Texas 6A Cross Country Predictions?

Start predictions next year? :D ;)

For 1st I don't think anyone can challenge Southlake Boys or Flower Mound Girls. The rest of the podium will be interesting as usual. :o

You were right about Woodlands, they were the next deepest team next to Southlake, but it just didn't pay off at State. So many teams strong #1-5 and then no backups!

Yes!!! By all means!!!! Always fun to think about next year
1- Southlake Carroll. Could challenge for an NXN title as well. Many teams across the nation can.
2- Vandegrift. They return 3 scorers, and also Schick who scored for them last year. He will likely be a very solid 4th. Number 5 will be a current 8th or 9th grader. Some of them might beat Schick. Maybe they will have a good 6th and 7th too. I think it would be better to. I also read somewhere in this thread that there are transfers that didn’t get to run varsity.
3- Katy Tompkins. Placed 11th but only loses 1 senior. Has had many good teams but next year they can take themselves to the next level

Other podium candidates:
-Woodlands could reload like they did in 2018 (they won state with only 1 returner that year!)
-Coppell if 2 more guys step up big from the woodwork like Henze and Dubey did. They also have a freshman on top JV
-Round Rock. Beat Vandegrift at districts when 5 of their top 8 were nonseniors
-El Paso Franklin
-El Paso Eastwood if they can qualify. They have had teams that made NXN. And had guys come out of nowhere
-Flower Mound has had some remarkable teams

I wonder if Stony Point can make state next year with Flowers healthy. They only have 2 seniors. Westwood loses so many of their guys. not saying they will podium. Their section has teams that constantly finish last at state

I wonder how young Atascocita will be next year. They will need to have as many nonseniors on varsity as possible to ever podium at state

If Vandegrift goes to NXN, their 6/7 are looking to finish near the bottom there if not last. I listened to Kevin Sanchez’s interviews and he said that NXN was their goal.

The crazy thing is that only 2 of Vandegrift Scorers ran at state last year. 1 of them ran at the regions. The other 2 are new to varsity and really helped this team

For girls I have

1- Flower Mound

2- Southlake Carroll

3- Vandegrift. they will return everybody

it will be the first time both the vandegrift boys and girls make podium

Anyone want to talk about how a collegiate athlete led the race through 2 miles? Check milesplit insta story.

Aged like milk

What are the chances The Woodlands podiums next year? They lose their 1-6.

will they reload? They did in 2018 when they won state with 1 returner

Has Katy Tompkins High ever made podium? This could be the first

New Braunfels finished last place last year and this year …. Wow

Do you have a link?

wearing a high school singlet and an old bib

Wow - I can't believe someone would have the moxie/craziness to bandit the 6A race and lead it through 2 miles! Just looking at results, it looks like Sanchez took it out from the gun and just ran away with it. But, now, knowing that someone else was there, it was a different race altogether. It's a good thing that Sanchez was able to hold it together bc if he would have cratered with a quarter or half mile to go, people would be pissed and it probably would've made some news headlines, etc. Also, it crazy enough to bandit the race and be hidden in the middle somewhere, but to lead it means that it will it get out who this was. Has to be a pretty good runner, too. I bet the UIL is going to go hunting this guy down. They can't be exposed like that without there being some repercussions. Just nuts!

Brendan Herbert ran in his 2018 6A state track and field bib. That is why no chip time popped.

It was pretty clear watching it that he was pacing Kevin Sanchez for the first 1.25 miles into the headwind because the winds were strong out of the south. It benefitted Sanchez to string out the pace to mitigate Vannerson’s kick. Ultimately, Vannerson struggled with the early pace and faded.

There are two scenarios here:

Scenario 1: Brendan Hebert completely lost his mind and for the benefit of no runner in the race jumped in and decided to bandit the State championship held in the Austin metro area. The same metro area where he was first team all state in high school and a 2-time NCAA All American for the University of Texas. In this scenario, if you assume that he did it in no way to help anybody, it implies that he has completely lost his mind.

Scenario 2: The defending State Champion is from Austin and he clearly has the best endurance and running pedigree in the state. At the State meet, nobody was going to be able to help him at the front with pace. Kevin trains in and around Austin which is a small running community amongst the elite guys. The first 1.25 miles of the race are into a 20 mph headwind. Brenden Hebert ran to set a strong early pace for Kevin to pull him along and string out the race. After 1.25 miles Hebert ran about 5 -10 meters ahead of Sanchez and at 2.5 miles, Hebert shut it down and jogged it in in second.

I find it impossible to believe that Kevin Sanchez wouldn’t know who Brendan Hebert is.

After the race I immediately looked at Hebert’s instagram account and it was still active. An hour later, it had been taken down.

Logically, you have to decide if Brendan Hebert unilaterally and for nobody else’s benefit decides to bandit the state meet and pull along the defending state champion and then shut it down with 1/2 mile to go to not steal his moment in the spotlight by not finishing first…OR…he was there to pace Kevin and cheat at the state meet. In more than 3 decades of watching UIL State cross country meets, I have never seen anything so obvious and so brazen.

So, are you suggesting that Sanchez was in on it? If so, that would be quite interesting indeed. Obviously, Lake Travis and Vandegrift are very near each other, and they are both top-tier runners, so it would make sense that they know each other. In the milesplit article, Sanchez seems to indicate that he doesn't really know Hebert while Herbert says that they knew each other since high school (lol). Anyway, just reading the quotes from milesplit, they sound a little off. Brazen is a good word for it!

They obviously both wouldn’t have been in the same high school. They were 5 grades apart. When Herbert (c/o 2018) was a senior , Sanchez was in 7th grade

Or Hebert just has mental health issues. Reading the milesplit article about this race it sounds like Hebert posted on his social media about how excited he was for his upcoming race (the texas state meet). If he was going to intentionally break the rules by pacing a high schooler he probably wouldn't have publicized it.

Correct. Which is why I included the lol. I'll link the milesplit story below. Hebert is the one who said they knew each other "from high school" (obviously from when Hebert was in HS). When you read Hebert's quotes, you'll see what I mean about being a little off. Because of that, I think I'm leaning towards Hebert just doing this on his own, but I could be persuaded otherwise. There is a training group out in NW Austin that a number of good jr highers run with in which Hebert and Sanchez could know each other.

milesplit.com

Former Univ. of Texas Runner Bandits Texas State XC Meet

Ashley Tysiac

A former collegiate runner for Texas jumped into a high school state championship race on Friday morning.

Link:www.milesplit.com/articles/323555/form...

This is ridiculous Sanchez was not in on it! Hebert was just a selfish maniac.