2022 Preseason DFW Metro XC Girls To Watch

Preseason First Team

Alexandra Fox 

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7. Alexandra Fox - Flower Mound

As the youngest member of Flower Mound's top seven last fall, Fox laid the foundations for a breakthrough spring. She was consistently among Flower Mound's top five and rounded out the scoring positions for the Jaguars with her 20th place finish at the 6a State Cross Country Championship. She concluded her fall by cracking into the nation's top 100 at the Garmin RunningLane Championships with an 87th place finish. 

In March, Fox began her track season with a pair of dominant performances. Following a comfortable 3200 meter win at the Coppell Relays, she claimed gold by nine seconds in the Freshman Girls Mile championship at New Balance Nationals Indoor. Her commanding victory at New York's Armory propelled her into the remainder of her track season. In seven attempts, she never failed to break 11:00 in the 3200 and her two fastest races came on the state's biggest stages. Her personal best of 10:30 came at the UIL 6a Region 1 Championship where the Flower Mound trio of Cook, Humphries and Fox cruised away from the competition in what was a preview of the 6a 3200 meter final in Austin. Securing the bronze, Fox completed a medal sweep for the Jaguars and established herself as one of the top individuals in Texas. 

Abigail Bass

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6. Abigail Bass - Melissa

Though she only raced two miles at UIL Championship meets, Bass's junior year left no doubts that she belongs in the top tier of the state's best cross country runners. Her fall season was split between 2 mile and 5k races, but the extra 1800 meters seemed only to play to her advantage. She won her district and regional titles comfortably and then brought her UIL season to a flourish with a 10 second victory at the 4A State Cross Country Championship. She finished the cross country season with her two best performances over 5000 meters. She was seventh at the NXR South Regional, then proceeded to finish 63rd out of 296 of the nation's best at the Garmin RunningLane Championships.

Her track season showed no indication of decline. She won regional and state titles in the 1600 and 3200 and secured fantastic personal bests of 4:56 and 10:43. She ended her junior year at New Balance Nationals with a 13th place finish in the two mile championship race. Her time of 10:44 for the full two mile distance was an improvement on her 3200 meter personal best.

As the reigning 4A state champion and the fifth best returner in the NXR South Region, Bass appears to be primed to defend her state titles this fall and will be a formidable competitor at the south regional and national level. 

5. Allie Love - Colleyville Heritage

As a rising junior, Colleyville's dual-sport superstar has consistently performed at an elite level after she burst onto the scene in the fall of 2020. Last fall, her regular season included a slew of top five finishes at the most competitive meets across Texas along with a sixth place finish at the Chile Pepper Festival. In the championship season, Love won her district meet then claimed silver at the 5A Region 1 and state championship meets.

The most impressive part about Love's season was that she maintained her incredible form past the borders of the UIL season into December. A second place finish at the NXR South Regional and a 29th place finish at the Garmin Running Lane Championships marked the peak of her remarkably consistent sophomore season which added another fantastic layer to her growing resume. The only thing she lacks thus far in her career is a state title, but she will return this fall as 5a's top returner in cross country and a collection of personal bests (4:55, 10:34) which few others can rival.

4. Amy Morefield - Lucas Lovejoy

Leading the way in Lovejoy's dominant state title winning run was Amy Morefield. Her fifth place finish was the peak of a fantastic fall in Morefield's junior year, though she managed to sustain it to a respectable extent past the UIL season. She rounded off the cross country season with an 85th place finish at the Garmin RunningLane Championships which is commendable in its own right. 

The spring brought her equal success at the state meet along with personal bests in five events on the track. From March 12th to April 29th, Morefield won five 3200 races including wins at the district, area and regional meets. The best way to illustrate how well she performed in the 3200 last spring is to note that her fifth place finish at the state meet could reasonably be classed as an underperformance. Morefield also demonstrated that she has plenty of speed to go along with her exceptional strength. In March she broke 60 seconds in the 400 and ran a 5000 meter personal best of 17:45. 

Given that Morefield ran the fifth fastest time over 3200 meters in 5a last season and she was one spot away from qualifying for state in the 800, it is unknown what route she may take to the medal stand at next year's state track meet. However, her resume up to this point leaves no questions, reservations, or reasonable doubts that she has the ability to be on every podium the UIL has to offer this fall.

3. Samantha Humphries - Flower Mound

The most impressive thing about Humphries is not any particular performance, personal best or event specialty. It is her range that makes her one of the state's premier athletes and it extends all the way from 800 meters on the track to 5000 on grass. The best illustration of how good she is in cross country is that her 12th place finish at the 6a State Cross Country Championship could be described as a slight underperformance. The support for this claim arises from her performance at NXR South where she was fourth. Furthermore, her 68th place finish at the Garmin RunningLane Championships last December is far from subpar.

Although the 800 was the event she contested at Brooks PR, her success in that event didn't come at the expense of improving in the longer distances. In fact, her teammate Natalie Cook was the only reason she did not collect the full treble of gold medals at the state track meet. 

The twins just ran a 4:45/4:47 time trial on the track for 1,600m, so the fact that they're in state meet medal fitness in August is crazy to think about.

2. Nicole Humphries - Flower Mound

As part of a Flower Mound team that dominated the state last year, Humphries built an impressive list of individual accomplishments en route to winning team titles. 

Last fall, Humphries was remarkably consistent and peaked at the right time. Her only finish outside of the top 10 came at the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic in California where she finished 19th in the famously competitive three mile race. At the Nike South Invitational, she won the girls' elite race by nearly 20 seconds over fellow top 10 finishers at the state meet. Her best race came one month after her triumph in The Woodlands when she finished fourth at the 6a state championship. 

In the spring, Humphries' focus shifted to the 1600 and 800 meter distances. Though her 800 performances were not bad, it was in the 1600 where her season flourished. She never found herself off the podium in the event and her two best performances came in Austin seven weeks apart. In late March, she finished third at the Texas Relays in a race fit for championship season with a personal best of 4:49. She returned to Mike A. Myers Stadium in May where she narrowly claimed a bronze medal and completed a historic medal sweep for Flower Mound in the event. 

This fall, Humphries will be the second highest returner from the 2021 6A State Cross Country Championship. With personal bests of 2:08, 4:49 and 10:5, she is fully prepared to compete for titles on every front through the entirety of her junior year. 

Johnson enters her senior year as the most decorated individual having won state titles in Iowa as an underclassman along with some big performances last year here in Texas. In her sophomore year, she won Iowa state titles in cross country and over the 3000 meter distance. Although she certainly came up against stiffer competition once she moved to Texas, she raised her game accordingly. Unfortunately for Johnson, her first year in Texas coincided with the peak of Natalie Cook. In that context, a bronze medal at the state cross country meet along with an NXR South Regional title is an exceptional return for her first season in the Lone Star State. 

While the spring did not bring her the medals or times she might have hoped for, she still holds personal bests of 4:43 for 1500 meters and 9:46 for 3000 meters which are formidable times at any stage of high school distance running. With the top two finishers from last year's state meet having graduated, the fall of 2022 could well be Johnson's time to accomplish the rare feat of winning cross country titles in multiple states.