Girls D1 & D2 Individual Sweepstakes
When: Saturday, 8:58 AM PT HOW TO WATCH LIVE
Saucony Flo50 Individuals: US #21, CA #1 Claudia Lane (Malibu), CA #2 Chloe Arriaga (Walnut), CA #3 Claire Graves (Citrus Valley), CA #5 Emily Virtue (Burroughs), CA #8 Glennis Murphy (Redwood), CA #20 Akemi Von Scherr (La Quinta)
Challengers: Kira Loren (Canyon Crest Academy), Hannah Tobin (El Toro), Elizabeth Chittenden (Mira Costa), Emma Arriaga (Walnut)
Seven of the top 25-ranked runners in California (view full CA Flo50 here) will match up for the individual sweepstakes on Saturday morning.
Malibu High School sophomore Claudia Lane, the No. 21 ranked runner in the nation and No. 1 in the state, headlines the field. She has dropped her times by huge margins this fall. Her breakout race was a 16:25 effort at the Seaside Invitational that was a nearly three-minute improvement from her 2015 mark. Lane also recorded a sub-17 in her most recent run, a 16:58.6 tempo effort to win the TCAA Cluster #2 by 2:06.
Her biggest test this season came at the Woodbridge XC Classic, where she took runner-up honors to No. 1-ranked Brie Oakley, 15:53 to 16:16. With that effort, Lane defeated Julia Heymach (then No. 18) and ran faster than Allie Schadler in a separate race (then No. 11).
Walnut sophomore Chloe Arriaga was fourth at the Woodbridge Sweepstakes in 16:33.
Lane and Arriaga will have three Foot Locker Nationals finalists to contend with: Claire Graves (29th in 2014), Emily Virtue (38th in 2015), and Glennis Murphy (21st in 2015).
Murphy was seventh at Stanford and improved to third at Clovis, while Virtue hasn't seen much competition just yet. Graves recorded an impressive 16:56 three mile at the Great Cow Run but fell to upstart freshman Akemi Von Scherr at the Central Park Invitational, 17:24 to 17:58.
Von Scherr was the fastest California freshman in the Woodbridge Sweepstakes, where she ran 16:54.4 for 17th.
A previous version of this article listed Lane in the D4 Sweepstakes race on Friday.