We entered every team on the Pace Patriot Invitational entry list into our Race Simulator and scored the varsity races on course-graded 2026 marks: Niceville's girls run a perfect 15 with one Pace freshman inside their first eight, Niceville's boys win by 55 over Crestview, five teams sit within eleven points for third, and Gulf Breeze's second place depends on a course rating built from two runners.
Pace Patriot Invitational, hosted by Pace High School. Pace Cross Country Complex at Sims Middle School, 5500 Education Drive, Pace. Saturday, September 5, 2026. Varsity girls 7:30 a.m. Central, varsity boys 8:15, JV open 9:00, middle school 3K at 10:00. Three laps of grass and dirt with some sand, and the host calls it fast.
Thirty-two programs are entered on the boys' side and 31 on the girls', from Niceville and Crestview down to a run of Santa Rosa and Escambia County middle schools. We took every one of them, put them into our Race Simulator, and scored the races the way Saturday will score them: high school boys, high school girls, and the middle school 3K. 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.
The short version. Niceville 4A wins both varsity races, and the girls' race is not a race at all on paper: a perfect 15, the sixth Eagle sixth and the seventh eighth, with one Pace freshman the only runner from anywhere else inside the first eight. The boys are Niceville by 55 over Crestview 4A, and then the meet gets interesting, because five teams sit within eleven points of each other for third: Navarre, Pensacola Catholic, Seacoast Collegiate, West Florida and Gulf Breeze. Second in the girls' race comes down to a course rating we would not bet on, and the middle school races cannot be scored at all, for a reason explained below.
Run it yourself. Every entered team is already loaded.
One click opens our Race Simulator with Saturday's field filled in. Flip the toggle to best times, add Milton or any other school with the search box, or pull a team out and see what changes.
Run the boys' race → Run the girls' race →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, which is what the scoring uses. Nearly everything here comes from three days of racing: Cecil Field on August 21, the Pine Forest Invitational on August 22, and the Eagle Invitational on the same Pine Forest grass a week later. A team needs five runners with a 2026 mark to score. The teams that do not have that are listed after each race.
High school boys: Niceville by 55, and five teams for third
Niceville scores 31: Bryant Olson (So.) first in 15:44.0 from Cecil Field, then Sebastian Riemer (Jr.), Carson Jackson (Jr.) and Brayden Riemer (Jr.) fifth, seventh and eighth, and Reid Sadowski (Sr.) tenth. Brody Mathis (Sr.) is eleventh as the sixth man, so Niceville has six of the first eleven and a 1:12 spread. Olson is 20 seconds clear of anybody in the field, and he is eighth on our 4A boys list this week. Nobody entered here has a runner within half a minute of him on a level course.
Crestview 4A is second at 86 on Tucker Sheldon (Jr.) fourth in 16:30.0, Caleb Turner (So.) twelfth, and three more between 18th and 29th, all of it from Cecil Field, which means none of it needs a course rating. That matters below. Crestview's five-man average is 17:28, 52 seconds behind Niceville and a minute ahead of the pile behind them.
Then the pile. Navarre 4A 147, Pensacola Catholic 2A 149, Seacoast Collegiate 1A 155, West Florida 3A 156, Gulf Breeze 3A 158. Eleven points across five teams, and each of them gets there a different way. Navarre is the deepest: Derek Puello (Sr.) 14th, Jayce Anderson (Sr.) 21st, Cody Westmoreland (Fr.) 28th, and a fifth man at 47th on a 2:37 spread, with nobody at the front. Pensacola Catholic has the front and not the middle: Frederick Gunther (So.), fifth on our 2A boys list, is second in the field and Mason Pohovey (Jr.) 15th, then a gap to 41st, 45th and 46th. West Florida is the same shape, Donovan Carmichael (Jr.) third and Timothy Kinsella (Sr.) 27th, then 30th, 39th and a 57th-place fifth. Seacoast Collegiate has no one better than 22nd and no one worse than 40th, the tightest five in that group at 1:49, which is how a 1A school beats three bigger ones on paper. Gulf Breeze has Braeden Hunt (Sr.) sixth and a pair at 24th and 25th, then 51st and 52nd.
Here is the part to be careful with. Score the same race on best times with no course ratings at all and the order behind Crestview becomes Navarre 140, West Florida 146, Seacoast 151, Pensacola Catholic 163, Pace 166, Gulf Breeze 197. Gunther drops from second to fourth, Hunt from sixth to 16th, and Gulf Breeze from seventh to eighth. The reason is the Pine Forest Invitational on August 22. Our simulator rates that day about 53 seconds slow for boys, but it has only five runners to rate it from, and the Eagle Invitational on the same grass a week later, rated from 26, comes out at 17. We flagged this in the week 2 rankings and we are flagging it again: every Gulf Breeze mark and Gunther's best graded mark come from that first day, and the simulator is being generous to them. On the Eagle Invitational day Gunther ran 16:32.1 for third behind Olson and Carmichael, which is real and very good for a sophomore, and would still put him fourth here.
The host, Pace 4A, is eighth at 168, and that is a four-man team looking for a fifth. Christopher Hudson Barnes (So.) is ninth in the field in 17:10.6 from the Eagle Invitational, Caleb Reed (Sr.) 13th, and Christian Pabst (Sr.) and Easton Cox (Sr.) 35th and 36th. The fifth is 75th, and the gap from four to five is 2:17. Close that by a minute and Pace is in the argument for third on its own course. Pensacola 2A is ninth at 258 with Max Lynch (So.) 16th, Pine Forest 3A tenth at 272 with Keelan Humphrey (Sr.) 20th, and Tate 4A 11th at 289 with Felix Soileau (Sr.) 17th.
Not scoreable: Washington 3A (three runners with a mark), Escambia 3A (two), Trinitas Christian (one), and Rocky Bayou Christian 1A and Soundside with nothing to score. Rocky Bayou's only 2026 results in our database are middle school 3Ks, and Dominic Ferguson (Sr.), eighth on our 1A boys list on last year's form, has not opened; if he runs Saturday he is a top-five runner in this field. Soundside raced only the combined JV race at the Pine Forest Invitational, which our database does not split by gender.
Boys team standings, all 15 scoring teams
| Pl | Team | Score | Scorers | Five-runner avg | 1-5 spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Niceville 4A | 31 | 1-5-7-8-10 | 16:36.9 | 1:12.0 |
| 2 | Crestview 4A | 86 | 4-12-18-23-29 | 17:28.4 | 1:42.0 |
| 3 | Navarre 4A | 147 | 14-21-28-37-47 | 18:29.3 | 2:37.4 |
| 4 | Pensacola Catholic 2A | 149 | 2-15-41-45-46 | 18:33.9 | 3:45.8 |
| 5 | Seacoast Collegiate (Santa Rosa Beach) 1A | 155 | 22-26-33-34-40 | 18:37.9 | 1:49.4 |
| 6 | West Florida (Pensacola) 3A | 156 | 3-27-30-39-57 | 18:31.0 | 4:06.8 |
| 7 | Gulf Breeze 3A | 158 | 6-24-25-51-52 | 18:32.5 | 3:17.9 |
| 8 | Pace 4A | 168 | 9-13-35-36-75 | 18:54.4 | 4:46.4 |
| 9 | Pensacola 2A | 258 | 16-42-64-65-71 | 20:04.3 | 3:44.4 |
| 10 | Pine Forest 3A | 272 | 20-43-48-72-89 | 20:27.3 | 6:04.4 |
| 11 | Tate 4A | 289 | 17-38-68-82-84 | 20:48.9 | 5:32.1 |
| 12 | LEAD Academy 1A | 357 | 44-61-77-87-88 | 21:50.6 | 3:49.2 |
| 13 | East Hill Christian 1A | 359 | 54-66-67-78-94 | 21:59.8 | 5:17.4 |
| 14 | Calvary Christian (Fort Walton Beach) | 394 | 59-73-79-90-93 | 22:38.9 | 4:39.3 |
| 15 | Destin 2A | 425 | 69-70-92-96-98 | 24:45.7 | 9:03.2 |
Boys individuals, top 30
| Pl | Runner | Team | Time run | Worth at Cecil Field |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bryant Olson, So. | Niceville | 15:44.0 at Cecil Field | 15:44.0 |
| 2 | Frederick Gunther, So. | Pensacola Catholic | 16:57.2 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 16:04.5 |
| 3 | Donovan Carmichael, Jr. | West Florida (Pensacola) | 16:31.6 at the Eagle Invitational | 16:15.0 |
| 4 | Tucker Sheldon, Jr. | Crestview | 16:30.0 at Cecil Field | 16:30.0 |
| 5 | Sebastian Riemer, Jr. | Niceville | 16:57.5 at the Eagle Invitational | 16:40.9 |
| 6 | Braeden Hunt, Sr. | Gulf Breeze | 17:37.0 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 16:44.3 |
| 7 | Carson Jackson, Jr. | Niceville | 17:06.8 at the Eagle Invitational | 16:50.2 |
| 8 | Brayden Riemer, Jr. | Niceville | 17:09.8 at the Eagle Invitational | 16:53.2 |
| 9 | Christopher Hudson Barnes, So. | Pace 4A | 17:10.6 at the Eagle Invitational | 16:54.0 |
| 10 | Reid Sadowski, Sr. | Niceville | 16:56.0 at Cecil Field | 16:56.0 |
| 11 | Brody Mathis, Sr. | Niceville | 17:16.3 at the Eagle Invitational | 16:59.7 |
| 12 | Caleb Turner, So. | Crestview | 17:10.0 at Cecil Field | 17:10.0 |
| 13 | Caleb Reed, Sr. | Pace 4A | 17:29.1 at the Eagle Invitational | 17:12.5 |
| 14 | Derek Puello, Sr. | Navarre 4A | 17:32.4 at the Eagle Invitational | 17:15.8 |
| 15 | Mason Pohovey, Jr. | Pensacola Catholic | 17:44.6 at the Eagle Invitational | 17:28.0 |
| 16 | Max Lynch, So. | Pensacola 2A | 18:26.3 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 17:33.6 |
| 17 | Felix Soileau, Sr. | Tate 4A | 18:26.8 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 17:34.1 |
| 18 | Alexander Sunyak, So. | Crestview | 17:35.0 at Cecil Field | 17:35.0 |
| 19 | Christopher Dinan, Fr. | Niceville | 17:35.0 at Cecil Field | 17:35.0 |
| 20 | Keelan Humphrey, Sr. | Pine Forest 3A | 18:29.5 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 17:36.8 |
| 21 | Jayce Anderson, Sr. | Navarre 4A | 18:01.2 at the Eagle Invitational | 17:44.6 |
| 22 | Carter Jackson, Jr. | Seacoast Collegiate (Santa Rosa Beach) | 18:03.0 at the Eagle Invitational | 17:46.4 |
| 23 | Zaivier Dillard, Jr. | Crestview | 17:55.0 at Cecil Field | 17:55.0 |
| 24 | Cayden Christensen, Sr. | Gulf Breeze | 18:49.6 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 17:56.9 |
| 25 | Roman Ramsay, Sr. | Gulf Breeze | 18:51.4 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 17:58.7 |
| 26 | Josiah Hicks, So. | Seacoast Collegiate (Santa Rosa Beach) | 18:19.6 at the Eagle Invitational | 18:03.0 |
| 27 | Timothy Kinsella, Sr. | West Florida (Pensacola) | 18:21.3 at the Eagle Invitational | 18:04.7 |
| 28 | Cody Westmoreland, Fr. | Navarre 4A | 18:22.1 at the Eagle Invitational | 18:05.5 |
| 29 | Jakob Raymond, Jr. | Crestview | 18:12.0 at Cecil Field | 18:12.0 |
| 30 | Jude Theriault, Sr. | West Florida (Pensacola) | 18:20.0 at Cecil Field | 18:20.0 |
High school girls: a perfect 15, and second place is a course rating
Niceville scores 15. Riley Marise (Jr.) 19:17.0 and Anais Almonte (Fr.) 19:18.0, both from Cecil Field, then Harmony Holland (Jr.), Sophie Clapp (Fr.) and Carolina Ramos (Jr.) inside a second of each other, all five within 23.5 seconds on a level course. Lola Jackson (Fr.) is sixth in the field as the sixth runner and Avery Selvage (Sr.) eighth as the seventh. Niceville is No. 1 on our 4A girls team list this week, and this is why: five girls crossed the line together at the Eagle Invitational, and nobody entered Saturday has anyone who can get between them except Leighton Reams.
Reams, a Pace freshman, is seventh in the field in 21:12.5 from the Eagle Invitational, the only runner from another school in the first eight. She is 65 seconds behind Niceville's fifth girl on the leveled scale and 45 seconds ahead of the next runner from anywhere else, Annabelle Johnson (So.) of West Florida. Emma McLaughlin (So.) of Pensacola is ninth, but Pensacola has four girls with a mark and does not score.
Second place is where the honest problem is. On course-graded times it is Gulf Breeze 3A 99, Navarre 4A 109, Seacoast Collegiate 1A 110. On best times with no ratings it is Navarre 99, Seacoast 102, Gulf Breeze 127. Every one of Gulf Breeze's five marks comes from the Pine Forest Invitational, and the simulator's rating for that day on the girls' side is borrowed from the boys, because only two girls who ran it also ran last year's state meet. That is not a rating we would put money on. What we can say plainly: Navarre and Seacoast both raced the Eagle Invitational a week later, on a rating built from sixteen girls, and they are three points apart there. Emery Taylor (Sr.) and Zoey Talbott (Sr.) lead Gulf Breeze at 12th and 14th; Jaelee Placke (Sr.) leads Navarre at 11th; Norah Trejo (Fr.) and McKenna Wilson (Fr.) lead Seacoast at 13th and 15th. If Gulf Breeze runs at Pace what it ran at Pine Forest, this is a three-team race for second. If it runs what the simulator says that was worth, it is not.
Pace 4A is fifth at 143 behind Reams, Madalyn Watson (So.) 17th and Caroline Mattox (Fr.) 30th, with a 4:37 spread from one to five. Pensacola Catholic 2A is sixth at 145 on Abby Cage (So.) 19th and five girls between 17th and 42nd, West Florida 3A seventh at 152 with Johnson tenth and Story Novotny (Sr.) 24th, Crestview 4A eighth at 163 on Lorelei Waller (So.) 23rd and a 1:22 spread that is the second-tightest in the field, and Tate 4A ninth at 193. Washington 3A scores tenth with exactly five girls.
Not scoreable: East Hill Christian 1A, Escambia 3A and Pensacola 2A (four girls with a mark each), Pine Forest 3A (three), Destin 2A, South Walton 2A and Trinitas Christian (two each), Calvary Christian (Fort Walton Beach) (one), and Rocky Bayou Christian 1A and Soundside with nothing to score.
Girls team standings, all 10 scoring teams
| Pl | Team | Score | Scorers | Five-runner avg | 1-5 spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Niceville 4A | 15 | 1-2-3-4-5 | 19:31.0 | 0:23.5 |
| 2 | Gulf Breeze 3A | 99 | 11-13-16-23-36 | 22:35.8 | 2:05.2 |
| 3 | Navarre 4A | 109 | 10-18-22-29-30 | 22:45.3 | 1:44.6 |
| 4 | Seacoast Collegiate (Santa Rosa Beach) 1A | 110 | 12-14-19-31-34 | 22:45.7 | 1:50.2 |
| 5 | Pace 4A | 143 | 7-15-27-45-49 | 23:23.4 | 4:37.9 |
| 6 | Pensacola Catholic 2A | 145 | 17-25-28-33-42 | 23:30.1 | 2:22.0 |
| 7 | West Florida (Pensacola) 3A | 152 | 9-21-24-48-50 | 23:44.5 | 4:00.8 |
| 8 | Crestview 4A | 163 | 20-26-38-39-40 | 23:46.4 | 1:22.8 |
| 9 | Tate 4A | 193 | 32-35-37-43-46 | 24:19.4 | 1:39.5 |
| 10 | Washington (Pensacola) 3A | 294 | 44-61-62-63-64 | 30:15.9 | 7:44.7 |
Girls individuals, top 30
| Pl | Runner | Team | Time run | Worth at Cecil Field |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riley Marise, Jr. | Niceville | 19:17.0 at Cecil Field | 19:17.0 |
| 2 | Anais Almonte, Fr. | Niceville | 19:18.0 at Cecil Field | 19:18.0 |
| 3 | Harmony Holland, Jr. | Niceville | 20:04.2 at the Eagle Invitational | 19:39.4 |
| 4 | Sophie Clapp, Fr. | Niceville | 20:05.1 at the Eagle Invitational | 19:40.3 |
| 5 | Carolina Ramos, Jr. | Niceville | 20:05.3 at the Eagle Invitational | 19:40.5 |
| 6 | Lola Jackson, Fr. | Niceville | 20:08.0 at the Eagle Invitational | 19:43.2 |
| 7 | Leighton Reams, Fr. | Pace 4A | 21:12.5 at the Eagle Invitational | 20:47.7 |
| 8 | Avery Selvage, Sr. | Niceville | 21:34.0 at the Eagle Invitational | 21:09.2 |
| 9 | Emma McLaughlin, So. | Pensacola 2A | 21:58.6 at the Eagle Invitational | 21:33.8 (team incomplete) |
| 10 | Annabelle Johnson, So. | West Florida (Pensacola) | 21:37.0 at Cecil Field | 21:37.0 |
| 11 | Jaelee Placke, Sr. | Navarre 4A | 22:03.1 at the Eagle Invitational | 21:38.3 |
| 12 | Emery Taylor, Sr. | Gulf Breeze | 22:46.4 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 21:42.6 |
| 13 | Norah Trejo, Fr. | Seacoast Collegiate (Santa Rosa Beach) | 22:21.8 at the Eagle Invitational | 21:57.0 |
| 14 | Zoey Talbott, Sr. | Gulf Breeze | 23:03.2 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 21:59.4 |
| 15 | McKenna Wilson, Fr. | Seacoast Collegiate (Santa Rosa Beach) | 22:30.5 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:05.7 |
| 16 | Hannah Leonard, Sr. | Escambia 3A | 22:31.5 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:06.7 (team incomplete) |
| 17 | Madalyn Watson, So. | Pace 4A | 22:34.9 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:10.1 |
| 18 | Carley Deeds, Sr. | Gulf Breeze | 23:24.9 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 22:21.1 |
| 19 | Abby Cage, So. | Pensacola Catholic | 23:30.2 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 22:26.4 |
| 20 | Julia Bailey, Jr. | Navarre 4A | 22:51.5 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:26.7 |
| 21 | Brinkley Cooley, Jr. | Seacoast Collegiate (Santa Rosa Beach) | 22:55.4 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:30.6 |
| 22 | Polly Principe | Trinitas Christian | 23:12.1 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:47.3 (team incomplete) |
| 23 | Lorelei Waller, So. | Crestview | 22:54.0 at Cecil Field | 22:54.0 |
| 24 | Story Novotny, Sr. | West Florida (Pensacola) | 23:23.1 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:58.3 |
| 25 | Lila Balsavich, So. | Navarre 4A | 23:23.7 at the Eagle Invitational | 22:58.9 |
| 26 | Ava Bersabe, Fr. | Gulf Breeze | 24:11.8 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 23:08.0 |
| 27 | Saige Pharr, Sr. | West Florida (Pensacola) | 23:33.8 at the Eagle Invitational | 23:09.0 |
| 28 | Piper Pharr, Fr. | Pensacola Catholic | 24:19.3 at the Pine Forest Invitational | 23:15.5 |
| 29 | Eleanor Holloway, Fr. | Crestview | 23:41.5 at the Eagle Invitational | 23:16.7 |
| 30 | Caroline Mattox, Fr. | Pace 4A | 23:42.1 at the Eagle Invitational | 23:17.3 |
Middle school: nothing to score yet
Seven middle schools are entered, and Rocky Bayou Christian and LEAD Academy will likely bring middle schoolers to the 10 o'clock race too. We cannot score any of it. Avalon, Holley-Navarre, Sims, East Bay K-8 and Wallace Lake K-8 are not in our database at all. Hobbs and King are, but each has exactly one result on file, from last year's FLYRA state meet, and no 2026 mark. The only Panhandle middle school 3K we have loaded this season is the Panhandle Athletic Conference meet on September 1, and none of Saturday's middle school entries ran it. Rocky Bayou's boys and girls did, and if they race the middle school 3K at Pace, Lloyd Chang and Carine Campbell are the names from that meet.
That is a gap in our data, not a judgment on the teams. Saturday's results will be the first middle school marks from Santa Rosa County in the database, and our middle school rankings will pick them up.
What the entry list has that our database does not
Five high schools on the entry list have not raced anywhere we have loaded: Milton 3A, Jay 1A, Central (Milton) 1A, Northview (Century) 1A and Baker 1A. Milton is the one that matters for the team race; a Milton team with five real runners belongs in that pile for third and we cannot place it. If your team is missing, that is a data gap, not a judgment.
Notes on the numbers
- Both races were run in the Race Simulator on course-graded times, with the field limited to the teams on the meet's entry list. Each table above links to its race; switch the toggle to best times to see the raw version.
- Each runner enters on their best 2026 mark once every course is leveled to Cecil Field. Ratings come from runners who ran both a 2026 meet and last year's FHSAA state meet. The Eagle Invitational at Pine Forest on August 29 is rated from a healthy sample and we trust it. The Pine Forest Invitational on August 22, a week earlier on the same grass, is rated from five boys and two girls, and the simulator treats it as a much slower day than the Eagle Invitational; that is what moves Gulf Breeze up and Frederick Gunther to second. Where that rating decides a place, we have said so above.
- The simulator does not project. A team without five 2026 marks does not score, whatever it returns. A school's five can come from varsity and JV both, but a combined JV race with no gender on the results cannot be used, which is why Soundside has nothing to score.
- Classifications are 2026-27, checked against the FHSAA classification documents. Trinitas Christian, Calvary Christian (Fort Walton Beach) and Soundside do not appear in them and are shown without a class.
- Pace's own course has no rating in our database yet, because nothing has been run there this season. Saturday changes that.
Built from the meet's team entry list. An entered team is not a declared roster: Rocky Bayou Christian is entered, and whether Dominic Ferguson is on the line is a separate question.
Featured image: the Pace High School Patriots logo, the school's own mark, used to identify the host of Saturday's meet.
The names behind these numbers are in our week 2 rankings: the boys top ten, the girls top ten and the 4A boys team list, where Niceville sits fourth. The other Saturday meets we have run through the simulator: the Florida Horse Park Invitational. Results and what they mean next week.