Girls Race Preview
Entries, projected team scores, top individual times, all dropping soon
Flo50 teams: 1 Fayetteville-Manlius, 3 Saratoga Springs, 13 Shenendehowa, 15 East Aurora
Flo50 individuals:19 Claire Walters, 20 Jessica Lawson, bubble Abbey Wheeler, bubble Kaitlyn Neal
Top returning individuals: Lawson, Wheeler, Anna Kostarellis, Emily Mackay, Samantha Levy, Sophie Ryan, Gabby Robens, Mary Hennelly, Alexandra Decicco, Sage Hurta
Here are the top two teams from every NXN New York championship ever held, in order:
2008: FM, Saratoga
2009: FM, Saratoga
2010: FM, Saratoga
2011: FM, Saratoga
2012: FM, Saratoga
2013: FM, Saratoga
2014: FM, Saratoga
It's hard to imagine 2015 breaking that streak. The Aris- and Kranick-led dynasties went 1-2 at the New York state meet, with Fay-Man posting a ridiculous 28 points to Toga's totally respectable 77. The bigger question than who will grab the auto-qualifying spots: who will position themselves for third place and a possible at-large bid?
There are three obvious candidates--13 Shenendehowa, 15 East Aurora, and North Rockland. Shen is the biggest mystery of the group, as they failed to qualify for the state meet and did not run their full varsity at Feds. At the state meet, the East Aurora girls won class C with a 19:40 average, while North Rockland was third in class A in with a 19:35 average. If you plugged East Aurora into the class A meet--not a bad proxy for NXN regionals--East Aurora would have beaten North Rockland 116-120, putting the two squads on functionally equal footing coming into this weekend.
Speed ratings paint the same picture. At the state meet, their respective top fives went:
North Rockland: 136, 130, 126, 99, 99
East Aurora 136, 126, 120, 107, 93
And here's Shen*: 133, 125, 116, 114, 111
Shen has the slight edge in the speed ratings, and history is on their side too. But East Aurora and North Rockland are right there.
In the individual race, longtime rivals Corning junior Jess Lawson and Elmira senior Abbey Wheeler could get upstaged by a pair of freshmen. Fayetteville-Manlius's Claire Walters (the surprise state champ) and Saratoga Springs' Kelsey Chmiel sandwiched Lawson and beat Wheeler. At Feds, though, Lawson and Wheeler beat Chmiel.
Though Walters and Chmiel are top-five quality, with their teams near-locks for Portland, they probably won't factor in to the individual qualifying, and from here on out, we're only going to focus on non-FM/Saratoga girls. Lawson and Wheeler are good bets for two of the five berths to Portland.
The other three spots could well go to a troika of eighth-graders in Suffern's Mary Hennelly, Guilderland's Emily Bini, and North Rockland's Katelyn Tuohy. (Tuohy if North Rockland doesn't get an at-large bid; the same goes for her teammate, junior Alexandra Harris) A trio of high school students has roughly the same odds as Hennelly/Bini/Tuohy: sophomore Carly Benson of West Genesee and seniors Lauren Chapey (Mamaroneck) and Diana Vizza (North Shore) are real contenders to go to Portland.
THE PICK: 1. Fayetteville-Manlius 2. Saratoga Springs 3. The sun rising in the east.