MoCoRunning






County Championship Projections - Boys
By: Kevin Milsted
Sunday, October 11, 2026
webmaster@mocorunning.com

Below you will find projected finish times for each of Mocorunning's ranked runners as of Week 6 (10/11/2026). Scroll to the bottom to read how the projected times were determined.

Boys Projected County Championship 5k Times
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Pl 	Name                  		School                  Year           Projected Time	Pt   
====================================================================================================
1	Dimitrios Rementelas		Sherwood		2028		15:21.0		1
2	Ioannis Rementelas		Sherwood		2028		15:41.3		2
3	Ian Fisher			Northwood		2028		15:55.4		3
4	Bereket Eshetu			Northwood		2028		16:01.7		4
5	Alec Mostofi			Bethesda Chevy Chase	2027		16:01.7		5
6	Avery Smith			Sherwood		2028		16:06.1		6
7	Jonah Greszler			Walt Whitman		2027		16:07.2		7
8	Duncan O'Connor			Rockville		2029		16:17.0		8
9	Kaosisochi Nwankwo		Springbrook		2028		16:21.2		9
10	Brandon Kneisler		Thomas S. Wootton	2028		16:28.7		10
11	Zachary Oh			James H. Blake		2027		16:30.4		11
12	William Del Sole		Wheaton			2027		16:31.6		12
13	Nathan Rakouskas		Montgomery Blair	2029		16:35.3		13
14	Lev Brener			Wheaton			2028		16:40.7		14
15	Darly Philogene			Springbrook		2027		16:41.2		15
16	Leonardo Bracciale		Bethesda Chevy Chase	2028		16:42.1		16
17	Ethan Dimmerling		Poolesville		2027		16:43.2		17
18	Samuel Zhang			Winston Churchill	2027		16:47.3		18
19	Andrew Mullens			Montgomery Blair	2028		16:47.5		19
20	Nir Arieli			Walter Johnson		2030		16:50.3		20
21	Carter Robinson			Walter Johnson		2028		16:55.3		21
22	Hanly Muller			Albert Einstein		2027		16:57.5		22
23	Dagmawi Tewedros		Springbrook		2028		16:58.3		23
24	Alex Von Heideken		Bethesda Chevy Chase	2028		16:59.2		24
25	Krish Sood			Winston Churchill	2028		17:01.9		25
26	James Edmonds-Moore		Albert Einstein		2028		17:02.0		26
27	Henry Skinner			Quince Orchard		2029		17:03.0		27
28	Alex Zirkelbach			Sherwood		2028		17:03.1		28
29	Anay Sood			Winston Churchill	2030		17:04.0		29
30	Timothy Burger			Northwest		2029		17:04.7		30
31	Deric Azure			Rockville		2028		17:06.6		31
32	Ian Melgosa			Northwood		2027		17:07.4		32
33	Emiliano Dracoulis Vargas	Walt Whitman		2029		17:07.5		33
34	Exavier Watson			Clarksburg		2027		17:08.9		34
35	Nathaniel Kaneshige		Northwest		2027		17:09.0		35
36	Sean Heath			Gaithersburg		2029		17:10.8		36
37	Jacob Blitstein			Bethesda Chevy Chase	2029		17:11.2		37
38	Inder Haugen			Richard Montgomery	2027		17:11.3		38
39	Gabriel Nguyen			Bethesda Chevy Chase	2029		17:13.8		39
40	Jaylen Shah			Winston Churchill	2028		17:14.0		40
41	Paxton Cain			Albert Einstein		2027		17:14.4		41
42	Caleb Charmatz			Sherwood		2027		17:17.0		42
43	Eliyab Sebsibe			Seneca Valley		2027		17:17.6		43
44	Wesley Blenkinsop		Montgomery Blair	2030		17:18.0		44
45	Blake Robinson			Walter Johnson		2028		17:18.4		45
46	Gregory Kilby			Sherwood		2029		17:18.5		46
47	Treyson Goode			Sherwood		2027		17:18.5		47
48	Jacob Lebenkoff			Damascus		2030		17:18.7		48
49	Henry Delovitch			Albert Einstein		2027		17:19.8		49
50	Craig Brameyer			Clarksburg		2029		17:20.0		50
51	Jack Zincke			Thomas S. Wootton	2027		17:20.5		51
52	Mathias Bizuayehu		Seneca Valley		2028		17:21.8		52
53	Francis Muljo			Albert Einstein		2029		17:22.0		53
54	Ahmed Tandina			Montgomery Blair	2028		17:22.0		54
55	Yonathan Nigussie		Sherwood		2028		17:22.0	
56	Benjamin Sweeney		Quince Orchard		2027		17:22.4		55
57	Balin Savage			Montgomery Blair	2027		17:22.5		56
58	Evan Huang			Richard Montgomery	2027		17:22.8		57
59	Noah Quezada			Northwest		2029		17:23.2		58
60	Brandon Min			Thomas S. Wootton	2029		17:23.4		59
61	Braeden Taylor			Rockville		2027		17:24.4		60
62	Cruz Carbonell			Damascus		2029		17:26.0		61
63	Evan Hodge			Quince Orchard		2027		17:31.4		62
64	Wesley Alvarez			Northwest		2027		17:32.5		63


Projected Team Scores (Teams with 5+ ranked runners)
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   School                       Projected Points
=================================================
1. Sherwood				79
2. Bethesda Chevy Chase			121
3. Montgomery Blair			186
4. Albert Einstein			191




Teams with Four Ranked Runners: Churchill, Northwest
Teams with Three Ranked Runners: Northwood, Quince Orchard, Springbrook, Rockville, Wootton, Walter Johnson

Mocorunning's ranking formula is explained HERE. The ranking formula is a system of point stealing. Points are stolen by finishing closer to or further ahead of other ranked runners compared to what is "expected." It is an interesting alternative to stagnant rankings of season best 5k times. Every race counts. Every race is an opportunity to perform better than expected relative to other ranked runners.

The projections you see on this page exactly match the names on the week 6 ranking published on 10/11/2026 with a couple notable changes. Private school runners were removed and the points were replaced with projected finish times for the county championship course at Gaithersburg. Do the points convert directly to 5k times? No, not exactly, but the points do convert to a time scale. 1 second = 2 points. Therefore, if the top ranked runner had 200 points, he or she would be ranked 200 points or 100 seconds above the ranking cutoff. You can assign that top ranked runner any 5k time, and he or she would be 100 seconds (1:40) above the ranking cutoff. Take any two runners and subtract their point totals, divide by two, and you will know how far apart they are expected to finish according to the ranking.

To assign the projected times to all the runners, you really only need to assign a projected time to one runner. Once one runner has an assigned projected time, the point scale dictates the finish times for every other runner within the ranking. It is not the first or last ranked runner that you want to key off of. It is the runners in the middle range that will be the most consistent year after year. The great thing about the county championship is that we have the same exact number of teams entered in the meet at the same time of the year, every year. The caliber of the middle tier varsity runners will not fluctuate very much from year to year.

The chart below shows the county championship varsity race finishers plotted for each year since the course was modified in 2011. With fourteen years of history on the course, the average line is well-defined. You can see that there have been some slow years (2018, 2021, 2022, 2023) and some very fast years (2015 and 2017). Weather played a roll in 2018 and 2021 when the course was particularly wet. Most other years have been dry, and the athletes dictated the speed of the course. The pandemic clearly affected the depth of the varsity race since 2021.

Last year, I decided to make the assumption that the boys we are back to "average." The boys were actually much better than average last year, and that moves the average line slightly. I would be inclined to say that the boys will again be better than average, but I don't want to reach too much. Weather is one of the most influential factors in course speed. As I write this, it has rained all day Sunday and there is a possibility that rain will further dampen the course later this week.

Under the assumption that 2026 will be an average year, meaning that this year's middle tier varsity runners are no better or worse than a typical year, I want my RED projected dots to land on the black AVG line as closely as possible. I cannot manipulate the curvature of the red dot curve. The curvature of the red dot curve is dictated by the ranking system. I can only move my red line up or down vertically to match the historical results profile of the county championship meet. I aimed to line up the 20th to 40th ranked runners as closely as possible to the average line, paying little attention to the top ranked runners. Doing this exercise ensured that the projections are in line with the history of the meet on this course.

Editorializing, while keeping most runners tight to the average trend line, the ranking formula projects a potential course record for the first place finisher. And why not? Dimitrios Rementelas was five seconds off the course record last year and is now running better than ever. Many capable runners have fallen short of Chase Weaverling's 2012 15:25.0 course record, and the reason is usually the weather or a lack of competition. Weaverling himself could not break his junior year record when he had less competition as a senior. If Dimitrios Rementelas, the clear favorite, runs the entire race solo as Mocorunning's ranking suggests he will, it will be a formidable challenge to cross the finish line faster than any runner who came before him.






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