Key Losses
Key Returners
End of 2015 Rank - 8th
2016 Preseason Ranking based off 2015 times - 7th
2015 4A State Meet Finish - 5th
Last year Apex was led by Ben Savino and Derek Duin who were 4th and 9th respectively at the state meet last fall. They finished 5th, and are hungry to do better than that this season. They lose 3 of their top 7 but still return a strong top 5 this season. Savino leads the charge and will be a contender for a national meet as an individual at the end of the season. He ran 15:34 last XC season and 4:23/9:20 on the track last outdoor season. He will be a solid low stick and a strong competitor for the 4A State Title this fall.
David Cart had a big XC season last year chopping a minute off of his previous 5K PR running 16:17. He will have much higher expectations for himself as he heads into his sophomore year and will look to recreate the 1-2 punch that Savino and Duin were last season. Kyle Joyce heads into his senior year and is coming off a strong track season where he ran 4:30 for the 1600. Before that his PR in previous years was 4:55 meaning he could be in for a big XC season. Austin Lalicker is also heading into his senior year and came up big towards the end of the season last year. He had a late start to his XC season last year and ended up dipping below 17 minutes at the regional meet, but was a little inconsistent throughout the season.
When Apex will look for a big improvement is in their 5th runner. They have Brett Parlier, Nick Gavazzi, and A.j. Thornton who will battle for the 5th man spot. Parlier is more of a 400/800 guy on the track but is able to be solid on the XC course as well. Last year was his first year running for Apex and he could come into the season a lot more prepared than he was last year. Gavazzi got his time down to 17:40 last season and went sub-5 for the first time last outdoor track season. Apex loses a lot of their depth with a heavy year in graduation, but if they can develop one more strong runner to go along with their top 4 they will be a powerhouse this season.