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Friday Night Lights has grown to be a major early season event and where a lot of the top programs in the state debut their top seven. This years boys race will, especially the team battle, will be an incredible one with a lot of the top individual and team talent squaring off for the first time on the state championship course.
The field is loaded as expected with most of the state's top returners headlining the field outside of Gabriel Schmid (Orange) and Dawson Reeves (Christ School).
Tyler Surface (NRCA) opened up the season with an 11-second win at the Providence Invitational two weekends ago ahead of Eli Julian (South Rowan) clocking 15:40. Surface finished last cross country season ranked #3 in North Carolina at 15:19.
Noah Valyo (Athens Drive), Raghav Gopalakrishnan (Ardrey Kell), Will Venable (Broughton) and Luke Liming (Cary) will be amongst the top tier of contenders coming in on paper. Valyo and Venable have strong cross-country credentials but had big season outdoors in the 1600m/Mile. Valyo clocked a 4:12 full Mile at Music City Track Carnival as ran 1:53.69 for 3rd in the 800m at the NCHSAA 4A State Championships. Venable ran 4:11 for 1600m and 4:12 for the Full Mile in the spring as well. Gopalakrishnan and Liming were sub-9 minute 3200m runners with conversions from 2 Mile marks of 8:59 and 8:56 respectively.
After these five, I'd expect to see some athletes break out after a strong summer of training and emerge as state championship-caliber contenders. Eli Julian was the NCHSAA 3A 3200m runner-up in the spring and debuted with a runner-up finish at Providence in 15:51. He ran 15:36 last year at WakeMed and could be one to make the jump. Just behind him at Providence was Tyrese Cone (Croatan) who debuted just off his PR of 15:54 running 15:57. Kavi Gibson (Cary Academy) is a name to watch. He ran 15:36 last fall as a freshman and is someone I'd expect to improve over the course of his sophomore season.
Luke Adams (Hoggard) ran 15:46 in his season opener last week, but will have a much stronger field to hang with tomorrow night and would be a name to watch. Will Fiore (TC Roberson) is one to keep an eye on after winning on a tough Jackson Park course at the WNC Carnival in 16:16. The course, and an exciting night-time atmosphere will play for a much faster race, and he'd be my one to watch to make a big jump off that PR from two weekends ago.
The team side is going to be a thriller. The top 16 teams returning from 2022 are all in the championship race in a year where their is no clear top team in North Carolina. For example, Hoggard is the top team in the above rankings with a 16:26 team average. Cary Academy is the 10th returning team with a 16:39 team average. Tomorrow night's race will be a major storyline in who's who for the 2023 season.
We've seen Hoggard debut locally with a 16:18 team average on a fast Long Leaf Park course. Regardless of the course difficulty they showed incredible depth with a 16:18 team average and their top 9 under 17:00 and top 15 all under 17:30. They're certainly going to be a team to watch. Broughton will be another contending team that won the Providence Invitational over Marvin Ridge and Weddington without top runner Will Venable with a 16:57 team average. Freshman Cam Kuss was their #2 runner just behind juinor Wells Farfour which is a massive boost for an already strong Captials team.
Cuthbertson will debut their top 7 as the #3 returning team in North Carolina. We've seen the dominance over the last five years on the girls' side, and this looks to be the best boys' team in program history returning with a 16:30 team average and 44-second 1-5 gap. Union County counterparts Marvin Ridge and Weddington both return some younger teams with only one senior in their top 5s coming in. Marvin Ridge had the fast returning team in the 1600m based off the 2023 outdoor season.
Leesville Road, Providence Day, Ardrey Kell, T.C. Roberson and Cary Academy are going to be teams to watch as well. Holly Springs is a team I'm keeping an eye on as well. They rank 24th in our virtual meet, but were the 11th best returning boys team in the 1600m based off times from last spring.
I'm expecting a few teams to break away from the pack, but for team from around 4th all the way to around 16th I wouldn't expect to be too far off from each other. It's a field of around 250+ runners in the dark with a slammed crowd at Ivey Redmon in what should be cooler conditions. There will be low margin for error and getting your fourth/fifth runner in early is going to be key in the team competition.