Dallas Ursuline Academy (DUA) is looking to 3-peat as team champions in TAPPS' largest division. The Lady Bears have been setting courses on fire all season with their hot running. They started early in the season and it continued through this weekend's Dallas Jesuit Classic.
Now that championship season is here, DUA looks to qualify for the TAPPS state meet once again, and carry the momentum from the regular season through the qualifying rounds.
Can anybody in TAPPS stop the DUA freight train? If so, here are the pivotal things that must happen.
Pivotal Step 1: Houston St. Agnes is one of the few teams who have the chance to knock off DUA. St. Agnes will have to have their best race at the state meet. Their team average is 12:29.58 and it will have to be slightly better on race day as DUA's team average is 11:56.82. Having lost a couple of weeks of training and competing because of the effects form Hurricane Harvey, they will have to speed up the learning curve on the season.
Pivotal Step 2: St. Agnes will have to take advantage of their 28 second split. Their tight running will be advantageous if they can be on their very best game, then that could enable them to pull off an upset.
Pivotal Step 3: San Antonio Antonian will have to be a factor. Antonian is the number #3 TAPPS 6A team, score wise. If they can step up on race day and mix it up at the front, they could put a few runners in front of DUA runners. That could either help St. Agnes or even enable Antonian to put themselves more into the picture for the team win.
Pivotal Step 4: Hope that DUA is not perfect on race day at the state meet. If they are clicking on all cylinders then it will be quite the challenge to beat them.
Not many teams have been able to beat them all season and if their talent and experience both show on the same day, then we may be crowning them once again.
