An extremely strong track season has propelled a former champion into the conversation for this fall's 6A title race.
There are at least 5 teams in the 6A classification that I could envision winning the title in 2014, and The Woodlands is one of them. Despite losing three girls from the squad that finished 7th at the 5A meet last fall (although they did win Region II on a faster course), the Highlanders have already demonstrated that they have sufficient returning talent to contend. They did so during outdoor track season, when they ended the spring 2nd in Texas in the team 3200 rankings, putting 4 returning girls under 12 minutes and 6 at 12:05 or faster. The Woodlands also had 5 girls run 5:30 or better for 1600, averaging 5:23, to rank 4th in the state. Abbey Piontek, for example, moved up from being the 33rd-best returner in the 5K to the 20th-best returner in the 1600. That improvement began the process of addressing the team's biggest problem, depth - the returning 5K times show a 1-5 split of 1:21, but in the outdoor 3200 that was cut to 59 seconds. Since winning the title in 2008, the Highlanders have not placed higher than 4th. Given the depth in 6A, that could happen again; at the same time, it just feels like the race is open for the taking, and The Woodlands has a shot.
| The Woodlands (TX) | |||
| 1) Abbey Piontek | 18:48.00 | ||
| 2) Lindsay Creasman | 19:05.60 | ||
| 3) Meghan Brown | 19:19.06 | ||
| 4) Emily Gonzalez | 19:39.28 | ||
| 5) Nikki Berardinucci | 20:09.30 | ||
| Average Time: 19:24.25 Total Time: 1:37:01.24 1-5 Split: 1:21.30 | |||
| 6) Rebecca Davidson | 20:09.60 | ||
| 7) Kristin Delgado | 20:27.70 | ||