Your 2026 Class 5 indoor state team champions, Freedom South Riding, are our spotlight team of the week.
Indoors the team from Freedom was able to win the Class 5 team title battle in what was one of the closest battles across all classifications. In total they had a staggering seven individual scorers and picked up points from all three relay teams.
First up are the relay teams. The 4x2 finished second, the 4x4 finished 6th, and the 4x8 finished 8th. You'd imagine they can come close to that outdoors with the relay teams being fairly equal. The main difference comes from what potentially other teams might do with their hurdlers and how that could affect the scores.
Individually the team is lead by Josh Johnson who was the state champion in the 55 and bronze medalist in the 300. Though they are in Class 5 now, they were in Class 6 a year ago where Josh was the 100 and 200 state champion. He enters his senior campaign with bests of 10.35 (10.16 wind-aided) and 21.21 wind-legal (21.10 wind-aided).
Josh will almost certainly double in the 100 and 200 which means you can expect him on either the 4x1 or 4x4 relay.
Freedom did have another state champion indoors and that was Aram Bamyr. He was your shot put champion throwing 50-5. His season best of 53-3.25 was a seven foot improvement over last outdoor season which could mean a close to 15-20 foot improvement in the discus. That would move him into scoring range at states which would help a lot.
Aram's teammate, Gunnar Baker, also scored in the shot put finishing 5th overall.
Also in the field events was Sebastian Sovinski who finished 4th overall in the high jump. His teammates will certainly look for points in this event outdoors but if history is any indication, the high jump is too hard to predict since some athletes go out four inches below their normal height and others PR. You really just have to wait and see.
Another scorer for them was Nathan Danberg in the 300m dash where he finished 7th. Outdoors though he was 5th last year in the 200 (Class 6) and just missed the finals in the 100. It seems to us that he is one of those sprinters whose sweet spot is between 100 and 200 meaning outdoors should be more fruitful for him and likely his team point contribution.
Finally that brings us to their three 3200m runners who all qualified for states. You had Ebenezer Temesgen who finished 11th, Noel Madda who finished 5th, and Aneesh Kandimalla who finished 4th. Combined they tallied up just enough points to help their team win. The 3200 outdoors can be a brutal one with the heat, even in the morning, and is always subject to who is running what.
Of course, these were only their scorers indoors and we could see some new names this season both from joining the team and just stepping up when it matters most.
Your 2026 Class 5 indoor state team champions, Freedom South Riding, are our spotlight team of the week.
Indoors the team from Freedom was able to win the Class 5 team title battle in what was one of the closest battles across all classifications. In total they had a staggering seven individual scorers and picked up points from all three relay teams.
First up are the relay teams. The 4x2 finished second, the 4x4 finished 6th, and the 4x8 finished 8th. You'd imagine they can come close to that outdoors with the relay teams being fairly equal. The main difference comes from what potentially other teams might do with their hurdlers and how that could affect the scores.
