HOKA Nights of Thunder, Run Through the Race Simulator: Niceville Sweeps, Fort Walton Beach's Pack Is Second, and the Middle School Girls' Race Flips With the Toggle

HOKA Nights of Thunder XC Run Fest. Apalachee Regional Park, Tallahassee. Saturday, September 12, 2026. Middle school 7 p.m., high school JV 8 p.m., high school varsity 9 p.m. College races Friday night. Times are from the meet's registration page and are subject to change.

We took every Florida program on the Nights of Thunder entry list, high school and middle school, dropped them into our Race Simulator, and scored all four Saturday night races the way the meet will score them. Every runner is entered on the best thing he or she has run in 2026, leveled to a common course. Top seven per team, five score, sixth and seventh displace. The colleges race Friday and are outside what we cover; the four Georgia and Louisiana programs are on the list but are not scored here.

The short version. Niceville 4A wins both high school races, the boys by 94 with Bryant Olson first and the girls by 27 on a pack that goes 6-7-12-13-14. Fort Walton Beach 3A is second in the boys' race on the tightest five in the field, 37 seconds, and Chiles 3A is second in the girls' with two of the first three finishers. In the middle school races Red Sea Running Club wins the boys by 34, and the girls' race flips with the toggle: Boca Warriors Track Club by three on leveled times, Red Sea by seven on raw ones. The preview covers what all of this does to the rankings.

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 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, which is why Lincoln's returning five, Ruckel's Liam Jopling and Suwannee's Logan Haley are nowhere in these tables. Where a runner's fastest raw time and best leveled time come from different meets, the table shows the run the leveled figure comes from. A dagger marks a mark from a course the simulator could not price, entered raw.

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High school boys: Niceville by 94, and a four-way race for second

Niceville 4A scores 63, placing 1-9-15-18-20. Bryant Olson (So.) is first in the field on the 16:07.8 he ran to win Pace, worth about 15:29 leveled, and his 15:44.0 from Cecil Field is the fastest raw time in the field besides. Then Sebastian Riemer (Jr.), Carson Jackson (Jr.), Brayden Riemer (Jr.) and Reid Sadowski (Sr.), with Brody Mathis (Sr.) close behind as a sixth man who displaces. Same five as at Pace, the Eagle Invitational and Cecil Field. The 1:27 spread is what the rest of the field would need to attack, and nobody in it has a front runner to do it with.

Second is a knot. Fort Walton Beach 3A scores 157 on a five that starts 18th in the field and finishes inside 37 seconds, with nobody in the first fifteen. St. Augustine 3A is 17 points back at 174 with Elijah Parkinson (Jr.) sixth and three in the first fourteen. Chiles 3A is 208 with Jonathan Kiros (Sr.) second in the field and then a wait until the 19th runner. Bartram Trail 4A is 210 with Bryce Motycka (Sr.) fifth in the field and Jesse Hall (Jr.) ninth. George Jenkins 4A is 211 on five inside twenty seconds and nobody in the first thirty. Five teams inside 54 points for second, and each is built differently.

On best times the order changes. Chiles is second at 174, Maclay third at 178, Bartram Trail fourth, and Fort Walton Beach drops to tenth, because every one of their marks comes from the Dolphin Dash and the Eagle Invitational, two courses that run slow, and both of those courses hand time back when leveled.

The individual race has Olson first either way. Kiros is second on his 15:47.0 from Cecil Field; the two were four places apart in that race. Dominic Ferguson (Rocky Bayou Christian 1A, Sr.) is third on the 16:28.3 he ran behind Olson at Pace, which is worth about 15:49 leveled, and Noah Carpenter (Nature Coast 2A, Sr.) fourth on his Whispering Pines run. On raw times Motycka and David Barton (Maclay 1A, Sr.) move up to third and fourth, and Ferguson drops to sixth. Neither Rocky Bayou nor Nature Coast has five boys with a 2026 mark, so their leaders are scored as individuals only.

Not scored, boys. Nature Coast (four runners with a mark), Beaches Chapel, Christ Classical Academy, Godby, Independence Classical and Rocky Bayou Christian (three each), Community Leadership Academy, Dunnellon, Miami Coral Park, St. John Paul Catholic and Tallahassee Classical (two), Franklin County, North Florida Christian and Rickards (one). Leon has five, but all five marks are from Dueling Summits, a course the simulator cannot price, so Leon is entered on raw times from a slow day and lands 14th; our 3A list, which does price it, has them fourth in the class. Lincoln's five varsity returners have no 2026 mark; the Lincoln group scored here ran the Yellow Jacket meet in Georgia, another course we cannot price. Gadsden County, Spring Hill and School of Arts and Sciences are on the entry list and not in our database.

High school girls: Niceville by 27 on the pack, Chiles on the front

Niceville 4A scores 52, placing 6-7-12-13-14, with a sixth girl 15th. Riley Marise (Jr.) 19:17.0 and Anais Almonte (Fr.) 19:18.0 from Cecil Field, then Harmony Holland (Jr.), Sophie Clapp (Fr.) and Carolina Ramos (Jr.) inside four seconds of each other on the leveled clock. A 24-second spread. The only way to beat this is to put more than two girls in front of their first.

Chiles 3A scores 79 and has exactly that start: Emma-Claire Tanenbaum (So.) second in the field and Kaia Ables (Sr.) third, both on Cecil Field times, both ahead of every Niceville girl. Then 19th, 21st and 34th. The two-point race from August is a 27-point race on paper because Chiles's fourth and fifth are entered on their Horse Park and Cecil marks and Niceville's are a minute better. Ables did not score for Chiles in Ocala; she is in this five.

Nease 4A is third at 133, Bolles 2A fourth at 153, Sunlake 4A fifth at 182 and Beachside 4A sixth at 199. The simulator has Sunlake ahead of Beachside; the Horse Park, where they actually raced, had Beachside ahead by 90 points, and our 4A list follows the race. Sunlake's Ana Cecilia Maia Menard (So.) is entered on a Lecanto time the simulator cannot price, shown raw. The top six is the same six in the same order on best times.

Avery Hartley (Bartram Trail 4A, So.) is first in the field on her 18:13.0 from Cecil Field, 35 seconds clear of Tanenbaum, and needs no course arithmetic at all. Ashton Dahlem (Gulf Breeze 3A, Sr.) is fourth on the 19:49.7 she ran to win Pace by 75 seconds, worth about 19:03 leveled. Naeha Akella (St. Stephen's Episcopal 1A, Sr.) is fifth on 18:38.6 from the IMG Summit, a course the simulator reads as quick; on best times she is second in the field. Then the Niceville front two, Sofie Stam (Bolles 2A, So.), Lilly Potts (Beachside 4A, Sr.) and Lucia Misasi (Nease 4A, Jr.).

Not scored, girls. North Marion, Pine School and Poplar Springs have four runners with a mark; Choctawhatchee and St. John Paul Catholic three; Community Christian, Community Leadership Academy, Destin, Dunnellon, Godby, Jacksonville Classical Academy, Rickards and Wakulla two; Christ Classical Academy, Independence Classical, North Florida Christian and Rocky Bayou Christian one; Franklin County, Miami Coral Park, St. Joseph, Tallahassee Classical and Washington County Christian none. Leon's girls, second at Dueling Summits, are entered raw from that course for the same reason as their boys. Lincoln's girls are entered on the Yellow Jacket meet, unpriced. Valley Coast Running and Spring Hill are not in our database.

Middle school boys: Red Sea by 34

Red Sea Running Club scores 18, placing 1-2-3-4-8. Jack Ilea (6th grade) is first in the field, Gabriel Garback second, and Joel Cordero and Alexis Hernandez sixth and seventh, all four scored on their Jim Ryun runs; the simulator reads the Horse Park as a fast course for middle school boys, so Ilea's 10:34.3 there, the fastest raw time in the field, is not the mark it uses. Freeport Middle School is second at 52 on five boys from the Panhandle pre-conference meet, a course the simulator reads as slow, which is why Jace Holmes (6th) and Mason Chapman (8th) move up to ninth and tenth when the times are leveled. Suwannee Speed is third at 81 and Milers Running Club fourth at 90.

Boca Warriors Track Club has three boys with a 3k mark, Banks Stroup (7th), Brayden Milek (7th) and Logan Minors (7th), third, fourth and fifth in the field, and no fourth or fifth runner, so they place and do not score. Ruckel Middle School, Holy Comforter Episcopal and Saint Mary Catholic have no 2026 middle school mark in our database at all. Ruckel is the one that matters: Liam Jopling ran 10:01.3 at the FLYRA state meet last fall, the fastest returning time in Florida, and has not raced. If he opens Saturday, the individual race above is his to lose. Wakulla Middle School, Christ Classical Academy's middle school and the Knight Runners, Arrowhead and Prestige clubs are on the entry list and not in our database.

Middle school girls: three points one way, seven the other

This is the race the toggle was built for. On leveled times Boca Warriors Track Club scores 26 and Red Sea Running Club 29. On best times it is Red Sea 24, Boca 31. The reason is the back of each five. Red Sea's fourth and fifth on raw times are two 12:25s from the Horse Park, which get no course credit at all; Boca's fourth and fifth ran Indian River, which does, and once the times are leveled they pass them. Arielle Gorlovetzky's Jim Ryun run also moves from fourth in the field to second.

Alice Ilea (Red Sea, 8th) is first either way and it is not close. The simulator scores her on her Jim Ryun run, worth about 10:05 leveled; her 10:35.5 for second behind Colette Heffernan at the Horse Park is the fastest raw time in the field. She is the No. 2 middle school girl in Florida. Camila Boucher (Boca Warriors, 8th) is second on raw times on her 11:37.6 from Indian River. Lilliana Gutfreind (Red Sea, 8th) ran 11:55.5 in Ocala. Suwannee Speed is third with five. Holy Comforter Episcopal and Saint Mary Catholic have no 2026 mark; Saint Mary is the school Sophia Underwood won a state title for last fall, and she is listed with Liza Jackson Prep this season, which is not entered.

Notes on the ratings

• A course rating is the gap between what runners ran at that 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; girls use the median, and where the girls' sample is small the boys' figure is scaled instead. Middle school 3k times are priced against the 2025 FLYRA state meet.
• The ratings doing the most work here: Pace Patriot, about 39 seconds slow for boys and 47 for girls, which is where Olson, Ferguson and Dahlem are entered from; the Eagle Invitational at Pine Forest, about 17 slow for boys and 25 for girls, which carries most of Niceville's and Fort Walton Beach's marks; the Dolphin Dash, about 36 slow for boys, on a small sample; and the IMG Summit for girls, read as fast, which is why Akella is fifth leveled and second raw. The Panhandle pre-conference middle school meet is read as about 50 seconds slow on a small sample, which decides Freeport's second place.
• Dueling Summits, Lecanto and the Yellow Jacket meet could not be priced from this season's data and are entered raw, marked with a dagger. That affects Leon, Lincoln and Sunlake's Maia Menard most.
• The simulator recomputes its own ratings from the snapshot, so it can differ from the numbers carried in our weekly rankings posts by a few seconds. It moves times, not places, and where the two disagree on an order, our lists also apply head-to-head results that the simulator does not.
• These are Cecil Field equivalents, not predictions of Saturday's clock. Apalachee Regional Park has no 2026 rating because nobody has raced it this season; November times there are what every other course is measured against.
• Grades and classifications are 2026-27. Middle schoolers running varsity for private schools are eligible and are scored as entered.

Featured image: racing under the lights at Apalachee Regional Park.

The preview, with what each result would do to the rankings, is here. The same treatment for earlier meets: the Florida Horse Park, the Pace Patriot Invitational, St. Cloud and Estero. Results and what they mean early next week.