Boys Class AA Preseason Team Watch List

WAYZATA (8)

When a team graduates all seven runners from a team that finished third at the State Championships the previous year, it's hard not to expect at least some decline. But when that program is Wayzata, the winners of seven State Championships and three other podium finishes since 2007, it's hard to think that decline is going to be too steep. Wayzata enters 2019 with only two runners who own lifetime bests under 17 minutes, but they also have a State-best seventeen runners with lifetime bests under 18 minutes (and a handful of others who are just over that mark). This past spring proved to be a breakout track season for Shuayb Hussein as he ran 4:18/9:31 and qualified for State in the 1600m, and he and Wayzata's fastest returner Charlie Ernst could form a formidable 1-2 punch, but by-and-large, nearly every other returner is unproven as varsity athletes. This lack of varsity experience may play a factor in Wayzata's attempt to qualify for State out of Section 6AA, which also houses conference foes Eden Prairie, Edina, Hopkins, and Minnetonka. But coming from a program that has historically crushed every hurdle they've had to clear, it would be silly to assume that they won't be up to the task.