#9
#9
Girls Individual: Elise Welch is a senior at Dallas Ursuline Academy. Both she and her team no doubt get overlooked around the state when thinking or talking about some of the best in Texas. Welch is one of TAPPS most accomplished runners as she as yet to lose a TAPPS team state championship. This year, she is hoping to lead her squad back there and win the individual crown. Don't let the TAPPS league fool you, she is one of the top girls in Texas. They run 2 miles in TAPPS, so this may be her last 5K until NXR South, don't put it past her to go out guns a blazing this weekend.
Boys Individual: Ryan Shumaker is a cerebral runner and isn't afraid to share his thoughts. Well, it turns out that he is backing it all up this year in a big way. Shumaker's Grapevine has big team goals and his performance is key. He doesn't have much on the books because of weather related meet cancellations, but what he does have are two fast races that are two of the fastest he has ever run. He kicked off the season with at 15:28 at the Marcus I Invitational and then dropped a 16:06 at Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival just last week.
Girls Team: I didn't believe in The Woodlands earlier this year and totally left them out of the top teams and not even an honorable mention. I definitely heard about it, but I was convicted in my decision based on last year's cross and track season. Well, ever since then, the Lady Highlanders have made me a believer. They have been running without one of their top five girls for a couple of weeks, yet they keep running well. Their strength is their tight pack as they have run impressive splits of .26, .17, 1:02, .18 in their team meets this year, which will make them a hard team to beat this weekend.
Boys Team: Round Rock started the season off in a major way with at win over Smithson Valley, one of the top ranked teams in the state. From there, they have been pretty consistent all season long. They will be competing close to home, so they won't have the travel to worry about and they'll be able to stick to their normal routines. If they want to be considered as real contenders to qualifying for state in the convoluted Region 2-6 team race, a good performance at McNeil will be big.