1A Girls State Meet Preview

by Bob Cooke

The 1A Girls take to the line at 9:10 am.  It's hard not to pick Calvary Christian senior Hannah Brookover as the favorite.  During the season, she has proven she can run at a high level.  With the State Meet being a case of what have you done for me lately, Hannah easily won her Regional at Holloway Park over another co-favorite, Oak Hall's Grace Blair by 17 seconds. At the FSU Pre-State Invitational, Hannah ran 18:13, a full 15 seconds better than the next 1A finisher, another co-favorite, Mount Dora Christian super-frosh, Rebecca Clark (18:28).

Rebecca easily won her Regional race in 17:55, a full 32 seconds better than Holy Trinity's Shelby Smith and we can count on Rebecca to keep the pace honest come Saturday.

If there's wild cards here, we can think of two.

The first wild card just may be Holy Trinity's Shelby Smith, who was back in action and 2nd at Regionals behind Clark after missing her District race (ACT's).  Pundits will argue Smith wasn't even close to either Brookover, Clark or even Blair at Pre-State, and I can't disagree there, but see that as an outlier. If Smith can keep it close, she just may have the foot speed to take Brookover to the wire.  This would set up an interesting scenario.  With Smith missing the District race, she's not eligible for individual honors so even if she wins, the second place finisher will be crowned State Champion. I'm not sure anyone wants to be crowned State Champion in that fashion.

The second wild-card is Baker's 8th grader and Region 1 Champion, Maya Espinosa. We've seen stranger things happen on the biggest day of them all.  Maya will have to keep it close in what promises to be a fast pace set by Clark to give herself a chance for the win.  We like the unbridled optimism youth offers.

The Holy Trinity Girls are looking for the 3-peat and are the odds on favorite to get Coach Baker a State Championship in his first season at the helm.  After crunching the numbers, the only linchpin to Holy Trinity not winning another banner for the Tigers is a melt-down of their number 5 and 6 runners.

Looking to be on the podium as well - Circle Christian, Oak Hall, and Maclay.

First, Circle Christian.  They are in the same Regional as Holy Trinity, Region 1, and were 17 points behind Holy Trinity last Saturday.  The difference in average time was 21 seconds.  That's a lot of finishers at the State Meet.

Oak Hall easily won Region 2.  If we adjust the average time up by 15 seconds for the hills at Holloway Park and do the opposite for the asphalt and track at Holy Trinity, Oak Hall is still about 30 seconds behind in average time.

Maclay may be in the best position to dethrone the Tigers efforts for the 3-peat.  They have home field advantage and easily won their Regional averaging 20:30.  A cagey wise Coach Droze has been here before so let the shoot-out begin.

Region 1 Results

Region 2 Results

Region 3 Results

Region 4 Results

TFX 1A Elite Rankings