3A Girls Preview
Up until lat September of this year, Anna Vess was arguably underrated in cross country, amazing as that may seem for a girl who is the defending 3A state champion and has won 5 titles on the track (including the 4x800). That's because the A.C. Reynolds senior had never really run a time that was commensurate with her enormous ability, through a variety of circumstances. That all changed when she clocked 17:50 on the Asheville Christian course on 9/23, followed by 17:52 on the same course a few weeks later. She proceeded to decimate the competition at the West Regional, essentially running in her own solo race pretty much the whole way. She won at Ivey Redmon in terrible conditions last November, and she will be very hard to beat there again this year; her closest competition in the classification, Alexa King (Marvin Ridge), is over 40 seconds back. That's a little deceptive, though, because King has run sub-18 in the past, and she did not get the opportunity to blast out a huge time on a super-fast course this year. If King is not able to stay with Vess, then you can expect her to be challenged for 2nd by teammates Katherine Dokholyan and Marija Crook (Chapel Hill), who have both been in the mid- to upper-18's this year. Also, don't get fooled by Emme Fisher's times in her conference and regional meets - the West Carteret junior pulled away from the field easily in both races, and her Pirate Invitational time indicates she is ahead of last year (when she finished 3rd in the state meet).
When it comes to filling out the top 10, there should be a huge battle between runners that have posted season bests right around 19 minutes, and several of those are on the three top teams in the meet. Chapel Hill comes in as the favorite with two of the top 4 athletes in the race, plus Clare McNamara ranking in the top 10. Marvin Ridge is definitely close enough to be a true contender for the title, though, especially if Jennae Jacob, Kylie Hennesey, and Melanie Hussey run well. The Mavericks are ever-so-slightly better through 6 runners, too, in case a tiebreaker comes into effect. The dark horse contender is Cuthbertson, who lost to Marvin Ridge by only 10 points at the Midwest Regional; the Cavaliers just need a season-best race from ONE of their 5, 6, and 7 runners to be right in the thick of the title hunt. Three deserving teams for two podium spots - that's an exciting way to finish off another NCHSAA State Championship day!