Runners Prepare For The District Of Doom


When the Region 1 6A Girls Cross Country Championship rolls around October 22nd, someone will be missing. For the past five years, four schools have been consistently at the top of 6A Region 1, Flower Mound, Hebron, Marcus and Southlake Carroll. However, this year, one of these traditionally strong teams won't even make it out of Districts. With the UIL realignment, one of these powerhouse teams will be left out in the cold.

Only three teams advance from Districts…nothing new here. But rarely does Texas have some of its strongest teams in the same district scrambling for a slot. Marcus took the 6A State Championship last year with Southlake a close second. The year before, it was Hebron with Marcus on its heels. The three years previous, Southlake Carroll claimed the state's top prize with Flower Mound always in the mix.

So will the best teams in the region really be running at the regional meet? UIL says past performance never plays a role in its realignment. UIL only considers enrollment size and geography.

Southlake's head coach, Justin Leonard see's the realignment as a great opportunity for his teams to run against some of the best runners/teams in the state. Leonard says, "The way we look at it is you are going to have to compete against these teams at some point so now it's just a week earlier at District instead of Regionals."

Flower Mound's head coach, Andrew Cook feels the realignment will make everyone in the district better. He says, "District 5-6A is one of the strongest districts in the state and there will be some great teams that will not advance to the regional meet." Cook goes on to say, "this happens with other sports as well, unfortunately, it is just the way it goes".

UIL has no plans of changing the number of teams advancing to Regionals or offering any at- large bids as it does with track. So for the girls of Flower Mound, Hebron, Marcus and Southlake Carroll crunch time will come a little early. When the gun goes off later this month, for one of these teams, this truly will be the district of doom.

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