Above: Lauren Ping (Desert Vista), Mia Hall (Flagstaff), Kylie Miller(Perry)
Wonderous Ones - Girls Returning First Runners in 2020
This afternoon we look at teams' fastest first girl runners returning in the state of Arizona for 2020.
Some caveats on how we come up with these rankings; obviously, incoming freshmen can throw a wrench into these rankings, but we don't have high school times for these teens yet, so they are left out. Two, these rankings are based on these athletes' best cross country 5K times in 2019. We understand that different courses lend themselves to faster times than other courses, but this is just to give us a rough estimate of how the team's runners 1-7 rank against other teams' 1-7. The key here is we are talking about returning runners and not who was your first runner in 2019. After we account for seniors graduating, we are making an educated guess who will be your number one thru seven runners in 2020. So your expected number one runner in 2020 may have been your number two, three, or four runner in 2019, depending on how many athletes you graduated.
Today we are focusing on the girls' first-runner returners. We had 213 teams who have at least one runner who was juniors or younger last year. Teams without at least one runner who were juniors or younger last year did not make this list.
We are going to focus on the returning first runners who ran a PR of sub-18:20 for their teams in 2019.
Lauren Ping (Desert Vista): Only a freshman last year, but she kicked up a big haboob running in the desert in 2019, just as she did for the past few years in Minnesota as a middle schooler competing against high school athletes. Lauren was the state champion in D1 (17:36), second at the talented-packed Sweepstakes race of Nike Twilight in 16:49, first a Desert Solstice in the girls' Blue division (17:46), and sixth at the Nike Cross Nationals Southwest Regional in a time of 17:22. Obviously, Ping is a running talent, who if continues to improve in the years to come will be making her mark in both Arizona record books and at the national level as well.
Mia Hall (Flagstaff): While the Eagles will be losing one Hall in 2020, younger sister Mia (now a sophomore) should be able to pick up right where older sister, Hana, left off in 2019. As a freshman, Mia was 3rd overall at D2 State (18:44), second at Sectionals (18:07), and even picked up a victory at the Titan Invitational in the varsity race in 18:33. Mia's PR came at the end of the season with a 17:57 at the Nike Cross Nationals Southwest Regionals. The Eagles will try to defend their D2 title in 2020 and with a Hall on your squad, the chances always look quite promising.
Kylie Miller (Perry): As a junior, Kylie was Perry's number one or number two throughout the season. Based on her best time of 2019 (18:13), we have put her as the potential number one for the Pumas in 2020. Kylie, who is going into her senior year, should be hungry to help Perry break into that top echelon of girls' cross country in Arizona. All of Perry's top seven from State last year were juniors or younger, so their chances of moving up to the top 2 or 3 at State in a very competitive D1 is far from a pipe dream. Miller had a victory at the Chandler City Meet and a runner-up finish at the Chandler Invitational. Miller is quite capable to break back into the top-ten individually at State in 2020 (as she did in 2018 - #8) and if that occurs then Perry may be looking at a very strong showing at Cave Creek Golf Course in November.
Rujuta Sane (Hamilton): Rujuta achieved many top-five finishes in 2019. Most notably, fourth at AIA State Cross Country Championships in Division 1 (18:27). Her fastest time of the year (18:14), ironically, was her lowest finish (22nd) of 2019, which took place at Nike Twilight in the girls' Sweepstakes race. Sane won her Sectional race in 18:27 and was runner-up to Perry's Kylie Miller in the Chandler City Meet Championships. All of the Huskies' top-five girls come back in 2020 and if Sane and her teammates have even a stronger year than 2019, we may see Hamilton poised to be as one of the top teams in D1.
Lauren Jorgensen (Catalina Foothills) also broke 18:20 in 2019 with an 18:15 best time, which she ran at Nike Twilight. Taylor Jacobs (Red Mountain) is our last girl who broke 18:20 (18:19) in 2019 on this list, which she accomplished at the Nike Cross Nationals Southwest Regional race.