The Southern Showcase: Nine Florida Programs Go to Huntsville, and Belen Finally Meets IMG

The Southern Showcase, hosted by Huntsville High School. John Hunt Running Park, Huntsville, Alabama. Saturday, September 19, 2026. Championship boys 7:30 a.m. Central, Blue boys 7:50, Championship girls 8:20, Blue girls 8:40, Crimson girls 9:00, Crimson boys 9:30; the meet moved everything up half an hour for heat. Ten runners per team in the Championship and Blue races. Times are from the meet's information page and are subject to change.

One hundred thirteen teams from nine states are entered in Huntsville on Saturday, and nine of them are from Florida: Belen Jesuit, IMG Academy, Flagler Palm Coast, Niceville, Bartram Trail, Chiles, Maclay, Providence and Harvest Community. That is the No. 1 boys team in the state, the team we would put second, the No. 3 team, the No. 5 team, the No. 1 girls team, the No. 7 girls team, and the No. 2 and No. 3 boys in Florida on the same starting line for the first time.

Here is what we can and cannot do with that. We hold no results for the other 104 programs, so we cannot tell you who wins in Huntsville. What we can do is line the nine Florida teams up against each other on this season's marks, say which of them belong in the Championship races on the meet's own standards, and say what a result would do to our lists. That is what this is. Entry lists name teams, not athletes, so every runner below is "if he runs."

Who belongs in the Championship races. The meet's published standards are a team average of about 17:55 for boys and 21:55 for girls across the top five, and 16:15 or 19:25 for an individual. Where each team actually races is the meet's call, not ours, but on our leveled numbers seven of the nine Florida boys teams clear the bar, Belen, Flagler Palm Coast, IMG, Niceville, Chiles, Bartram Trail and Maclay; Providence has four boys inside the standard and a fifth a long way back, and Harvest Community is outside it. On the girls' side IMG, Niceville, Chiles, Flagler Palm Coast, Bartram Trail and Providence clear it; Maclay and Harvest Community do not. Individually, twelve of the Florida boys the simulator carries are under 16:15 leveled and eleven of the girls are under 19:25.

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. John Hunt Running Park has no rating in our data, so these are Cecil Field equivalents, not predictions of Saturday's clock. A dagger marks a time from a course the simulator could not price.

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Boys: Belen against IMG, at last

For four weeks we have written the same sentence about IMG Academy: one race, on its own course, against nobody else on the page. IMG competes as an FHSAA Independent, so there is no state meet in its future and it is not scored on our team list, and on the strength of that one race we said we would put it second in Florida behind Belen anyway. Saturday is the first time the two share a line, and it comes in a race where neither is the favorite.

On the Florida-only sim, Belen Jesuit 3A scores 35 on 1-4-6-8-16, Flagler Palm Coast 4A 59, IMG Academy 71, Niceville 4A 109. On best times it is Belen 36, IMG 41, Flagler 103, Niceville 120, and the difference is one course: IMG's whole team is entered on its Summit Challenge run, which the simulator reads as about 23 seconds fast, and Flagler's on Spikes & Spurs, which it reads as 43 seconds slow on a small sample, a course we price with less confidence than most. Belen is on Cecil Field and the Horse Park, both read close to even, so Belen's number is the one we trust most. Belen's first seven, Armando Cruz (Sr.), Marcelo Mantecon (Sr.), Jack Michalak (Jr.), Liam Salom (Sr.), Nicholas Veloso (Jr.), Davi Bodoh (Sr.) and Dominic De Armas (So.), are the group that goes; its second seven runs the Spanish River Race of Champions in Boca the same morning, and that preview is re-scored accordingly.

The individual race inside the Florida group is the best of the fall. Fletcher Rodbro (IMG Academy, Jr.) ran 14:54.0 at the Summit Challenge, the only sub-15 by a Florida boy this season, worth about 15:17 leveled, and is No. 3 in Florida on that race alone. Marcelo Mantecon (Belen Jesuit 3A, Sr.), No. 1, won the Horse Park out of 549 in 15:22.1. Armando Cruz (Belen Jesuit 3A, Sr.), No. 2, ran 15:06.0 at Cecil Field, the fastest raw time by an FHSAA boy this fall, and 15:24.4 behind Mantecon in Ocala. The simulator puts Cruz first on the clock and Mantecon fourth; we print Mantecon ahead of Cruz, because he beat him the one time they raced and that stands until Cruz beats him. Rodbro has raced neither. Douglas Seth (Flagler Palm Coast 4A, So.), No. 7 in 4A, is second in the field on his Spikes & Spurs win, worth about 15:16, and 15:52.7 for fourth at the Horse Park. Bryant Olson (Niceville 4A, So.), No. 7 in Florida, is fifth on his Pace win, and his 15:44.0 from Cecil Field is the fifth-fastest raw time in the group. James Pfuhl (IMG Academy, Sr.), 15:37.4, and Jonathan Kiros (Chiles 3A, Sr.), 15:47.0 at Cecil Field, are next.

Behind the front four teams, Bartram Trail 4A is 152 on Bryce Motycka (Sr.), 16:09.0 at Cecil Field, and Jesse Hall (Jr.), and Chiles 3A, eighth in 3A, is 155 on Kiros and a long wait to the second man. The 1A story is Maclay 1A, second in its class, against Providence 1A: David Barton (Sr.), No. 4 in 1A, ran 16:15.0 at Cecil Field, eight seconds ahead of Sean Cunningham (Sr.), No. 3, who has since won Coach Hope out of 91. Saturday is the rematch. Maclay ran only its JV at Nights of Thunder and has not raced its five since Ocala. Harvest Community 1A of Jacksonville makes the trip with six boys who have a mark.

Girls: the rematch the lightning took, and Balaban

Niceville and Chiles were supposed to settle this last Saturday night in Tallahassee. The varsity races at Nights of Thunder were called off for lightning, and so the two points from Cecil Field on August 21, Niceville 152 and Chiles 154, are still the only time the No. 1 and No. 7 girls teams in Florida have raced. They get it back in Huntsville, in the same race as an IMG team that would be in the argument for No. 1 if we scored it.

On the Florida-only sim, IMG Academy scores 24 on 1-3-4-7-9, Niceville 4A 63 on 10-11-13-14-15, a 24-second spread, and Chiles 3A 75 on Emma-Claire Tanenbaum (So.) and Kaia Ables (Sr.) fifth and sixth and then 19th, 21st and 24th. On best times it is IMG 18, Chiles 71, Niceville 72. One point, and the same shape as August: Chiles has the front, Niceville has the pack, and the race is places three through five. Flagler Palm Coast 4A is fourth at 117 on Anna Grigoruk (Sr.), Bartram Trail 4A fifth at 127, Providence 1A, sixth in 1A, sixth at 157 on Emma Akhundjanov (So.), then Maclay 1A and Harvest Community 1A.

Emma Balaban (IMG Academy, Jr.) is No. 2 in Florida on her 17:14.1 at the Summit Challenge, worth about 17:42, the best figure on our board by a quarter of a minute, and she has not raced since. Avery Hartley (Bartram Trail 4A, So.), No. 7, is the one girl in the group inside a minute of her: 18:13.0 for second at Cecil Field on opening night, and nothing since. Three weeks on one race, and Saturday is a chance to make it two. Sydney Johnson (IMG Academy, Jr.), No. 6, and Rashida Reinhardt (IMG Academy, Fr.), No. 10, are third and fourth, then Ables and Tanenbaum, No. 8 and No. 9 in 3A, both ahead of every Niceville girl at Cecil Field. Riley Marise (Jr.) and Anais Almonte (Fr.) lead Niceville on 19:17.0 and 19:18.0 from that night.

What Saturday can do to the rankings

• Belen against IMG answers the question we could not. IMG is not scored on the team list, so nothing moves on the page. But we have called IMG the second-best team in Florida on one race, and if Belen's seven beat IMG's seven on neutral ground, or do not, we will say so next week.
• Niceville girls stay No. 1 or don't. A team never ranks behind a team that beat it that week. If Chiles beats Niceville, Chiles moves above them and above the five teams that beat Chiles in Ocala. If Niceville wins again, they have beaten Chiles twice.
• Flagler over Niceville, or the other way. Third and fifth on the boys' list, and they have not raced each other this fall. Saturday sets that order until they meet again.
• Rodbro, Mantecon and Cruz. Mantecon stays ahead of Cruz until Cruz beats him. Rodbro is third on one race; a finish ahead of both Belen seniors on neutral ground is the kind of result that makes an argument. Olson, seventh, has beaten Sallault and has not raced any of these three.
• Hartley holds seventh on a race that is four weeks old. A second race, against Balaban, Johnson and Reinhardt, is the kind of result that keeps a one-race runner from sliding, or moves her.
• Barton against Cunningham is a rematch. Barton won the first one at Cecil Field by eight seconds; Cunningham is ranked a place ahead on his season. The grass decides the order.
• Chiles boys, eighth in 3A, and Maclay, second in 1A, are on old races. Chiles was entered at Nights of Thunder and never ran; Maclay ran its JV. Saturday replaces both.

Notes on the ratings

• These simulations contain only the nine Florida programs. We have no results for the other 104 teams on the entry list and make no claim about them.
• 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.
• The ratings doing the most work here: the IMG Summit Challenge, read about 23 seconds fast for boys and 28 for girls, which carries every IMG mark; Spikes & Spurs, read 43 seconds slow for boys on a small sample and scaled for girls, which carries Flagler Palm Coast; Pace and the Eagle Invitational, read slow, which carry Niceville; and the Horse Park and Cecil Field, both near even, which carry Belen, Chiles, Bartram Trail, Maclay and Providence.
• The simulator recomputes its own ratings from the snapshot, so it can differ from the numbers in our weekly rankings posts by a few seconds, and our lists also apply head-to-head results the simulator does not. One order in the boys' table is ours: Mantecon ahead of Cruz, on the Horse Park finish.
• Championship and Blue placement is the meet's decision; the standards quoted are from its information page and applied to our leveled numbers.
• Grades and classifications are 2026-27. IMG Academy competes as an FHSAA Independent.

Featured image: Marcelo Mantecon of Belen Jesuit at the Florida Horse Park Invitational, September 5, 2026. Photo: Run Florida Run.

The Spanish River Invitational, the other big Florida meet on Saturday, is previewed here, all eight races. Results from both, and what they do to the lists, early next week.