I'm old enough to know better than to attempt this, but here goes...
Boys
I will say this much--it doesn't get much better than this. Try to project how many sleep hours, total, are logged tonight by the boys from Mountain View, Herriman, Bonneville, and Timpanogos. There are a couple of other pretty good teams in the field, too, but they'll have to leapfrog their season performances to get seriously into the mix with these four giants.
Timpanogos figures to have the first runner across among the big four teams, but also the biggest need for exceptional days from the rest of the scoring five.
Bonneville has that rousing performance against Davis earlier this season playing in a few people's heads. Can Bonneville shake the thunder out of the sky again at state? The element of the unknown sides with the Lakers.
Herriman and Mountain View both run exceptional packs and have waged close battles already a time or two this season. If you're playing it safe when picking your favorites, you're probably picking one of these two teams. The dilemma for both of these teams concerns whether you try to roll the dice a little to get an edge or find a different edge by running conservative early and count on your fitness to let you pound the last mile or so. Much like it is with turnovers in football, it could easily end up as a case of the team making fewer mistakes wins.
One thing is for certain, there is no margin for error in this one.
Individually, the possibilities appear to be just as varied. Count on Jerrell Mock and Jake Heslington being among those banging heads at the front of the race. Conner Mantz, and probably a couple more, have the wheels to overtake these two if they hammer too hard too soon. It is an exceptional field. We saw it coming in track season and now the moment of truth, at least as far as cross country is concerned, is upon us.
Girls
4A Girls is almost as much fun to write about as 4A Boys. Almost anything you say amounts to sticking your neck out.
Mountain Crest flew under the radar a little by missing out on the Elite race at Bob Firman. But, that's changed a lately. Every 4A radar screen in Utah should now have an eye fixed on Mountain Crest after the demolition job they did on their regional race. They've earned it--even if a little unconventionally. On top of that, unless I've missed a lot of race results, they're a pretty well rested team going into state. If you like playing hunches, this would be a great team to do that with.
There are, however, at least two other great teams in the field. Look no further than Orem and Skyline. Orem figures to spread their pack out a little more and Skyline to run a little tighter pack, but they're both pretty effective at getting the job done. Skyline spotted Herriman the first two places at the regional meet and then crossed the line en masse. Orem didn't leave much doubt about their regional contest, either.
So, take your pick among three very good teams.
Individually, well this one probably isn't as interesting as the team race. If the individual title goes to anyone other than Summer Harper or Lucy Biles, there are going to be some very large newspaper headlines on Thursday. If there are dark horses in this kind of race, Mountain Crest's Miranda O'Very and Tori Parkinson qualify as such.