Last year as a freshman Carmen Alder (Pinecrest) set a PR, at the time, at the Greensboro Invitational to win by 10 seconds over Chapel Hill's Katherine Dokholyan running 18:15. Alder will look to break 18 for the first time in her career tomorrow as she'll head into the meet as a heavy favorite. Alder has run the third fastest time in the state this year of 18:22, just one second off the state lead.
Alder's biggest competition coming into the meet looks to be freshman Hannah Preisser (Carrboro) and senior Maggie Springer (Chapel Hill). The two took 2nd and 4th this year at the Jungle Run with times of 18:40 and 18:50 respectively.
Other than Preisser and Springer 4 other girls in tomorrows field have broken 19 minutes before in Shannon Sefton (Panther Creek), Lila Peters (Sanderson), Makayla Obremski (Topsail) and Lilly Crook (Chapel Hill). Sefton ran 18:21 and Peters 18:22 a year ago and placed 3rd and 4th at the Greensboro Invitational behind Alder and Dokholyan.
The field will have a lot of strong competition in Erin Spreen (Wake Forest), Emma Fredericks (Northern Guilford), Isabella Bufalini (Topsail) and Molly Kuzma (The O'Neal School) who all will be capable of breaking 19 minutes tomorrow.
The team battle looks to be in Chapel Hill's favor with their top 7 all projected to finish in the top 30. If the Tigers are firing on all cylinders it should be a one team show. The main thing to look for is how far they've come since racing at Jungle Run and Friday Night Lights were they took won and took 3rd respectively.
There will be a big time battle for second between Panther Creek, Northern Guilford, Carrboro, Covenant Day and Cary Academy. The teams are all within 70 points of each other in our virtual meet and we haven't seen too much out of any of these teams over the last two weeks with adidas being cancelled. It'll truly be anyones race for the taking tomorrow as the girls team toe the line for the Championship section.