1A Girls State Meet Preview

FHSAA State Finals
Jason Byrne

In the Title Hunt...

  • Julie Wollrath (Holy Trinity)
  • Kelly Fahey (Trinity Prep)
  • Alex Eaton (Shorecrest Prep)
  • Sarah Candiano (Evangelical Christian)
  • Brittney Ollinger (Oak Hall)

Fighting for the Podium...

  • Holy Trinity
  • Oak Hall
  • Shorecrest Prep
  • Providence School

Individual Analysis

Sophomore Julie Wollrath is the defending champion in this classification and will come in as the strong favorite. She hasn't won any extremely big races yet this year and her times are slightly less flashy so far, so she has been flying a little bit more under the radar than normal. However, don't be fooled she is certainly ready to defend her title and setting up for a great post-season with hopes of extending it through December.

With a tough Region 3 victory behind her though, Wollrath's confidence should be high. There she faced two of her other top-seeded challengers and defeated them soundly. Wollrath won that region in 17:53; Alex Eaton was second in 18:18 and Sarah Candiano third in 18:28.

Julie's top competitor may be Kelly Fahey, who has been having a solid season including a breakthrough race at flrunners.com in September where she placed seventh with an 18:18. However, Wollrath handled her with ease a month ago at the Holy Trinity Fall Classic by bettering Fahey by 36 seconds--17:54 to 18:30--as well as 2A star Sarah Day. Fahey will enter as the Region 2 champion, running an 18:38 last week in Gainesville--twenty seconds faster than second place Birttney Olinger. Can she strike back for the upset this week? Long shot, but anything's possible at the state meet!

Team Analysis

Wollrath's Holy Trinity will also be the favorite to earn the team title, but it won't be easy. Last year the Tigers finished uncharacteristically off the podium (top two teams), after Providence and Oak Hall unseated them. All but one runner is back from that team, and you better believe Coach Doug Butler's crew are motivated to not let history repeat itself!

The defending champions from Providence are not quite the team they were last year, losing a couple from their bench to graduation and their #1 runner (Danielle Van Liere) transferred to 4A Fletcher. They are still a strong fop five team, but really distant in the championship front. Shorecrest Prep, with new transfer Eaton and eigth grader Olivia Rovin, is a really strong up-and-coming team (everyone returns next year); however, Holy Trinity already proved themselves superior last week. HT defeated Shorecrest by twenty points at the regional meet by putting their six runners in front of Shorecrest's four. That depth problem will only be an increased liability at the state championship which should put even more distance between them.

That leaves two teams with a legimiate title argument: Holy Trinity and Oak Hall. Trinity won Region 3 with 57 points and a team average of 19:32; Oak Hall won Region 2 with a skant 36 points and a 19:45 average. Here's how I see it playing out blow-for-blow..

1) HTA - Wollrath
2) OH - Olinger
3) OH - Blair
4) OH - Perry
5) HTA - Folio
6) HTA - Dummer
7) HTA - Wahy
8) OH - Carlson
9) HTA - Fuller
10) HTA - Wollcott*
11) OH - Ringdahl
12) OH - Rosenberg*
13) HTA - Lewis*
14) OH - Cott*

Dual Meet Scoring...

1) Holy Trinity 28
2) Oak Hall 28

Scoring it that way as a dual meet leaves it as a dead-even tie by points, decided on the depth of Holy Trinity's sixth runner. Obviously it is not a dual meet and the math will certainly play out differently against a larger field; however, that tends to mean the depth is even more important!

Let's crunch more numbers... based on average times for the entire 1A for district and regional, Holy Trinity pulls out a narrow 98-101 victory. Too close to call! Here is that virtual meet. If we back up and do average times from October 1 onward in a virtual meet, Oak Hall pulls off a one point victory 103-104, despite a lot of padding between four and five. Just going by best times overall for the season, Oak Hall is up 123-129.

Any way you slice it, it's going to be close. It's going to come down to three main things...

1) After Wollrath's likely one point for Holy Trinity, the trio of Olinger-Blair-Perry have a shot at ringing in a big time early lead by potentially finishing all in the top ten. So the question then becomes how close can Folio and Dummer keep it? If they manage to stay in the top 20 or 25 then they keep Trinity in the game.

2) Talia Carlson vs Brianna Wahy... The number four runners will be pretty key as well. Looking at personal bests, Wahy has a big advantage. She had a great season in 2011, including a 19:27 best, 26th place at the state meet (#3 for Holy Trinity), and a great 11:59 3200m time in track. But after running in the 19s five times last year, she hasn't yet gotten under that mark in 2012. The good news though is that she is peaking at the right time; she ran a 20:17 season best last week at region. Meanwhile, Carlson is relatively new to the sport with onl ya few track performances pre-dating this season. So she has come a long way this cross season from her 13:24 3200m best in track. She ran a 20:12 at region and a 20:08 at district, and defeated Wahy by 35 places 34 seconds earlier this year at the FSU Prestate meet. If Wahy finds it in her to upset, then it might spell trouble of Oak Hall. But if Carlson can pick off a few extra people to put a few more points between them then it will be rough on Trinity! Ohhh the drama!

3) Oak Hall's #5... based on the virtual meets, this is the biggest question mark. Katie Ringdahl is pegged to finish somewhere in the range of 55-65 based both on season best and various average times comparisons. However, she has run much faster than her times so far this season have shown--track best of 12:25 and xc best of 19:52. Her best so far this year as a 20:46 for 78th place at FLR 13; at FSU she was 21:06 (only 15 seconds behind Wahy). And two years ago, she dropped 46 seconds between region and state (1:09 from district to state). If she can really step it up, she can punch her team ahead. Then again, if Natalia Wolcott and Jenna Hindsley of Holy Trinity can be sure they keep her in the rearview then advantage Holy Trinity!

It's going to be exciting, y'all!!!

More Research