The two front runners of the group and sub 18 minute meet record breakers are Eliana Black and Jillian Candelino. Black won the elite race at the North Port Invitational while running a new 5K personal best time of 17:15, while besting the old meet record of 17:18 held by two-time Foot Locker finalist Kathryn Fluehr from the 2010 meet. She has started her season with 4 straight sub 18 minute performances.
Meanwhile, Candelino also took down a past Foot Locker finalist's meet record with her 17:45 season best victory at the Bale-N-Trail race as former Chiles great Lily Williams had the old record from a dozen years ago at 17:54. Candelino was also well over a minute faster than her 2021 win on the same course at the same meet.
Both juniors Ashley Fitzgerald of American Heritage and Emma Hencock of St. Brendan came out on top in the fields including virtually of South Florida's best distance girls at the Spanish River Invitational. Hencock was able to outkick Pine Crest's Brooke Hooper in the end to win the 1A/2A varsity girls race on Friday with an 18:27 personal best, while Fitzgerald simply ran away from the field in the 3A/4A race on Saturday morning with a speedy new PR herself at 18:09.
In the several smaller Orlando area invitational meets held over the weekend, Bishop Moore's Paige McCaul and Boone's Megan Dolan had two of the more stand out performances with McCaul (18:59.20) able to defeat in a photo finish last week's Astronaut Invitational champion Simone Monaco (18:59.70) of Winter Springs in a spirited battle at the East River Invitational while Dolan had a more comfortable winning time of 18:56 at the Windermere Meet of Champions.
Who was the Florida girls XC performer of the Week (Sept 12th-17th)?
