Nease (Ponte Vedra)

Cecil Field. Five-man average of 16:09.8, spread 0:55.0 — the tightest one-through-five of any team in this top 14. Rishi Chopra 15:39, Matthew Ishee 15:54, Gideon Churchill 16:20, Joseph Morley 16:22, Colin Lasota 16:34, with Ayden Dixon 17:00 and Matthew Myers 17:08 behind them.

They were second to Belen Jesuit in the Cecil Elite race and won the Boys B race outright, and in a 4A-only field they score 82 against a second-place 117. Four of their five scorers took time off their state marks, and one of them took a chunk: Gideon Churchill went 18:02.0 at state and 16:20 in August, a 102-second swing that turned Nease's fifth man into its third.

Then the part that should worry the rest of 4A: Charles Carlson did not run. He was 16:26.2 at the state meet, which would have been Nease's No. 3 scorer on Saturday, and he was not on the line. Nease opened at 16:09.8 with a returning state scorer in street clothes.

Cecil Field, third in the Girls C race. Average 20:22.2, spread 1:51.0. Lucia Misasi 19:33, Katherine Healey 19:55, Olivia Dhas 20:07, Ava Campbell 20:52, Emma Rodenkirch 21:24, with Natalia Lotinsky 21:26 and Katelyn Pitches 21:34 right behind.

The biggest riser in the class. Nease was 12th in the 4A preseason projection at 293 points and is fifth. All seven of their returning state runners raced, which nobody else in the top five managed, and six of the seven beat the 28.8-second August conversion. Against their raw state times, Misasi took off 35 seconds, Dhas 54 and Campbell 63.

The 1:51 spread with a sixth and seventh at 21:26 and 21:34 means their scoring five could survive losing anybody but Misasi. That is the most durable-looking team in the top five and the only one whose August number is fully checkable against November.

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 Churchill, Morley and 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.

The biggest riser on the girls' side, and the best case for why racing matters. Nease was our twelfth-ranked 4A team at 293 projected points — had they sat out, this method would have entered them at a 21:30.8 average and ranked them somewhere in the thirties.

They raced instead, and went 19:33, 19:55, 20:07, 20:52, 21:24: a 20:22.2 average, a 1:51 spread, and tenth in Florida. Their boys were second in the state. Whatever happened at Nease this summer was not gender-specific.