Texas Girls XC Team Rankings Week 4

This week's edition of our Texas Girls XC rankings covers the previous two weekends of racing. In Week 3, the HOKA McNeil Invitational put Dallas Highland Park, Flower Mound, and Keller on the same Round Rock course, while The Woodlands and Southlake Carroll flew west for the Sweepstakes race at the 45th Annual Woodbridge XC Classic. This weekend, the ranked programs spread across four states: Highland Park at the Byron Nelson Invitational, The Woodlands and Austin Vandegrift at the Nike South, Bridgeland at the Gans Creek Classic in Missouri, Lucas Lovejoy at the Cowboy Jamboree in Stillwater, and El Paso Eastwood at Desert Twilight in Arizona.

The top four hold. Bridgeland moves past Keller after a podium finish in Missouri. Lovejoy and Vandegrift each climb a spot, and San Antonio Churchill enters at No. 10 after beating New Braunfels head-to-head at the Seguin Matador Invitational, knocking New Braunfels out of the top 10.

No. 1

Dallas Highland Park

No. 1 Dallas Highland Park (Highland Park, TX) Prev. No. 8 - Up 7

Analysis: Thirty-eight points. That was Highland Park's winning total at the Byron Nelson Invitational on Saturday, 47 points clear of runner-up Northwest Nelson. It was also the second straight weekend they beat Flower Mound, although this time Flower Mound left its top group at home.

Adelaide Wortman (So.) and Ryan Sontag (Sr.) went 1-2 in 18:05.7 and 18:06.8, finishing 1.1 seconds apart. That's even tighter than the 3.4 seconds that separated them when they took second and third at McNeil. Finley Heckler (Jr.) placed fifth in 18:35.7, Paisley Bassett (Jr.) was seventh in 18:53.9, and freshman Orsella Hooks closed the scoring in 25th at 19:45.2. Hooks stepped in for Anne Cooper (Sr.), who scored fifth for HP at McNeil and doesn't appear in the Byron Nelson results.

No. 2

Flower Mound

No. 2 Flower Mound (Flower Mound, TX) Prev. No. 1 - Down 1

Analysis: Liana Cluley-Garza (Sr.) won the McNeil Gold Girls race by more than 12 seconds in 17:51.4, and Flower Mound still lost the team title by seven points. That Week 3 result remains the best evidence of where the Jaguars stand. Eliana Rivera (Sr.) was eighth in 18:23.2, Megan Schmidt (Sr.) was 23rd in 18:55.5, Jewel Barnes (Jr.) placed 27th in 18:59.6, and Allie Driscoll (Jr.) closed the five in 39th at 19:18.1 for 98 points.

Flower Mound's varsity group sat out this weekend, but the next wave raced at Byron Nelson and finished fourth with 121 points. Avery Cauble, Saina Awalegaonkar, Tara Cheverton, Paisley Olson, and Taylor Morgan went 17th through 33rd in the team scoring, just 25.4 seconds apart. That's no substitute for the A squad, but it shows the depth behind it. Highland Park's win in the same race keeps the order at the top the same.

No. 3

The Woodlands

No. 3 The Woodlands (The Woodlands, TX) Prev. No. 4 - Up 1

Analysis: Two weeks ago, The Woodlands had a strong frontrunner and a question about everyone behind her. At the Nike South, they answered some of that. The Highlanders won the Elite Girls race with 85 points, 22 clear of Vandegrift, and put four scorers inside the top 33 of a 204-runner field.

Naomi Weller (Sr.) placed third overall in 17:55.3, 2.4 seconds behind Vandegrift's Caroline Krupa, with Brooke Fricke of the Home School Athletic Association winning in 17:47.8. The bigger change came behind Weller. Emma Harder (Fr.) ran 18:41.0 in 21st, and Emily Kacher (Jr.) finished two spots back in 18:42.9. Leah Griffin (Sr.) placed 33rd in 18:57.9, and Kaitlin Delzer (So.) closed the five in 47th at 19:29.6. At Woodbridge, the gap from Weller to the fifth scorer stretched to 2:05.3. Here it was just 1:34.3.

No. 4

Carroll High School

No. 4 Carroll High School (Southlake, TX) Prev. No. 2 - Down 2

Analysis: Carroll's case rests on one national race and a pack that stayed together. At the Woodbridge Sweepstakes, Abigail Perez (Sr.) led in 61st at 17:06.7 over the 3-mile course, and Grace McIlvain (Sr.) was 88th in 17:26.4. Landry Lambert (Sr.), Nora Farden (So.), and KC Dukes (Jr.) filled out the five between 140th and 175th, finishing 1:17.0 behind Perez.

That spread was 48 seconds tighter than The Woodlands' in the same race. Carroll holds at No. 4 because no team below them has beaten them head-to-head, and a five-runner pack that held together against a national Sweepstakes field still counts for a lot. Their next race will show whether Perez and McIlvain can pull the pack toward the front.

No. 5

Bridgeland

No. 5 Bridgeland (Cypress, TX) New

Analysis: Bridgeland went to Columbia, Missouri, and finished third out of more than 30 teams. They scored 136 points in the Gans Creek Elite race, seven behind Bentonville (Ark.) and 20 behind winner Pella (Iowa), and ahead of programs from Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee.

Hope Smith (Sr.) did her part again, finishing third in 17:14.2 behind Maggie Bishop of Providence Classical Christian (17:06.8) and Bentonville's Flannery O'Daniel (17:12.8). Abigail Seale ran 17:59.9 for 16th, and then three Bridgeland runners came through within 14 seconds: Zoe Jaswani in 36th (18:30.8), Brynlee Weston in 40th (18:33.9), and Kate Garrison in 44th (18:44.8). The spread from Smith to Garrison was 1:30.6, almost a minute tighter than the 2:27.7 they ran in winning the Lovejoy Fall Festival in Week 3.

That improvement is what moves them past Keller. The last time we saw Keller, they were running a tight 1:07.0 pack in a Texas field. Bridgeland just beat most of a multi-state field with a frontrunner who finished 8.4 seconds behind the winner. For the first time this season, Bridgeland's back four looks like it belongs in the same conversation as Smith.

No. 6

Keller

No. 6 Keller (Keller, TX) Prev. No. 7 - Up 1

Analysis: Among the McNeil contenders, Keller ran the most even race. Their 1:07.0 spread from first to fifth was tighter than both Highland Park's and Flower Mound's. Sarah Darnell (Jr.) led in fourth at 18:12.2, Julia Graves (Jr.) was 12th in 18:39.5, and freshman Emma Gibson ran 18:47.7 in 15th. Quinn Boneau (Sr.) and Katherine Wander (So.) finished 37th and 40th for 108 points and third place.

The drop to No. 6 isn't a knock on that race. It's a timing issue. Bridgeland raced this weekend in a deeper field and came out with a result that's hard to rank below a Texas third place from last week. Keller's balance still matters, and a pack this tight tends to hold up late in the season. Until Keller races again, Bridgeland has the stronger claim to No. 5.

No. 7

Lucas Lovejoy

No. 7 Lucas Lovejoy (Lucas, TX) Prev. No. 3 - Down 4

Analysis: Last weekend, Lovejoy finished third at its own meet. This weekend it went to Stillwater and won. The Leopards took the Cowboy Jamboree Large School Girls title with 75 points, seven ahead of Edmond Memorial (Okla.) and 46 ahead of Katy Tompkins.

Emily Armstrong (So.) was third overall in 18:29.7. Katy Tompkins freshman Bailey Pipes won the race in 17:49.3, and Prosper's Taylor Peck was second in 18:28.0. Freshman Bronwyn Vaughan (12th, 19:15.2) and Leila Thomas (Jr.) (14th, 19:21.7) gave Lovejoy a second and third runner inside the top 15. Lily Stabile (So.) was 21st in 19:42.2, and Talia Orshalick (Sr.) closed the five in 25th at 19:51.3, one second ahead of sixth runner Lily Fogle (Sr.).

No. 8

Austin Vandegrift

No. 8 Austin Vandegrift (Austin, TX) Prev. No. 9 - Up 1

Analysis: Caroline Krupa has now finished near the front of two big fields in two weeks. After placing ninth in the Woodbridge Rated Varsity race, she ran 17:52.9 at the Nike South, finishing second overall.

The rest of the lineup finished between 15th and 53rd. Freshman Joy Vladimirov placed 15th in 18:34.2, and three sophomores who scored in Blue Varsity B at Woodbridge came in close together: Zofie Furmanek (37th, 19:15.0), Kenley Fedor (48th, 19:32.4), and Mary Troska (53rd, 19:37.1). The 107 points put Vandegrift second, 22 behind The Woodlands and 52 ahead of Austin Bowie.

No. 9

El Paso Eastwood

No. 9 El Paso Eastwood (El Paso, TX) Prev. No. 10 - Up 1

Analysis: After two weekends off, Eastwood came back in the deepest race any team on this list ran this weekend: the Desert Twilight Sweepstakes, with programs from Colorado, California, Idaho, New Mexico, and Arizona. Sophomore Kylie Vega was the standout. She ran 17:44.6 to finish fifth overall, behind Heritage's Ella McGowan (17:12.4), Rio Rancho's Mariah Galbraith, Summit's Kayla Broecker, and Heritage's McKenna Alackness.

Carlee Caraveo (Jr.) ran 18:01.8 in 14th, and Natalia Gomez (Jr.) was 35th in 18:43.5, so Eastwood's top three held up in this field. Then the scoring dropped off. Ava Ellison (So.) finished 120th in 19:56.4, and Sienna Salas (Jr.) was 122nd in 20:03.6. That's more than 70 places between the third and fourth scorers, and it pushed the team total to 257 and ninth place. Niwot (Colo.) won with 86.

No. 10

San Antonio Churchill

No. 10 San Antonio Churchill (San Antonio, TX) New

Analysis: New Braunfels entered the rankings last week at No. 7. On Saturday in Seguin, San Antonio Churchill beat them 59-68, which puts Churchill in the top ten and takes New Braunfels out.

Sophomore Mia Kellogg led the way, winning in 18:07.1. Kallie Van Prooyen (Jr.) was fourth in 18:30.2, ahead of New Braunfels freshman Halle Bryant, and K Holland was eighth in 19:00.4. With three runners in the top eight, Churchill had the meet nearly in hand. Rose Bonner (So.) was 19th in 19:59.7, and Sienna Hartl (Sr.) closed the scoring in 27th at 20:20.7.