Laura Jones

A look at the Top 500 Florida high school girls XC 5K's of All-Time.

A list of the top 500 girls' performances of all time at Holloway Park in Lakeland, Florida.

A list of the top 500 girls performances all-time at Holloway Park in Lakeland, Florida.

Check out the top 500 high school girls 5K times ever run at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Florida.

Today we salute Plant senior Laura Jones. Jones was a three time state finalist in track in the 3,200m and twice in cross country. She placed 5th at the 2016 Cross Country Finals  in the state's largest classification, 4A.

Holloway Park in Lakeland is one of the most scenic cross country courses in the state of Florida and is one of the more difficult ones as well. The site hosts over a dozen meets in the fall so having a chance to run their comes easy. We take a look at the top girls times from 2016 as well as all-time.

As a freshman, Plant's Laura Jones found herself an average runner on the above-average Plant team. Isabel Hanewicz shares her journey from 26 minutes to sub 19 and the leader of the Panthers. 

Lemon Bay's Kelsi Ogilvie only ran a handful of races her freshman year with her fastest coming at the Flrunners.com Invitational and a time of 25:34.20. Four years later Ogilvie was district and regional champion, and 11th at the 2A Cross Country Finals. Her personal best time dropped over SIX MINUTES to 18:48.00. We take a look at the top 500 seniors from 2016 and their progression over the last four years.

Good friends Kayla Easterly and Kristlin Gear finished third and fourth in the girls 3A race. Their times of 18:14.51 and 18:23.01 rank as the third and fifth best times by any senior at the state meet. While Leigha Torino of North Marion High School has the fastest time of 18:03.06. We rank the best times from the girls class of 2017.

Riverview junior Bailey Hertenstein is one of only three girls to ever break 19 minutes on the Holloway Park course. Hertenstein's 18:40.70 was the top ranked mark, but she crushed that at the 4A Region 2 Championship winning in a time of 18:13.18. Equally impressive was freshman teammate Alyssa Hendrix who added her name to the best times in course history with a sub 19 mark of 18:58.22 as the runner-up.  Due to their success, the Sharks claimed the sixth and final spot as a team for the state meet.

It's regionals week! 4A, Florida's largest cross country classification, will kick off the road to state at the regional level as athletes head to South Florida on Thursday for 4A Region 4. We preview all four regionals in addition to seeing how our virtual meets see things playing out.  It's going to be a crazy ride as the top individuals and teams hope to advance to Tallahassee for the Cross Country Finals on November 5th.

Having already asserted themselves at the Hillsborough County meet a week ago and all but one meet they competed in this season, the Steinbrenner Warriors swept both boys and girls titles at Al Lopez Park in Tampa.

Over three dozen teams will head to Al Lopez Park in Tampa for the site of the Hillsborough County Championships. County pride is on the line as is an undefeated win streak for Riverview's Bailey Hertenstein, and a battle of four girls teams ranked in our latest Flo 50 rankings. On the boy's side Haftom Fliegelman of Durant looks to break 16 minutes and improve on his 4th place showing from 2015 while Steinbrenner and Newsome duke it out for the team title. We preview all the action and don't forget to stay tuned to flrunners.com for race videos, interviews, photos, recaps, and results of this meet.

The Hillsborough County Championship on Thursday will feature the state's top ranked runner in Riverview junior Bailey Hertenstein. Undefeated this season, it is doubtful anyone will be able to catch Hurricane Hertenstein. The real question becomes who will nab that runner-up spot. We decided to compare King's Micaela Torres and Plant's Laura Jones using statistical data throughout their careers.

North Fort Myers senior Kayla Easterly set a new personal best time of 18:46.90 this weekend at the FSU Invitational (Pre-State) to finish 5th overall. Eleven of the top 15 times from the week came from that race with the top time being run by Riverview junior Bailey Hertenstein who won the Don Bishop Invitational in another sub 18 showing of 17:52.50. We merged the results from EVERY meet across the state to find out the top 500 times and who won the week.

Every year the top athletes in the state preview the state meet course before titles are on the line in mid November. The best of the best fled Hurricane Matthew and headed to Apalachee Regional Park for the FSU Invitational (Pre-State) to see where they stacked up against others in their classification. Although the meet is scored as everyone combined we decided to break it down to see who the best girls in 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A were from the weekend's races. 

Fletcher senior Kayley Delay, the 4A Cross Country Finals runner-up in 2015, recently joined MCC's Amanda Beach as the only class of 2017 runners to break 18 minutes this cross country season. Beach, who is in a loaded 2A and Delay in 4A will state title contenders when the group heads to Tallahassee in a month. We rank the top 500 performances by senior girls for the 2016 season.

Plant senior Laura Jones picked up the first win of her cross country career against a competitive field at the Jim Ryun Season Opener. Jones, made her move over East Lake senior Jen Lima midway through the race and crossing the finish line at Holloway Park in a new personal best 19:37.70. Which performance do you think was the best of week one? You decide. Voting ends Thursday at 11:59 p.m.