UIL State Meet Preview Content
Yesterday we took our best shot at predicting the battle for the team title this weekend. Although much nuance goes into making those predictions, the team title is generally the easiest to predict.
More factors go into picking which teams will finish where, but that also serves to better differentiate between them.
On the flip side, picking the winner of the individual title in the state of Texas is much more difficult due to the sheer volume of elite talent.
Additionally, the talent is distributed across four regions of the state that all provide different types of courses and competition for our contenders to go up against.
Neither state title race has been completely clear throughout the year, and that's especially true with the individual race.
Last year's state champion Caden Leonard returns hoping to defend the state title that he won in a grueling race that he took from the gun and won the hard way. He ran a seasonal best of 14:55.80 last season as a sophomore and has knocked that mark down to 14:33.50 in 2024.
Leonard looks like a solid contender to defend his state championship, but he'll have several key challengers looking to take it from of him.
Whether it be Hudson Haley, Benjamin Montgomery, Aidan Torres, or any of the other elite talents around the state, the one thing they all have in common is the goal to win the state championship. Each of them has had outstanding seasons in their own right and looks primed to give this race everything they have.
Now that the stage is set, let's dive into the details and predict who's going to take home the 2024 state title as well as the other two podium spots in Round Rock this weekend.
Photo Credit: Jan Smits
1. Caden Leonard
Although his team wasn't predicted (by me) to win the state title for the first time in five years, it's nearly impossible to pick against Caden Leonard heading into this weekend.
Whether it be his continued evolution as a distance runner or the fact that he's been bulletproof in Texas since last August, he's simply been in a class of his own.
He had two individual state titles to his name before the start of his junior year with last year's title and the state 1600m title which he won in the spring. To put it simply, it's going to take a heroic effort from anyone else in this field to take the state title away from Caden Leonard if he maintains his current form in Round Rock this weekend.
The story with Leonard starts from the moment he entered high school as he was able to finish 6th at the UIL State Championship as a freshman. He went on to run 4:15.02 and 9:06.49 that spring which placed him as one of the top runners in the state heading into his sophomore season.
Leonard would live up to that expectation as he won the state championship in a time of 15:00.10, while also going on to qualify for Nike Cross Nationals where he finished 21st.
While Leonard had already cemented himself as the state's top talent, his ascension to national notoriety came in the spring. He ran 4:02.46 over 1600m at the RunningLane Track Championships while also taking the UIL State Championship in the same event. Furthermore, Leonard ran 8:51.57 over 3200m at the state meet where he came up just short in second place, marking his only loss in the state since August of 2023.
To say the momentum Leonard built up in the spring carried into the fall would be an understanding as he's been bulletproof this season. He debuted at the Southlake #1 XC Invite where he cruised to an easy win in a time of 14:37.10 against a competitive field. His next effort would come at the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic where he'd place fourth against the nation's best in a blistering fast time of 13:41.80. He wouldn't race again until the championship season, but he kicked it off with a bang by setting a new personal best of 14:33.50 at the district meet.
Much like last year, Leonard cruised through the UIL 1A-6A Region 1 Championship where he came away with the victory in a time of 14:53.40, a 19-second improvement from last season.
To say Caden Leonard's dominance has been surprising this year would be a blatant lie. Time after time he's shown us the ability to take control of championship races and do what he needs to do to win. He commands the race from the front and has a way of forcing his competitors to run his race. Statistically, he's phenomenal but he's also phenomenal in the racing IQ department and I think that will arguably be the most important factor for him to take home his second cross-country title this weekend.
If Caden Leonard keeps his current form and forces everyone else in the field to run his race, he should take the state title home again this weekend. While I have no doubt he'll face a stiff challenge from others in the field, the numbers point to him being the best bet to take home the title this weekend.
Photo Credit: Olivia Vang
2. Benjamin Montgomery
Picking between these top two runners was a much more difficult task than one would've imagined it'd be by just looking at the numbers. Yes, Caden Leonard's times are faster on paper than Benjamin Montgomery's.
However, it's what the time doesn't tell you about Montgomery that makes him stand out from the rest of the title-contending field. He's a gritty, dominant racer at heart with state championship accolades and pedigree that merit him the position of being the primary threat to Leonard's title defense.
Montgomery has had an impressively dominant season across competitive races on difficult courses. He's been outstanding and hasn't given any competition as much as a sniff of taking a victory this season.
Montgomery was a phenomenal talent from the moment he entered high school, but his evolution into the state champion we know him as today primarily kicked off with his arrival at Bridgeland.
Montgomery moved to the Houston-based outfit his sophomore year off the back of a freshman season that saw him run 4:28.98 and 9:38.64. He demonstrated solid improvement that first year at Bridgeland, running a new 5000m personal best of 15:22.80 while also going on to finish 22nd at a rainy state meet. While this improvement was impressive, Montgomery truly ascended to the elite tier of Texas in the spring where he ran 4:16.97 and 9:00.71, the ladder earning him a fifth-place finish at the state meet.
As we know, with great improvement comes even greater expectations and that was the case for Benjamin Montgomery heading into the 2023 cross-country season. However, he handled this rise in expectations brilliantly as he knocked his personal best down to 15:00.20 while also getting on the podium at the state meet with a third-place finish.
While a podium finish at the state meet was great, Montgomery's ultimate goal was to win a state title and that's exactly what he did in the spring. After a great season that saw him run 4:13.02 in the 1600m, Montgomery broke through to win the state 3200m in a time of 8:51.50, making him the only Texan to beat Caden Leonard in the last year.
Montgomery has continued to perform at a high level of performance this season as he's been one of the more dominant forces in the nation. In four races, he's broken four-course records and won each race by a minimum margin of ten seconds. In terms of time, he won the Brenham Hillacious Invite in 15:12.80, the Texas A&M Invitational in 15:18.00, the Cowboy Jamboree in 15:23.20, and most recently the UIL Region 2 Championship in a personal best of 14:56.81.
The overarching theme with these top two is dominance. Both of these guys have been untouchable this year, but something has to give this weekend. In terms of historical head-to-head Leonard has the edge and that's why he comes out ahead in these predictions.
Although, if someone were to take the title off of him, for my money Montgomery would be the one to do it. It's going to be a cracking race between these two that will come down to the wire, while I believe Leonard has the slight edge heading into the weekend, don't be surprised if Montgomery comes out on top.
Photo Credit: Hayden Luther
3. Hudson Haley
At the conclusion of the 2023 season, it was understood that there was a real possibility we could see the same podium the following year, and that's what I think will happen. It's not often that so much of the front of the field returns the next year at the state meet, but that's the case this year and it couldn't be a more exciting prospect.
While the order has changed, the fact remains that Hudson Haley has continually been one of the top three runners in the state over the last year. He's been the consistent and reliable front-runner that Vandegrift needs to finally get over the hump, and his continued presence at the front of the field should get him back on the podium and his team on the top step.
Much like two runners he shared the podium with last year, Haley has been an elite presence since he arrived on campus at Vandegrift. He came into a stacked program behind state champion Kevin Sanchez but still impressed, running 4:26.19 over 1600m and 9:42.98 over 3200m.
Haley had a solid sophomore cross-country season where he set a new personal best of 15:26.39 and ended up finishing 30th at the state meet. However, his true evolution into an elite talent would come in the spring when he'd run 4:16.63 and 9:18.61 to quickly ascend into being one of the top runners in the class of 2025.
As mentioned above, with big jumps in performance comes even bigger jumps in expectations and that was the case for Haley heading into last season. On top of this, Vandegrift lost state champion Kevin Sanchez meaning Haley would also be tasked with leading one of the top teams in the state.
Luckily for the program, that's exactly what he did as he led the team to another second-place finish at the state meet along with setting a new personal best of 15:04.60 which also earned him a silver medal individually.
This season has seen Haley maintain the status quo of being one of the top individual talents in the state while also leading what's arguably been the best team. He started his season by winning the Vista Ridge Invitational in a time of 15:13.80 and then went on to finish second at the Marcus Coach T Invitational the following week in a new personal best of 14:48.00. His best race of the season came at the McNeil Invitational where he took home the win in 15:05.30 on the same course he'll be racing at this weekend. Haley most recently finished second at the UIL 1A-6A Region 4 Championship after a tight race with Gavin Chapa that came down to the last 400m.
While Hudson Haley hasn't had the dominance or the win rate of his fellow podium finishers, there's something to be said for his consistency and his ability to show up in big races. If you look at his career, his best performances always seem to come in the biggest races and I think we'll see that same thing this weekend.
He's one of the most impressive back-half racers I've seen and his ability to carve through the field deep into the race is something that's served him extremely well. It worked wonders at last year's state meet and it should do the same this year if executed properly.