How Good Was Freshman Christian Landis' 16:07 At The NCISAA State Championships?

Providence Day was able to hold off Cary Academy 40-50 Friday at the NCISAA State Championships.  The biggest performance seemed to be by freshman Christian Landis who took 6th overall clocking 16:07, an 18 second PR and 39 seconds faster than he ran at WakeMed at the adidas XC Challenge.  We looked up performances by freshman and under (NCISAA allows Middle Schoolers at some school) at the NCISAA State Championships to see where Landis stands.  We added performances from 2005 through 2017. 

Landis is faster as a freshman than plenty of NCISAA stars only trailing Thomas Graham, who ran 15:49 at WakeMed in 2008 to win.  Graham went on to be one of the states best cross country runners of all-time taking 9th at Foot Locker Nationals as a senior in 2011.  His 6th place finish only trails Graham's win and Coleman Mitchell's 5th place finish at Jackson Park in 2014 and ties Graham's 8th grade performance from 2007.

Also to note, Will Scott's (Forsyth Country Day) 16:19 is the third fastest freshman performance over the last 12 years at the NCISAA State Championships.  Landis and Scott currently rank 1st and 4th in the state freshman class rankings.  With a ton of stud sophomores in the NCISAA 3A like Andrew Hammel, Adam Habas and Jason Krell we're going to see some intense individual battles over the next few years.

Note* The NCISAA competes at a different course each year rotating between Hagan Stone, Jackson Park, McAlpine, WakeMed throughout the years.  WakeMed is likely the fastest of the courses run.

NCISAA State Championship Freshman & Under Rankings from 2005-2017