Class A Boys Pre-Season Team Watch List

The Cardinals of Staples-Motley are another top finisher at the 2018 Class A championships who are returning a healthy number of top runners, graduating just two of the athletes from their seventh-place finishing team. Emmet Anderson and Hunter Klimek form one of the best frontrunning duos in Class A and could potentially both find themselves in the top ten individually. Their success will be integral for SM as the career-best time for third returning runner Tanner Robben has a career-best time over a minute slower than Klimek thus far, a gap that will need to close in order for the Cardinals to seriously complete. However, incoming freshman Luke Brownell has already achieved a time of 18:04 in his young career and may see another big drop to help close that gap, and fellow underclassman Austin Johnson can also play a big factor too if he improves as a sophomore the way he did as a freshman.