Watch Elle Dawson set a new Friday Night Lights XC Festival Meet Record of 17:01!
Results
Race Video
--
Ragsdale junior Elle Dawson dominates at Friday Night Lights XC Festival in Kernersville, North Carolina at Ivey Redmon Sports Complex running 17:01 to win by 28 seconds.
The girls field was loaded with many North Carolina girls making their season debut including Madeline Dorsch (Pinecrest), who was 15th at Brooks XC Nationals a year ago, defending champion Alessia Potts (Pinecrest), 10:08 3200m runner Cali Townsend (Watauga) and New Balance Outdoor Nationals 2K Steeplechase Champion Caitlin Kasten (Marvin Ridge).
Despite being a hot night under the lights at Ivey Redmon, the pace went out at an honest pace with Dawson, Kasten and Dorsch leading the field through the Mile in 5:26 with Amelia Medlin (Hoggard) and Ella Harbaugh (Marvin Ridge) in the lead group of five with the rest of the field a few steps back.
Dawson would keep pace pulling ahead of the field over the second mile coming through in 10:57 on 5:28 mile pace with Dorsch six second back at 11:03 and Kasten at 11:08.
Dawson kept on 5:28 pace through the finish line to put 22 seconds on the field over the final 1800m to make her season debut in a 14 second 5K PR. She ran 17:15 last year to place 7th at the NXN Southeast Regional ran at WakeMed in Cary, NC.
Dorsch would take second place in 17:29 and Kasten third in 17:42. Medlin would run well in 17:54 to place fourth with Alessia Potts taking fifth in 18:05.
Her time breaks the meet record of 17:20.20 set by Alessia Potts a year ago and is the second fastest time ever at Ivey Redmon behind Mary Bonner Dalton (Myers Park, 2024) who ran 16:54. Ivey Redmon is the host of the NCHSAA XC State Championships where Dalton ran the course record at. She went on to finish fourth at Foot Locker XC Nationals, now Brooks XC Nationals.
Dawson was the NCHSAA 4A XC runner-up as a freshman and placed third in NCHSAA 6A last year as a sophomore running 17:35 on the same course as Friday Night Lights. She really emerged on the track during the indoor season running a 10:16 2 Mile at New Balance Indoor Nationals and improved to 10:09 as well as a 4:45.97 Mile during the outdoor season.
She's certainly carried the momentum from the track to the cross country course and proved tonight she's a major threat across the South Region as well as the National stage. We'll see her next week at WakeMed for the adidas XC Challenge where she'll race against Kaitlyn Estep (Cardinal Gibbons, NC), Maysen Fletcher (Herbert Hoover, WV) and Allie Horner (West Springfield, VA) on what is a challenging, but fast course.
