Castle View
The most dangerous Dark Horse of the batch.
Castle View they finished sixth at State, though they return their entire top five from that day, and six of their top seven, which includes three seniors, and two juniors.
They've got a 1-2-3 punch in Jared Wright, Aidan Scott, and Edward Rush, who have run between 16:05 and 16:11, and an returning 1-5 split of just 38 seconds.
Additionally, William Merrick, Connor Baty, Hal Fotinos, and Conner Withers all broke 17 last year.
In a massive Power Merge from last year's State meet, Castle view looks like they could potentially be the second best team in the entire state.
Fort Collins
A year ago FoCo finished seventh at State, though I'm predicting a much, much higher finish this year... They return six of their top seven, including their top 5 from last year's State meet. Additionally, they return the third-fastest squad this season, with their entire Top five running 16:35 or faster last year.
James Gregory leads this senior-heavy squad into 2019, and he'll be flanked by Calbert Guest, Kevin Conlon, William Bush, Matthew Boyle, and Cody Larsen.
Seniors with one more time on the line really makes them dangerous.
Fairview
Last year's fifth-place State finishers look even better this year. While they did graduate their top finisher from the 2018 state meet (Brock Granberg), they return five of their top seven, including 15:40 5ker Henry Murphy.
Their returning top five have run 17:01 faster, including Wiley Feiger, Anders Cote, Christian Castellino, and Josh Klaus. What makes Fairview additionally competitive is that they've got a solid seven, including Quinn Guerin, and Alexander Mizzi, who have both run under 17:15.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that two-time Olympian Alan Culpepper is now their head coach?