Championship Girls
Team wise the Championship Girls section is very deep with schools ranked in our preseason top 25 not currently in the top 10 in this race. Hilton Head (SC) girls come in as the favorites over strong North Carolina competition. Hilton Head is projected to score 5 girls in the top 20 and also placing 7 before any other school has 5 in, so I think they'll be tough to beat this weekend. #4 Green Hope and #5 Weddington girls will be up for the challenge as they rank #2 and #3 in our virtual meet.
Green Hope look to be running their A team on the girls side, but in years past have run as a pack at Providence with a hard last mile. They'll add in two sophomore twin transfers to the top 7 out of Illinois which could propel them to contend with Hilton Head. Weddington girls lost no one from last fall and will still all be juniors or younger. We'll see if they have some girls break out this weekend as I think they'll be a very strong squad later this fall.
There are also plenty of other squads with a ton of potential to watch out for this weekend in Providence, Sanderson, Lake Norman Charter, Reagan, Heritage, Charlotte Catholic, Leesville Road and Hough! I expect we'll see a big day from one of these squads, but their are many 4A powers in this field. I think for the girls race the team battle will be a lot more entertaining than the individuals despite some of the best girls in NC debuting.
Individually Sophie Faircloth (Reagan) enters with the best PR in this field of 18:17. Faircloth didn't run outdoors after a monster freshman indoor track season, so it'll be great to see what kind of shape she's in. Olivia Henn (Eastside, SC) is another girl to watch after a big freshman year running 18:23 in XC and 5:18/11:17 on the track. Penn was 8th in this event last fall. Anna-Kathryn Kilby (Forbush) returns with a PR of 18:41 and will be looking to hang up front this weekend. Kilby is the defending NCHSAA 2A State Champion and will look to prove she's back to defend that crown.
Hilton Head brings a slew of girls that'll be in contention for top 10 spots in Mallory Liggett, Isabel Muehleman, Sarah Cooke, Tori Herman and Miyah Shatz. Shatz holds the best PR of 18:47, but Muehleman and Herman are coming off big track seasons and could be the top girl for them this season. I suspect they'll run as a pack this weekend. Green Hope will have Alessandra Rodriguez and Kelsey Vogel in contention for top 10 spots as well, I suspect they'll be their top 2 this season. Also Sarah Bechtel (Weddington) comes in with the 9th fastest time from 2016, though I think she's a little better than her 19:01 PR. I'm also looking for a big day out of Ainsley Cooper (Reagan) who is coming off a really strong sophomore season on the track. Will she be able to contend with Faircloth to be Reagan's #1?
Other girls to watch are Sydney Burke (Weddington), Lila Peters (Sanderson), Audrey Hemming (Leesville), Faith Roy (South View), Sarah Parrish (Providence) and Alexis McDonnell (Hough). We could see some girls have the break out race in XC that they've been waiting for. Also Carmen Alder (Pinecrest) will make her high school debut coming in with a track 3K PR of 10:24 and 4:45 1500 time. She's run 14:22 for 4K as a middle schooler and is going to be a girl to keep an eye on the next four years.