Division I Class AA/A Boys
The Team Race
As with the girls, we knew this was going to be close. You just don't expect it to be this close twice. Based on the race video, Signal Mountain may have just gone out too fast. If you skip to the 5:45 mark in the race video below (I'm adding it again here for your convenience), all five Signal Mountain scorers come through approximately 2k in the Top 20 while every Central Magnet Tiger is behind them.
At the 9:50 mark, four are still hanging in there but Central is coming up right behind them and by the finish of the race they're all mixed together too close to count. As with the girl's, its hard to pinpoint a significant performance that made a difference but I might have found two that did. Only two runners ran a season's best or close two it at state and they were both Tigers. Central's number four runner, Ben Clemence, ran 17:06 which was better than any race this season by 8 seconds and their fifth runner, Vinny Peck, equaled his season's best. All other eight runners that scored for CMS and Signal ran worse than their best time this season. In a race separated by two points, perhaps just those two performances was all it took. Central scored 74 to Signals 76.
Central and Signal graduate two going into next season so it sets up for another great match up. Did mention how much I love this revamped classification?