The best of the best will be kicking off their 2022 cross country season together when the elite girls race goes off on Friday evening in Jacksonville for the Cecil Field Summer Classic.
The field includes all 4 state champion squads from a year ago in 4A champions Buchholz, 3A champions Ponte Vedra, 2A champions Bolles, and 1A champions Cambridge Christian as well as many more of the top-ranked teams in each classification looking to challenge them.
The Bolles girls will be the favorites as they are the state's #1 ranked squad coming into the season returning virtually all of the same runners that have been part of their back-to-back titles in 2A during the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
Bolles won last year's Cecil Field Summer Classic by over a 30 point margin without even running their best runner and eventual state champion Jillian Candelino.
Candelino is expected to race this weekend and Bolles will need her with the championship-caliber teams in the field to win.
Buchholz was runner-up a year ago to Bolles before going on their great run to win their program's second-ever state title in cross country. Returning virtually all of their girls including the 2021 race champion Kate Drummond, Buchholz will get a chance to see how close the gap is between them as the #2 ranked team in the state to the #1 ranked team in Bolles very early into the season.
Ponte Vedra, the 3A state champions from a year ago and the #3 ranked team overall in the state, did not race last year at Cecil Field, but will open up here this year here returning their 6 runners who went sub 20 for 5K last fall. Their girls have experience racing at Cecil Field though as participated in the New World Fall Spectacular in October instead when top runner Sofia Bushkell won in 18:17.
This will be the first time racing at Cecil Field for the FL #5 ranked Cambridge Christian girls, who were the state's most dominant team last fall en route to setting a state record for team average at the RunningLane Championships in the post-season. While no longer have Caroline Lehman and Mary Ellen Eudaly leading the way as they graduated, Cambridge Christian still has two top-tier talents on their roster in Eliana Black and Madeleine Gear who are ready to step up even more entering their freshman and junior seasons respectively.
In total, 11 of the top 20 ranked girls teams in the state will be racing at the Cecil Field Summer Classic including 3 more top 10 ranked schools beyond the reigning state champions aforementioned in the #6 Maclay School, #7 Niceville, and #9 Circle Christian.
Virtually all of the best 1A squads will be having a race within a race on Friday with Cambridge, Maclay, Circle Christian, and #12 Pensacola Christian. Only #10 Oak Hall is missing this year. As the smallest classification is littered with strong returning teams. While strong, Cambridge is not expected to be as unbeatable as one year ago, so will be interesting to see how close these teams might be to them out of the gate this season.
Watch out for the 3A squad Leon girls, who ran very well in last year's race with a third-place finish behind only Bolles and Buchholz and return virtually their entire varsity lineup and ranked #14 overall in the state of Florida.
As deep and strong as the team competition appears for the girls, the individual race is just as star-studded.
Defending race champion Kate Drummond of Buchholz is back after opening her season last year with a resounding 18:39 victory.
Ironically, she will not come into this meet with the expectation to win as that honor is bestowed about FL #1 ranked Jillian Candelino of Bolles, who was held out of this race one year ago but strung together several sub-18-minute performances after that in following meets before ultimately winning the 2A state title.
Candelino has the fastest 5K (17:36), 3200 (10:29), and 1600 (4:57) of any runner in the loaded field. Her only regular season loss in cross country last year was in a runner-up finish to Caroline Wells at the FSU Pre-State Invitational. She might not lose any races this season until she tries to qualify for the national competition in the post-season.
The next best-ranked runners in the state though will be in the race with her including Drummond, Cambridge Christian's Black and Gear, Rockledge's Malinda Underwood, Ponte Vedra's Bushkell, and Ocala Vanguard's Pippa Worden.
Black ranked #2 in the state, Underwood at #4, Bushkell at #8, Drummond at #10, Gear at #12, and Worden at #14 along with top-ranked Candelino means that half of the top 15 ranked runners in Florida will be racing head to head to start their season at the Cecil Field Summer Classic.
Black is the only one besides Candelino to have run sub 18 minutes before, while Underwood seems to be ready to do it soon after going well under 11 minutes in the 3200-meter run this spring.
Only 3 girls have broken 18 minutes in past meets at New World and all 3 performances were later during championship season, so would be remarkable to see one or more runners do it so early in August on Friday evening.
