Over the last split from 2.75 to 3.11 miles, Newbury Park had the top two times, Aaron and Brayden. They also had the slowest, Lex, despite there being a 19:45 finisher and Lex himself running 15:36. If the distances are accurate (they don't quite seem to be), Aaron covered the last 580 meters 33 seconds faster than Lex (1:25 vs 1:58). ~75% of the girls race closed faster including each of the first 89 runners.
I don't think that's just hitting a wall, Im sure some more information about what happened to him will come out. Unfortunate his (hs)xc career ended this way, but I'm sure he's happy for Aaron and the team