2021 UIL 4A Girls State Championships
The UIL 4A girls state championship was expected to be a highly competitive race and it lived up to the billing.
District 9-4A showed the state of Texas how competitive it is to compete in their district. The individual state champ, the team state champ, and the third place team were all district 9-4A representatives.
The three time state champs Canyon were going for their fourth straight state title with Celina and several other teams trying to take them down for yet another year.
This was the year another team finally climbed to the top of the podium. Celina, who was fresh off their blazing fast regional doubled back this year with another big time team performance.
Led by senior Adele Clarke who finished third overall, they were able to score a race low 80 points. Alexis Frick (13th place), Aimee Clarke, (19th place), Samantha Quiroz (33rd place), and Sarah Coblentz (42nd place) were the rest of the scorers for Celina, helping to take the state championship they've long desired.
With exception of one junior, Fredericksburg rolled out a line up of freshmen and sophomores that ran to a 111 point total for second place overall. Taylor Grona was the second place finisher with her time of 11:17; leading her to take home a silver medal for both her individual and team accomplishments.
Led by Brenna Slovacek, Sanger used a 51 second split to finish in third place earning their bronze trophy to add to the collection of hardware for district 9-4A.
More hardware was taken back to the district when Abigail Bass added the individual gold medal to go with the team gold and bronze. Coming off the bridge, Bass was in second place, but turned on the jets to overcome the deficit Grona created.
Bass was able to take the lead to come away with a 11:07 win for her first state championship.
To round out the top five individual finishers was Grona in 11:17, Clarke in 11:10, Abree Winfrey (Canyon) in 11:31, Kayleigh Wagnon (Hudson) also in 11:31.
A total of 19 girls ran 12:00 and under, with nine of them being freshmen and sophomores.