4:01 miler Thomas Ratcliffe never ran a single cross country race in high school. The son of KIMbia agent Tom Ratcliffe played soccer during the fall in high school, and the plan was for Stanford to redshirt him while he got accumulated to college training and racing. After all, 10K is more than triple the distance of any race he ran in high school, according to his MileSplit profile.

But the Cardinal may want to rethink that redshirt after today. Competing unattached at the Stanford Invitational, Ratcliffe won the 8K in 23:17. Among Stanford athletes, only Sean McGorty, Chris Derrick, Maksim Korolev, and Joe Rosa have ever run faster at that meet. None of those four ran more than ten seconds faster than Ratcliffe's time; all were cross country All-Americans in the season they ran the time; and Korolev, Derrick, and McGorty finished top ten at nationals in those seasons.

It was an extremely fast day on the course--the top three all ran top-15 times in meet history. But Ratcliffe is still in very good company.

Rk	Year	Time	Athlete	School	Season Finish
01	2007	23:07	Scott Bauhs	Chico State (DII)	10th at USATF XC Champs
01	2015	23:07	Sean McGorty	Stanford	7th at NCAA XC Champs
03	2007	23:12	Aron Rono	Azusa Pacific (NAIA)	1st at NAIA XC Champs
04	2011	23:15	Chris Derrick	Stanford	2nd at NCAA XC Champs
05	2014	23:16	Joe Rosa	Stanford	33rd at NCAA XC Champs
05	2014	23:16	Maksim Korolev	Stanford	4th at NCAA XC Champs
07	2016	23:17	Thomas Ratcliffe	Stanford	TBD
08	2010	23:18	David McNeill	Northern Arizona	123rd at NCAA XC Champs
09	2016	23:19	Emmanuel Rotich	Tulane	TBD
10	2011	23:21	Jake Riley	Stanford	18th at NCAA XC Champs
11	2010	23:22	Elliott Heath	Stanford	42nd at NCAA XC Champs
11	2010	23:22	Jake Riley	Stanford	6th at NCAA XC Champs
11	2010	23:22	Chris Derrick	Stanford	5th at NCAA XC Champs
11	2011	23:22	Jon Peterson	UC Davis	71st at NCAA XC Champs
11	2016	23:22	Swarnjit Boyal	Cal Poly	TBD
16	2011	23:23	Erik Olson	Stanford	127th at NCAA XC Champs
17	2005	23:24	Josh McDougal	Liberty	4th at NCAA XC Champs
18	2007	23:25	David Torrence	California	62nd at NCAA XC Champs
19	2002	23:27	Ian Dobson	Stanford	9th at NCAA XC Champs
20	2010	23:29	Michael Coe	California	91st at NCAA XC Champs
21	2010	23:30	Solomon Haile	Arkansas	17th at NCAA XC Champs
21	2016	23:30	Clayton Hutchins	Cal Poly	TBD
23	2006	23:31	Neftalem Araia	Stanford	2nd at NCAA XC Champs
24	2015	23:33	Grant Fisher	Stanford	17th at NCAA XC Champs

Stanford coach Chris Miltenberg is generally loath to race freshmen--he redshirted entire male freshman classes in 2012 and 2014. But after the first cross country race of his life, Ratcliffe might be the best true freshman in the country. We've seen their entire squad short of McGorty, Grant Fisher, and Alex Ostberg; they need the depth that Ratcliffe can provide. Miltenberg has to make a decision: will he take the redshirt off Ratcliffe in November?

​​Gordon Mack contributed to this report