The Southlake Carroll events are becoming more and more popular by the meet. The early track season meets in January and February are glorified time trials that give distance runners in the area and even throughout the state opportunities to get a test of their fitness.
Their preseason cross country time trials are almost as famous as they have been giving valuable insight to the status of some of the DFW's best athletes and teams before the season begins.
Last year, we saw outstanding marks on both the girls and boys sides. Now, with them being on the track, the times aren't accurate predictions to how they will translate to grass and courses. However, they have been very revealing as to how prepared some are for the following cross country seasons.
In 2022, we saw the top three girls finishers run 10:35 and under and the top five finishers all complete their seasons as some of the fastest girls in the state. Samantha Humphries who won the 3200m race last year in 10:24 was second at the UIL 6A state cross country meet, Alexandra Walsh, the second place finisher ran 17:00 in the 5K last year, Nicole Humphries in third at 10:35 was the UIL 6A cross country state champion, the fourth place finisher Ava Bushaw (11:09) was fifth at state, and Sylvia Schwedler (11:14) who placed fifth was the state meet's seventh place finisher.
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The boys side in 2022 was just as telling in terms of the state meet finishes and post season running. Adam Burlison and Wyatt Athey were two of the UIL 5A classification's top runners. With their 9:18 and 9:19 runs, they led 14 boys under 10:00.
This year, Caden Leonard was the top finisher at the Southlake Carroll 2 Mile. The sophomore ran 9:12 to follow up his 4:18 time trial two weeks ago in the 1600m. He was followed up by teammate Jude Alvarez and his 9:16 run. Alvarez, the senior ran 4:18 two weeks ago at the time trial.
Argyle senior Tyler Westrom is one who is expected to demonstrate how high he is ready to take things this year. His 9:17 time trial time had him mixing up with the Dragons and he was the third runner to cross the line. He helped lead the top-10 runners under 9:41.
BOYS 3200 METER RUN FINALS PLACE ATHLETE TEAM RESULT POINTS 1 Caden Leonard 10 Carroll High School 9:12.42 1 2 Jude Alvarez 12 Carroll High School 9:16.24 2 3 Tyler Westrom 12 Argyle 9:17.23 3 4 Blake Bullard 11 Carroll High School 9:17.87 4 5 Zach Troutman 12 Carroll High School 9:19.54 5 6 Avinash Patel 12 Flower Mound 9:20.21 6 7 Ryan Van de Berghe 12 Carroll High School 9:27.62 7 8 Brian Woolums 12 Argyle 9:35.42 8 9 Alex Severson 11 Carroll High School 9:40.60 9 10 Carter Haskell 12 Carroll High School 9:40.84 10
The Carroll boys are expected to be dominant this year and add their fifth straight UIL 6A cross country trophy to their awards case. Junior Blake Bullard (9:17), seniors Zach Troutman (9:19) and Ryan Van de Berghe (9:27), junior Alex Severson (9:40) and senior Carter Haskell (9:40) teamed with Leonard and Alvarez to make it six boys adding to a 9:18 team average and with only a 15 second deviation from first to sixth runners.
TEAM SCORES PLACE TEAM POINTS SCORERS TIMES 1 Carroll High School 19 1+2+4+5+7 (9+10) 0:15 1-5 Split | 9:18 Avg 2 Flower Mound 65 6+11+15+16+17 (22+23) 0:53 1-5 Split | 9:55 Avg 3 Argyle 81 3+8+19+25+26 (29+30) 1:28 1-5 Split | 10:08 Avg 4 Grapevine 92 13+14+20+21+24 (27+28) 0:30 1-5 Split | 10:13 Avg 5 Crandall 126 12+18+31+32+33 (34+35) 1:44 1-5 Split | 10:57 Avg
Avinash Patel led the Flower Mound boys with a 9:27 run. His boys also came through with a solid team run; they averaged 9:55 and ran within 53 seconds for the first through fifth finishers.
Argyle ran a 10:08 average with the help of Westrom's swift run and Grapevine was close behind with a 10:13 average with only a 30 second split.
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Alexandra Walsh leads the girls 3200m time trial
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Flower Mound didn't run their top four runners, but the time trial was still just as interesting. Walsh didn't quite run at the 10:28 clip that she did last season, but she was still under 11:00. Team her time of 10:45 from last night with her 5:02 from two weeks ago and you can see she is ready for her senior year to begin.
Emily Smith (Colleyville Covenant Christian) is another senior who looked ready for an outstanding senior year send-off type of seasons; she ran 10:57 to be the second to cross the line. Carroll's Elizabeth Smits was the first non-senior to finish and she also dipped under 11 minutes with her 10:59. That is a personal best at that distance for Smits and it's nearly 50 seconds faster than she ran this time last year.
GIRLS 3200 METER RUN FINALS PLACE ATHLETE TEAM RESULT POINTS 1 Alexandra Walsh 12 Carroll High School 10:45.19 1 2 Emily Smith 12 Colleyville Covenant Christian 10:57.94 0 3 Elizabeth Smits 11 Carroll High School 10:59.08 2 4 Vanessa Vezga 10 Carroll High School 11:14.38 3 5 Sarayu Veluri 11 Carroll High School 11:23.67 4 6 Sylvia Schwedler 12 Carroll High School 11:37.37 5 7 Claire Bettencourt 11 Flower Mound 11:40.47 6 8 Katelyn McCown 11 Grapevine 11:40.80 7 9 Charlotte Martin 12 Carroll High School 11:42.11 8 10 Megan Schmidt 9 Flower Mound 11:44.10 9
Vanessa Vezga (11:14), Sarayu Veluri (11:23), and Sylvia Schwedler (11:37) were the three through five runners for the 2022 state meet runner-ups Carroll. The Dragon top five teamed up for a 11:11 team average and were able to keep the split under a minute by going for only 52 seconds.
While Flower Mound didn't run Alexandra Fox, Natalie Spangher, or the Humphries twins who are all expected to provide a solid quartet cornerstone for another state title.
They did have Claire Bettencourt and Megan Schmidt who both ran sub-11:45 and show they will possibly be big contributors for the Jaguars. The team also came through with an impressive 11:51 team average without their top four runners. Another impressive stat was their 27 second team split in the time trial. That means their possibly have their five through eight runners tight around 12 low to mid heading into the mile of a race.
TEAM SCORES PLACE TEAM POINTS SCORERS TIMES 1 Carroll High School 15 1+2+3+4+5 (8+10) 0:52 1-5 Split | 11:11 Avg 2 Flower Mound 51 6+9+11+12+13 (14+17) 0:27 1-5 Split | 11:51 Avg 3 Grapevine 75 7+15+16+18+19 (20+21) 1:11 1-5 Split | 12:17 Avg