HOKA Nights of Thunder Preview: Niceville and Chiles Meet Again on the State Course, Two Points Apart Since August

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., all under the lights. College races Friday night. Times are from the meet's registration page and are subject to change.

The No. 1 girls team in Florida is entered. So is the team that finished two points behind it on opening night. Niceville 4A and Chiles 3A have not seen each other since Cecil Field on August 21, when Niceville scored 152 and Chiles 154, and on Saturday they share a start line again, on the grass where the state meet will be run in November and where the world championships were run in January. That is the race of the night.

The boys' race has its own version. Bryant Olson of Niceville, the No. 6 boy in Florida, beat Jonathan Kiros of Chiles by three seconds at Cecil Field, 15:44.0 to 15:47.0, and neither has raced the other since. Behind them are the No. 1 runners in Class 1A and Class 2A, and a Niceville team ranked fifth in the state that nobody in this field has come within fifty points of all season.

More than ninety programs are on the entry list. We ran every Florida team through our Race Simulator in a companion post, all four races, with buttons to run them yourself. This one is about what Saturday can do to the rankings. Entry lists name teams, not athletes, so every runner below is "if she runs."

Girls: Niceville, Chiles, and the two points from August

Niceville 4A is first in Florida on our team list for a third straight week and has won all three meets it has entered: Cecil Field by two, the Eagle Invitational at Pine Forest with 15, the Pace Patriot Invitational with 20. The last two were pack runs, five girls across the line inside two seconds. What the pack has hidden is the front: Riley Marise (Jr.) ran 19:17.0 and Anais Almonte (Fr.) 19:18.0 at Cecil Field. Nobody else in Florida has five girls within twenty seconds of each other on the season.

Chiles 3A is eighth on the same list and it is a strange eighth. Their Cecil Field run, Kaia Ables (Sr.) 18:59.0 and Emma-Claire Tanenbaum (So.) 18:48.0 up front, is the fourth-best season figure in the state. They are eighth because they were sixth at the Florida Horse Park and five teams beat them there, and a team never ranks ahead of a team that beat it that week. Ables did not score in Ocala. With her in the five, this is the team that pushed Niceville to two points.

Tanenbaum was fifth in 3A at state last November and is the No. 7 girl in 3A; Ables is No. 8. They have already beaten every Niceville girl head to head, at Cecil Field. The question Saturday asks is whether Chiles's third, fourth and fifth can get anywhere near Niceville's, because the simulator has Niceville winning this field by 27 and the whole margin is places three through five.

Avery Hartley (Bartram Trail 4A, So.) is the favorite for the individual win if she runs. She ran 18:00.3 at state last November, the third-fastest returning time in Florida, was second at Cecil Field in 18:13.0 behind only Arabella Duffell, and is the No. 7 girl in Florida. She has not raced since August 21, and the girls ranked directly behind her have raced two and three times. A win here on a fair course keeps one race from going stale.

Then a line of class contenders. Ashton Dahlem (Gulf Breeze 3A, Sr.), No. 9 in 3A, finally opened last Saturday and won Pace by a minute and fifteen seconds, in 19:49.7 on a slow course, with the entire Niceville pack behind her. Naeha Akella (St. Stephen's Episcopal 1A, Sr.), No. 3 in 1A, ran 18:38.6 at the IMG Summit, a minute better than her state time. Sofie Stam (Bolles 2A, So.), No. 5 in 2A, ran 19:20.0 at Cecil Field and has not raced since.

Two more ranked teams are here on one race apiece. Nease 4A, No. 4 in the class, has not raced since Cecil Field, where Lucia Misasi (Jr.) ran 19:33.0. Bolles 2A, No. 3 in its class, is in the same spot. Both were behind Niceville and Chiles that night. Beachside 4A and Sunlake 4A, eighth and ninth in 4A, met at the Horse Park and Beachside won by 90 points; Sunlake had the better season average and it did not matter.

Boys: Olson against Kiros, and the two class leaders behind them

Bryant Olson (Niceville 4A, So.) has raced three times and won the last two, the Eagle Invitational and then Pace by twenty seconds over Rocky Bayou's Dominic Ferguson. The three together rank him sixth in Florida and second in 4A, and his 15:44.0 at Cecil Field is the fastest raw time anyone in this field owns.

Jonathan Kiros (Chiles 3A, Sr.) is the one boy here who has been within a stride of him. 15:47.0 at Cecil Field, then 16:01.4 for tenth at the Horse Park. His 15:46.3 from state last November is the fifth-fastest returning time in Florida. He is No. 7 in 3A and in the group just behind the statewide ten.

Dominic Ferguson (Rocky Bayou Christian 1A, Sr.) is the No. 1 boy in 1A on one run, 16:28.3 for second at Pace behind Olson. Noah Carpenter (Nature Coast 2A, Sr.) is the No. 1 boy in 2A on one run too, 16:16.8 at Whispering Pines on August 29, and has not raced since. Neither has raced the other, and neither has raced Kiros. Bryce Motycka (Bartram Trail 4A, Sr.), 16:09.0 at Cecil Field, and David Barton (Maclay 1A, Sr.), No. 4 in 1A after 16:15.0 at Cecil and 16:21.1 in Ocala, are the next two on the clock.

Niceville 4A is fifth in Florida and third in 4A, and the simulator has them winning Saturday by 94 points with the same five they have used in all three meets. The team result of the night is for second. Fort Walton Beach 3A, No. 11 in 3A, won the Dolphin Dash with 26 points on a 37-second spread, the second-tightest raced five in the class, and their front three have been faster in every race. They were second to Niceville at the Eagle Invitational and second to Leon at Dueling Summits. St. Augustine 3A, No. 7 in the class, was second at DeLand behind Hagerty. Chiles 3A is No. 8 on Kiros and a long wait to the second man.

The two Tallahassee teams that matter most to the 3A list are the two with the least to show for it. Leon 3A is fourth in the class on one race, a win at Dueling Summits on August 22 with Isaiah Renn in 17:09.8 and Carson Weiss in 17:30.3 on a course that runs slow. They have not raced in three weeks. Lincoln 3A is twelfth on a projection: five boys who ran state last November inside a minute of each other, Trent Parsons (Sr.) 16:51.6 the first of them, and none of the five has run a varsity race this fall. The Lincoln group that ran in Georgia on August 29 was led by a 19:48. This is their home course. If the front five shows up, the projection becomes a number.

Maclay 1A, No. 2 in 1A after losing to Pensacola Christian in Ocala, is here with Barton, and Circle Christian 1A, No. 6, has Matteo Kirwan (So.), No. 9 in 1A. Suwannee 2A is entered, and Logan Haley (Jr.), No. 9 in 2A on his state time, still has not raced.

What Saturday can do to the rankings

• Niceville girls stay No. 1 or don't. A team never ranks behind a team it beat that week. If Chiles beats Niceville on Saturday, Chiles moves above them, and above the five teams that beat Chiles in Ocala, none of which are here. If Niceville wins again, they have now beaten Chiles twice and the argument is over until the state meet.
• Kiros can get into the statewide ten. He is in the group just behind it. A win over Olson on the state course would put him in, and Olson, who has beaten Axel Sallault and Ferguson head to head, would probably stay where he is. A second loss to Olson leaves Kiros where he is, seventh in 3A.
• Ferguson and Carpenter are ranked first in their classes on one race each. Losing to Olson and Kiros changes nothing. Losing to a 1A or 2A boy in this field does, and Barton and Kirwan are in it.
• Hartley holds seventh on a race that is three weeks old. Katherine Eudaly, ranked fifth, has won all three of her races. A win here, on a fair course, is the kind of result that keeps a one-race runner from sliding.
• Leon and Lincoln are fourth and twelfth in 3A on one race and zero races. Saturday replaces both. Leon's spot is Fort Walton Beach's and St. Augustine's to take if they beat them, because all three are on the same line.
• Nease and Bolles girls are fourth in 4A and third in 2A on Cecil Field alone. A race that agrees with August holds the spots; one that does not, moves them.
• Beachside over Sunlake is a head-to-head call. Sunlake has the better average. If Sunlake wins Saturday with Maia Menard back in the five, the order flips.

Middle school: Ilea, and a name that has not raced

The 7 p.m. race has the No. 2 girl in Florida in it if she runs. Alice Ilea (Red Sea Running Club, 8th) was second at the Horse Park in 10:35.5, seventeen seconds behind Colette Heffernan, and beat the defending state champion by a stride at Jim Ryun. On the boys' side Red Sea has a sixth grader named Jack Ilea who ran 10:34.3 there. The simulator has Red Sea's boys winning by 34 and the girls' race a coin flip with Boca Warriors Track Club, whose Camila Boucher (8th) ran 11:37.6 at Indian River; Red Sea wins on raw times, Boca on leveled ones.

The name to watch is one we cannot score. Liam Jopling (Ruckel Middle School, 8th) ran 10:01.3 at the FLYRA state meet last fall, the fastest returning middle school time in Florida, and has not raced this season. Ruckel is on the entry list. If he opens Saturday he goes straight into the top ten.

How we put this together

• Rankings cited are our Week 3 lists, through September 5, on the rankings page and in the posts linked above.
• Team entries are from the meet's entry list as of Thursday. An entry names a team, not its runners, and every individual mentioned here is conditional on lining up.
• Times are what each runner actually ran, and where. Apalachee Regional Park has no 2026 rating yet because nobody has raced it this season; its November times are what every other course is measured against, so it is the fairest course in the state to get a number on.
• Four entered programs are from Georgia and Louisiana and are not ranked here. The college teams race Friday and are outside our coverage.

The simulator post scores all four races team by team. Results and what they did to the lists early next week.

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