Class AAA Girls: Low Score Record at Risk to Fall

 

 

AAA Girls gives us the best overall team of the day and another wide individual race.  The ladies of Assumption come into this race ranked #13 in the country in the latest XC Nation Rankings out this week and they look to win their second team title in a row and fourth in five years. 

 

The individual race is wide open with most of the top contenders having no head to head match-ups.  duPont Manual’s Cassidy Hale comes in ranked #1 and has won everything she has entered since late September.  She has run in the 18:20s twice this season and has the speed to handle the large front pack of Assumption and any surges they mix in the race.  That Assumption is going to have Katherine Receveur, Emily Bean, and Bailey Davis in the front with Caroline McCaslin not far behind.  Receveur has the fastest time in AAA this season with an 18:15 at Great American in which she beat Sayre’s Maddox Patterson, a feat not even Cassidy Hale has been able to do. The Assumption girls are looking for the team title and will probably start out as a group and force the field to deal with all of them at once.  Daviess County’s Whitney O’Bryan has finished third the last two years and will look to better this this year.  She was held out of the Region 1 Championship in preparation for the state meet after a late season foot ailment slowed her down.  She is steady and has a history of running well at state, so it will be interesting to see if she is at 100%.  John Hardin’s Katie Lever is another girl to watch out for; she has run a bunch of smaller meets and won them all.  She went up against O’Bryan at Fast Cats and was only three seconds back of her for second.  This race will come down to who has the best strategy. 

 

The team title is Assumption’s to take.  They have four of the top eight girls in Class AAA (Receveur, Bean, Davis, McCaslin) and five (Kenzley Defler), six (Kate Crawford), seven (Amanda Vokoun) should all be close behind.  This team could break the Kentucky State Record for lowest score (set by Pulaski County in 1991 with 25).  No pressure at all here.  The biggest question for them is what order will their first three girls come in?

 

Bowling Green and their great pack of five which now looks like six will fight for second.  The higher leaders Van Games and Ciara Scott finish the better they will do.  The group could potentially all come in between 10 and 25.  duPont Manual has the Hales up front (Cassidy and Kristen) which starts their score out on a low note.  They need big days from Christina Rucinski and Sarah Barker for them to hang with Bowling Green.  Daviess County brings it through three with O’Bryan, regional champion Amelia Reynolds, and Claire Payne.  All three need to be in before twelfth place for them to take the runner-up spot.  Sacred Heart and Oldham County have strong packs and have histories of running well in November.