WIth all XC meets now in the books for the season take a look a who make the biggest jump in their performances between this year and last year's efforts. In order to be considered for the following lists you must have finished the 2024 season ranked in the top 5,000 XC times for the season in Indiana and have an improvement from last year of at least 1 minute. 

Boys

Overall Boys Improvement Rankings

Boys Freshman-to-Sophomore Improvement Rankings

Boys Sophomore-to-Junior Improvement Rankings

Boys Junior-to-Senior Improvement Rankings

Girls

Overall Girls Improvement Rankings

Takeaways

On the boys side the largest improver would be Jace Bean from Hamilton High School going from a 27:32 in his lone XC performacne last season at the West Noble Invite to being his team's second highest scorer at sectionals with a 18:37 for almost a NINE minute imporvement between seasons. Jace ran the 200m/400m and long jumped last track season as a freshman. Binyame Samuel from Ben Davis and Sohum Khedkar from Columbus North would also finish in the top 3 overall for most imrpoved with both taking over 8 minutes off of their best time from last year. 

Across all the boys ranked in the top 5,000 this year a total of 760 would make at least a 60 second jump in performance with 2,055 earning a better time this season. The current sophomore class had 378 runners improve by at least 60 seconds this year, with the current junior and senior classes having 225 and 169 boys respectively.

On the girls side the largest improver appears to be Emma Townsend from Bishop Chatard High School as she would improve her season best from the Indiana All-Catholic meet. She ran a 36:36 at last year's meet before dropping over TEN minutes off of this time to a 26:25.2. This meet appears to be the only race in which she competed in this year according to our database. Abigail Walters from Franklin Central had the top time when compiling our list but her time appears to be a one-off race in which there may have been a timing error. Hailey Smith from New Prairie and Cam Ritschard from South Bend St. Joseph would be the next biggest improvers with both taking 8+ minutes off of their times from last season.

Across all the girls ranked in the top 5,000 this year a total of 542 would make at least a 60 second jump in performance with 1,276 earning a better time this season. The current sophomore class had 213 runners improve by at least 60 seconds this year, with the current junior and senior classes having 175 and 149 girls respectively.

Find all Indiana performers that imrpoved by at least 60 seconds this season in the links above!