merged into one virtual race, and scored with standard cross country rules: top five score, sixth and seventh displace, five finishers required. Each school is scored from its best meet, using its five fastest across all sections.
A team is entered on projection when it has five or more returners from the 2025 state meet and either did not field five finishers this weekend, or fielded five without entering at least two of its returning scorers. Twenty-seven teams qualify. The forward conversion is +0.6 seconds, the measured difference between what 158 boys ran at the 2025 state meet and what the same 158 ran at Cecil Field in August.
Course offsets come from athletes who ran both the 2025 FHSAA state meet and the meet in question, matched on name and school. A positive number means the course runs slow.
| Course | Offset | Runners |
|---|---|---|
| Cecil Field | neutral | 158 |
| Holloway Park (Jim Ryun) | +38.2 | 40 |
| Spikes & Spurs | +27.8 | 14 |
| Pine Forest | +61.8 | 5 |
| Lehigh | −19.6 | 19 |
| Dueling Summits | +56.4 | 4 |
| Lecanto | +22.1 | 4 |
| Lemon Bay | −23.6 | 8 |
| Ragin' Storm | −1.4 | 22 |
| Ocoee Kickstart | −3.0 | 10 |
| Villages Buffalo | unrated | 1 |
The three offsets built on four or five runners are estimates rather than measurements. Two of them can move the top ten: Dueling Summits, which decides whether Leon is ninth or thirteenth, and Spikes & Spurs, which decides whether Ponte Vedra is sixth or nowhere.
Out-of-state entries are excluded: the Georgia teams at Cecil Field (Richmond Hill, West Forsyth, Mill Creek, Deerfield-Windsor, Glynn Academy) and at Dueling Summits (Thomas County Central, Tift County, Bainbridge, Colquitt County). Richmond Hill and West Forsyth would have been fourth and eighth among the teams that raced.
What moves this list
Bishop Kenny and Gulliver Prep pinning on a number, which would convert two of the top eight from promise to result. Mantecon racing, which only widens the gap at the top. Niceville putting its two-through-five where their state times say they belong. Lake Minneola and Vanguard finding a fifth man. Flagler and Ponte Vedra getting onto a course we can price properly. And somebody taking Leon to a real meet.
The individual boys top ten is here, the girls team rankings are here, and the full opening-weekend recap, all eleven meets, is here.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can teams that raced on different courses be ranked against each other? expand_more
Every finish from August 21-22 is converted to a Cecil Field equivalent using the runners who raced both the 2025 FHSAA state meet and the meet in question. The gap between their state time and their August time prices the course. All 235 teams then go into one virtual race scored by standard cross country rules: top five count, sixth and seventh displace, low score wins.
Why are teams that did not race included at all? expand_more
Twenty-seven Florida schools with five or more returners from the 2025 state meet did not field five runners this weekend, and leaving them out would produce a ranking of attendance rather than a ranking of Florida. They are entered at their returning five converted forward by 0.6 seconds, which is the measured difference between what 158 boys ran at the state meet and what the same 158 ran at Cecil Field in August. The boys' field ran August and November dead even.
Why is Belen Jesuit first when Marcelo Mantecon did not run? expand_more
Belen scored 108 to Nease's 169 without him, on a 15:54.4 average that is the only sub-16:00 team mark in Florida. Their returning five with Mantecon in it projects to a 15:47.3 average and a score of 93, so ranking them on what they actually ran understates them by fifteen points.
How is Bishop Kenny ranked sixth without racing? expand_more
They return five from the state meet at a 16:53.2 average inside a 0:40.7 spread. No team in Florida averaging under 17:30 ran a tighter one-through-five in August than Bishop Kenny returns on paper; the closest was Nease at 0:55. The risk is that five returners is the minimum, so there is no margin if one is hurt or gone.
Why is Niceville only tenth when they are the projected 4A favorite? expand_more
Their projection of 37 points is built on six returners averaging 16:22.3 inside a 0:28.1 spread. Had they stayed home, this method would have scored them 237 and ranked them third in Florida. They raced instead and ran a 1:42 spread, and tenth is what that earned. It is the honest cost of the method: showing up can only hurt you, and staying home is scored as a promise nobody has to keep.
Which rankings are least certain? expand_more
Ponte Vedra and Leon, both just outside the top ten. Ponte Vedra's position rests on the Spikes and Spurs offset, which only fourteen runners can price and which swings them between sixth in the state and outside the top fifteen. Leon's rests on Dueling Summits, priced from four runners, which moves them between ninth and thirteenth.