Break up the Blue Devils.

The reigning state champions have been found guilty of a case of overkill on their Class C kindred. Bringing back your top 8 runners and 11 of the top 12 is just, to be polite, unheard of in the lower classes. Unless you're Walt McLaughlin, and you know of a small team in Section 3, named Beaver River.

In 2014 with East Aurora moving down to Class C from B and Mount Academy coming up from D, a whole new championship-winning model was introduced to the C action. The old model used by a core group of C stalwarts named Newark Valley, Fonda-Fultonville, Holland Patent, and Pawling was based around bringing back a couple of top runners, luring some guys away from the soccer bench with visions of winning a state championship, then doing the usual development work to win at States by 3 points.

Last year a new era was born in Class C, and there's no going back now to the sleepy old days. With the top rated team in the state perched at the top of C, no one cares about those big pretenders up in Class A and Class B anymore. C is where the big boys like EA and Mount hang out. And if you want to compete for a title down here in C, you better make sure that you are loaded right now and also have a system in place that will keep the good times rolling in the years ahead.

But since East Aurora is going to be running again for the Class C title, the Blue Devils will be the prohibitive favorite to win since they return 7 runners with 2014 TR speed ratings over 160. But for any coach of rival C teams not retiring at the end of the season, there is some good news: 6 of the 7 top guys are seniors, including reigning C champ Kenny Vasbinder, Matt McLaughlin, TJ Murray, Bryan Henson, Will Zink and Kevin Murnock, with only junior Patrick Murray planning to stick around for next year's action. There's no guarantee that the varsity squad will end up that way though, as there are plenty of young Blue Devils on the way up.

Mount Academy again will be expected to be the biggest challenger to EA, but it lost last year's frontrunner Keith Baird plus three or four other seniors from the fluid varsity lineup. Mount is thus starting a further way back from full-house EA than the relatively close 16 point margin at States, though a 160+ TR quartet of Baxter Wareham, Daryl Blough, Kent Kurtz, and Martin Kurtz along with Brendan Baird is a great core to build a title run around. Last year's States 3rd place team Pleasantville also lost a bunch of key guys, but with top-50 finishers Drew Dorflinger, Aidan McDermott, JC Yahia, and Declan McDermott back, the Panthers just need to shore up the back line to become serious States contenders. Last year's 4th place team Greenwich has flown back down to Class D, but among the other teams that should be high among the top 10 Class C teams once they develop some more are Bronxville, Watkins Glen, and last year's States 5th place team Adirondack.

Federation runner-up and Class C champ Kenny Vasbinder of EA is considered the biggest lock for another States individual title as he is running nearly a minute ahead of the top contenders in the class. The pack of guys behind him at 170+.include Allegany-Limestone's Owen Barber, Hannibal's Jason McFarland, Greenville's Sean McAneny, EA's Matt McLaughlin, Mount's Baxter Wareham, and Marcellus's Patrick McGuane. 18 of the top 21 returning runners are seniors, so this will be a high-powered year in Class C.