Nathan Mountain King of the mountain in Ohio

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St. Xavier Nate Mountain recently won the TrinityValkyrie Invitational at Tom Sawyer Park with a time of 14:46.90, https://ky.milesplit.com/meets/3785...onal-hs/results/700601/formatted#.X3Np5cJKiUk.
He has committed to the University of Virginia. According to milesplit rankings, only one other runner in Ohio has gone under 15:00 as Connor Ackley of Hilliard Davidson has a 14:59.67 to his credit. MilesplitUSA has Mountain 4th and Ackley 8th in the country. https://www.milesplit.com/rankings/events/high-school-boys/cross-country/5000m?year=2020
 
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He's a beast and he might win the individual state title, but I'm not convinced their team is faster than Lakota West. We may find out more this weekend depending on who they run.
 
He's a beast and he might win the individual state title, but I'm not convinced their team is faster than Lakota West. We may find out more this weekend depending on who they run.
Not only will Lakota West not beat X at state, but they won't beat Mason either. I know West beat Mason head to head at Mason's Invitational 54-60 which is a rare feat and West certainly turned a lot of heads with that win. I've just followed Mason for years and they have a history of peaking in the post season. None of the West kids have experienced running at state as a team like St. Xavier and Mason have.
 
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He's a beast and he might win the individual state title, but I'm not convinced their team is faster than Lakota West. We may find out more this weekend depending on who they run.
Trust me on this. They will run everyone at their home meet. They did last year and their state championship team all ran at the St. Xavier Invitational. West beat Mason running their top guys at their home meet. Now let's see West beat X running their top guys at their home meet
 
It will be exciting to watch West, Mason, and St. X battle it out a few times in the final month of the season. Lakota is super talented - probably the most talented non Mason or St. X team the Southwest region has seen in several years.

I do agree with other posters, though. There is something to be said for the "been there, done that" factor. Both St. X and Mason have a history of peaking well and competing to win the state title. Right now, West can't say the same.
 
Could this be the Year of the Nathan?

Add Nathan Moore of Lake to the Sub-15:00 club. He dropped a 14:51.x on Sat. morning at the Federal League Meet held at Massillon Jackson. I'm told Jackson did an excellent job prepping the course. The grass was cut short and rolled flat, and with the hard freeze overnight, it was still rather solid when the frost melted after sunrise. It's a relatively flat course with a long gradual uphill section that is run twice. I've casually run the course on a few occasions, and it has a nice flow to it. One can get going pretty well on it without giving it much thought. That's a rare occurrence for my old bones anymore.

Incidentally, Moore just committed to D2 Walsh University as did Lakota West's Zach Benetau.
 
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Incidentally, Moore just signed with D2 Walsh University as did Lakota West's Zach Benetau.

This is not a knock against Walsh, because it is definitely a good program, but I thought that Moore could have gone to a bigger program. Perhaps being minutes from home played into his decision. Also, covid is also causing a lot of uncertainty as it pertains to the stability of athletic programs and is becoming a factor in the decision making process.

Mountain considers Moore among his biggest competition at state. In the interview he had with milesplit after commiting to Virginia, Moore was the first guy Mountain mentioned when asked about state meet contenders.
 
This is not a knock against Walsh, because it is definitely a good program, but I thought that Moore could have gone to a bigger program. Perhaps being minutes from home played into his decision. Also, covid is also causing a lot of uncertainty as it pertains to the stability of athletic programs and is becoming a factor in the decision making process.

Mountain considers Moore among his biggest competition at state. In the interview he had with milesplit after commiting to Virginia, Moore was the first guy Mountain mentioned when asked about state meet contenders.

Moore absolutely could've gone to a bigger program, and I always assumed he would go to a competitive DI program. However, the COVID situation significantly altered the contact rules for DI programs with regard to recruiting, on-campus visits, and whatnot (see the link below). The same restrictions weren't put into effect for DII schools, so Walsh's staff brought a lot of kids on campus during the early part of the summer months and later in the fall. Moore is the biggest recruit the program has ever landed. I don't know that the program will ever have the resources to compete with the Grand Valleys and Adams States of the DII world, but if he pans out, Moore greatly improves Walsh's ability to compete on the DII national level and also improves the program's ability to land other recruits of a similar caliber in the future. The Benetau commitment is another good one because it has the potential to create a pipeline to a talent-rich part of the state where I don't recall Walsh drawing much in past years.


Looking ahead to the postseason, the top guys all know who they have to beat if they want to be champions. There are very few secrets anymore unless a kid is sandbagging every meet and not posting any training data online. Fat chance of that happening.
 
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I think both of them made good choices.

The ultimate goal is to get a quality education at an affordable price. I imagine both of them received great scholarships.

So after that, you want to be a successful athlete.

How many great HS distance runners from Ohio have gone off to the big-name schools, and been eaten alive?

NCAA D1 Cross-Country has a huge problem across the board with not developing talent and kids burning out. It feels like these days more kids regress than improve. Always has been disappointing to me.
 
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I need to amend my prior posts. To be clear, Moore and Benetau haven't signed anything yet. They cannot officially sign for a few more weeks. They are only verbal commits to Walsh at this point.
 
I think running in college turns out so differently for so many runners. I’ve seen the really good ones get swallowed up by the competition and you don’t hear much about them anymore. For some it’s because their talent peaked, some get burned out, others are concentrating on grades. Plus there are numerous others. Some kids get to college and then mature or tap into their talent, or they have coaches that can bring more out of them that high school couldn’t. You just never know. Mostly though, you just don’t know what’s in a kid’s mind and heart when making these college choices.
 
I think running in college turns out so differently for so many runners. I’ve seen the really good ones get swallowed up by the competition and you don’t hear much about them anymore. For some it’s because their talent peaked, some get burned out, others are concentrating on grades. Plus there are numerous others. Some kids get to college and then mature or tap into their talent, or they have coaches that can bring more out of them that high school couldn’t. You just never know. Mostly though, you just don’t know what’s in a kid’s mind and heart when making these college choices.
Great example of this is looking at 2 Ohio kids that went to IU, Dustin Horter and Arjun Jha. Horter was 2x D1 state champion, but Jha (who to be fair was really good in high school too, 5th in 2017 D1 state meet 30 seconds behind Horter) consistently finished well ahead of him in the 2019 season. This isn't meant to be a knock on Horter, just one of many examples of kids that are nationally elite in HS that don't necessarily remain elite in college.
 
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