Paonia's Ethan Bartlett dropped 1:43 from 2017 to 2018.
There were quite a few eye-opening improvements within the Top 100 this year, and not only were they impressive, but they were plentiful...
Of the Top 100 from 2018:
14 boys improved by over a minute.
3 improved by over a minute-and-a-half.
Taking the cake was Ethan Bartlett with his 1:43 leap. What makes the Paonia senior's leap all the more impressive is when we take the MileSplit Delorean back in time beyond his 2017 season, you get the full scope of his leap.
Bartlett opened up his MileSplit account with a 26:16 his freshmen year. He eventually clawed his way down to 21:27 at regionals, finishing 67th.
It was much of the same through his sophomore season, running a season best of 23:02, though he didn't compete at regionals.
By his junior year he clearly was finding his stride, or on route to it, because he dropped his personal best all the way down to 17:58, which he ran at the state meet where he finished 26th.
This year?
Bartlett broke 17 nearly five times, with a personal best of 16:14. And he capped his high school cross country career with a fifth place finish at State.
That's just over 10 minutes of improvement from his first cross country race as a high schooler, to his last.
Next Page: Honorable Mentions, and The List...