Ben Thompson

Nov 05, 2025

Eli Wharton is the defending Division II Class A Boys Individual Champion and is the top ranked runner heading into state.

2025 TSSAA State Championship

The TSSAA State Championships will take place in Memphis this Thursday and Friday and while some competitions have obvious favorites, others are harder to predict. We ranked each title from most predictable to least to help prepare you for the drama. Click the blue text throughout to navigate to rankings for that individual or team race. With 20 Championships to hand out this year, this article is a little more cumbersome to take on in one sitting. Check back as more context get's added to each title throughout the week.

Most Likely To Win

1. Division I Class AAA Girls Team

Even after five state titles in a row, a 13th place finish at nationals, and a coaching change, this may be the best version of the Brentwood Lady Bruins we've seen during this run. Here's just a quick glance at their team averages since 2020:

Year	Team Average 1 To 5
2020	18:35
2021	18:27
2022	18:44
2023	18:11
2024	18:07
2025	17:54

And it's not just their scoring runners that are what's most impressive about this squad, it's their overall depth. They will potentially put all seven runners in before any other team in their divisions third. At Frank Horton, Pre-State essentially, only one team, Collierville, put 3 runners ahead of their 7th. They currently have a total of 13 girls on their squad under 20 minutes compared to nine total at the end of last season. Expect them to make it six in a row on Friday setting them up to tie the overall "titles in a row" record at seven in 2026.

2. Division II Class AA Boys Team

It became evident over the past couple of years that Division II AA overtook Division I AAA as the premiere cross country classification on the boys side. Within that shift, there was always a question of which division had the definitive best overall team. It always would've been a good race between the state winner in each classification. This is the first year I recall that the race wouldn't be close AND it would be in the favor of a team in Division II. This McCallie squad is, like the Brentwood girls, the best version of McCallie we've seen during their run since 2020. At Frank Horton they beat in Division Rival Baylor by 80 and gapped the closest Class AAA team by 144 points! Perhaps their streak ending the way it did last year on a tie-breaker was the motivation they needed to level up an already impressive program. Expect them to start another streak on Friday and gun for a national qualifying spot that has eluded the Blue Tornadoes in recent years.

3. Division II Class AA Girls Individual

Technically I guess this could go into the "A Couple Of Contenders" category but I decided to leave it here instead. There's just no beating the Garmer's this fall. The Spartans from Webb are the top two ranked runners in the state with PRs of 16:50 and 16:50.1. Last year, even though Calysta Garmer won the overall state title, she struggled to consistently match that of her sister Jazzlyn Garmer or teammate Carolina Areheart. This year, the sisters have been joined at the hip with no more than seven seconds between them at any of their four races together so far. They've not been beat by anyone in state so far this year and I don't expect that to happen this week either.

4. Division I Class AA Girl Individual

Last year, this race was in the next category as there were several girls who I believed could win this race. Now there is only one, Anderson County's Ava Moody, and while some of that may be due to the fact that her next closest competitor that would've been returning, Brynn Balturshot, is now in Class AAA due to realignment, she's actually just gotten that much better. Last year, she bounced between the 18s and 19's but this year her slowest time is 18:17 and she's been under eighteen three times with a best of 17:19 at the VA Showcase. She's raced and beaten all her next closest competitors at some point this season and I anticipate that will be the case again.

5. Division II Class A Boys Individual

Last year was the first year the Wharton Twins competed in Tennessee and their impact was immediate. Eli Wharton and Isaac Wharton led Davidson Academy to their first ever cross country state team title after not qualifying as a team the year before. Eli and Isaac went 1-2 and there's no reason to think the outcome will be any different on Thursday to kickoff the state championship. The boys team title is not as clear which we'll get into later.

6. Division I Class AA Girls Team

Since 2012, Signal Mountain has won 10 of 12 state titles in their division with their only losses come to Central Magnet in 2016 and 2021. They're currently riding a three year streak and that is likely to extend to four on Thursday considering they beat all their in Division challengers at various points this season. They won Nooga At Night with Liberty Creek in attendance in a similarly sized field they'll see this week and at the regional, beat Heritage, Alcoa, and Anderson County, all of which are highly ranked in composite scores.

7. Division II Class AA Girl Team

You're probably wondering how a team ranked in the MileSplit 50 Top 25 is on the fringe of Most Likely To Win but here's the rationale. When MileSplit compiles those rankings they base it against other Top 25 caliber teams and when you have two runners that are scoring single digits and another that will score in the Top 40 in a race like that... that's a huge NATIONAL advantage. 30 seconds could mean 30 places. Unfortunately for the Spartans, in a field that as small as Division II Class AA, their Top 3 could gap their competitors by over a minute but Knoxville Catholic may still have runners get 5th and 6th. This was the case at KIL. Webb (without Jazzlyn) only beat Knoxville Catholic by 5 points. Would I be shocked if they lost, yes. But less shocking as compared to the teams above.