Boys Class B Preview
Team Snapshots - Individual Snapshots - Section by Section - Top Team Breakdowns
The top 6 runners from last year's Class
B meet are gone along with 14 of the top 20 and Nationals finalist Gitch Hayes. So a lot of things will change, but then again, the Burnt Hill Spartans are still marching onward.
2021 Recap
Two things were absolutely predetermined before last year's States B race at Chenango Valley Park, barring an asteroid impact or a freeze-over in hell. LaSalle Institute senior Gitch Hayes was going to win, as he was the top-rated runner in the state, and Burnt Hills would capture its 5th straight B title, as the Spartans were one of the top two teams in the state along with Class A Corning.
Burnt Hills packed a top 5 of Peter Fulgieri, Matthew Rounds, Ryan Allison, Nick Grock, and Matt Windecker into overall places between the 8th and 23rd spots and bested Westhampton Beach and Pittsford Mendon by a 35-71-90 score. East Aurora took 4th before making an exit to Class C for 2022, and Vestal and Mount Academy were 5th and 6th. Rounding out the final five spots in a class that last year got representatives from all the sections, Pearl River was 7th and was followed by Jamesville-Dewitt, Manhasset, Franklin Academy and Plattsburgh.
Gitch Hayes was the runner-up in the 2019 States C race, but he left little in doubt two years later up in B as he romped to a 17-second-margin win over Westhampton Beach's Gavin Ehlers and Monticello's Evan Waterton. Hayes went on to capture the Federation championship before ending the year with a 3rd in the Eastbay Northeast regional and then a 17th at Nationals.
There was no Nationals for Burnt Hills as NXN was not yet ready to resume action, but the Spartans did take the top trophies at both the Federation and NXN-NY regional.
Teams
Burnt Hills lost three of its top 5 from last year's champion States varsity squad, but it hardly seems to matter for a program that restocks the ranks so methodically and develops younger runners extremely well during the season. Matthew Rounds and Matt Windecker are back from last year's top group, Keller Casey and Ben Smith should slide into the middle spots of the top 5, and the Spartans have a lot of good options from last year's strong freshman squad to develop the back of the varsity group.
Last year's States B runner-up Westhampton Beach lost lead guy Gavin Ehlers from a not deep team, and the Hurricanes may struggle to fill out their varsity behind the highest rated top duo among the teams, States 7th-place finisher Maximus Haynia and 15th-place finisher Trevor Hayes. A pack of S11-B teams with more balanced lineups such as Miller Place, Kings Park, and East Hampton will be challenging the Hurricanes.
The teams that appear at this point to be most likely to give any kind of challenge to Burnt Hills are simply the teams that have a ton of guys returning from last year's varsity, Two of them, CBA-Albany and Averill Park are from Burnt Hill's Section 2 area, so their chances of qualifying for the States intersectionals are not strong. The two flush teams that do not have the Spartans in their way at State Qualifiers are S4's States 5th place team Vestal, who have States medalist Liam Cody and fellow senior Tim Smith on the lead, and S1's 7th-place States team Pearl River, which has a pack of juniors at the top.
Whichever team comes out of Section 5 could be pretty well battle-hardened by the end of the year, though none are that highly rated going in. Perennial champ Pittsford Mendon lost half of its top 6, so Batavia, McQuaid, and Pittsford Sutherland will be looking for a chance to move up.
Individuals
The top six finishers from last year's States B race graduated. Top returner Maximus Haynia of Westhampton Beach and top-rated Matthew Rounds of Burnt Hills will start the year as title favorites, and both are seniors. Other guys who are expected to competing for the win are McQuaid senior Colin Brown, Westhampton Beach junior Trevor Hayes, Brewster senior Patrick Ford, and Vestal senior Liam Cody. All finished in the top 20 at States last year.