The season started off with signs pointing towards Keller as being the best girls team in the state for obvious reasons. I mean, yes, the lost three seniors who played valuable parts of their back to back state championships. However, they returned a pretty experienced group and one of the top runners in Texas with Isabel Van Camp.
As the season began, Flower Mound established themselves as the top team. They also boasted a solid returning group to go along with an outstanding freshman in Natalie Cook.
Flower Mound has yet to be beaten on the season. They can point to their early season win over Keller and pretty much the rest of Texas with their Marcus I Invitational. From week one, Coppell has been yet another group of girls putting in work with impressive times. At The Woodlands, they won at the Friday Night Lights meet in week one of the season and then followed that up at Marcus I with a superb runner-up finish. They also had a solid performance at the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic in California.
Since the early weeks of the season, several groups have come on strong. The Southlake Carroll girls have been quietly debunking the thought that they are in a rebuilding year. They also started of solid with their Friday Night Lights and Marcus I performances as they finished third in The Woodlands and fifth in Denton. They would eventually make the trip to Woodbridge in California and run impressively amongst the top teams on the West Coast. They finished fifth overall including coming out ahead of Coppell who had beat them twice already on the season.
The next group of top contending girls is Prosper. The Lady Eagles were perhaps a surprising team as their season has been night and day compared to their 2017 season. Prosper came out hitting hard as they shocked a lot of people day one at the Plano ISD XC Invitational, as they ran a great race coming out of that meet with some eye opening performances. They followed that up with a solid race at Marcus going for a third place finish behind Flower Mound and Coppell. They went from straight up impressive to a state meet contender and potential favorite with their McNeil Invitational race. On the state meet course, they showed that their youth doesn't mean a thing as they took down both Coppell and Southlake Carroll who had both been on fire. Their McNeil run was better than #1 Flower Mound had run all year long.
So, with that, Prosper was clearly the favorite team and had earned the right to be the best team in the state heading into championship season. Right?
As soon as you begin to think the girls scene was playing and and working itself out, here comes a boom.
At the Dallas Jesuit XC Classic, Prosper was taking in their momentum from McNeil. They did not run bad at all, in fact they ran hard and strong. It's just that Keller ran harder and stronger to take down Prosper who had looked like the state's best just a week before.
Keller, who had been without their #1 Van Camp for several weeks as she was taking college visits, managed to infuse her back into the core of the team. That enabled them to top Prosper by four points as the race basically came down to the #5 spot.
This week, Keller had the task of taking on their district 5-6A competitors, which meant for the second straight week in a row, they would battle one of Texas' best. They went against a hot Southlake Carroll team and the match up did not let down. This year's Southlake Carroll will test opposing team's core. You can have front runners, but with them you better have a full team. The Dragons seem to have the ability to hit the finish line all at one time. Keller was able survive the huge Carroll hit as they came out on top 41-45.
So, what does this mean? Who is the best team in UIL 6A and in Texas altogether?
Has Flower Mound be replaced as the top team in Texas, or is all of this action going down just a race to see who is the second best behind them?
One thing is for sure, the Region 1-6A meet will only be able to send four to compete for a state title, and that is a race you won't want to miss.