2A Girls Rankings

By: Mike Becker, multiple high schools

Team Rankings:

Commentary: Here is a combination of limited season openers, and pre season rankings.  Please take “week 1” with a grain of salt.  Because I did. Top 3 are clear.. 4 is a guess… after that all is murky

Rank. School … Comments

1. Bolles … only an ostrich whose head has been in the sand would not put them in as number one…..they are just cloning fast runners there… what else can be said…. but

2. Pine Crest… every dog has his ( her ) day,… Pine Crest returns entire solid squad and gets an 11:05 3200 transfer from Gulliver .  so three sub 11:10 girls on one team!!!! They will need to stay healthy thru 5 to make state into a PC-Bolles dual meet ( with perhaps 5 girls total- almost all from region 4)  

4. Ransom… third last year and return Archer, Ruan as well as top 5… certainly better than they were in 2014 but not in same stratosphere as PC and Bolles

5.  Satellite:  Hard to predict where they will be since no one outside of Satellite knows which kids are eligible at State. But beware these guys ( girls)…..if the kids that ran in Wickham are eligible, they are serious challengers to 3rd… otherwise 2016
Rest of team are based on 2014 finish and 1 meet I’m sure I’m missing someone

6. Academy of Holy Names

7. Lemon Bay

8. West Florid Tech

9. Lake Highland

10. Berkeley Prep

11. Eastside

12. Bishop Kenny

13. Rockledge

Individual Rankings:

Commentary: I hate ranking a mix of kids who ran week 1 with others who slept in … but what the heck … need to entertain the masses.  No disrespect to 3A and 4A…. but this group is just as strong up top if not stronger … I can see anyone from 1-6 on this list winning the gold in November…especially with Yared coming off injury…  Unknowns include fact that Satellite kids’ eligibility is not known by ranker (me) and I’m sure some new teams entering 2A.  Ill fix all this by week 2 … Also… kind of clear that Region 4 is toughest region state again… In fact region 4AA might be toughest region in any class 10 deep, and sooner or later Satellite will add top talent to the party. 6 of top 10 are Bolles or PC… This is not a typo.. in fact crystal ball says 10 of top 20 are as well.

Rank. Name- School, Comments

1.  Tsion Yared- Pine Crest, defending state champion… but did not run track due to injury… so we will see

2.  Julia Montgomery- Pine Crest… state 3200 fastest time returning 10:45 and two time state xc champ… 

3.  Beatriz Ruan- Ransom Everglades… state 3200 runner up, xc runner up…. Enough said

4. Lauren Archer- Ransom Everglades, been on podium since 8th grade… 5:00 miler… solid as a rock

5. Mackenzie Wilson- Bolles… state 3200 champion and many time podium runner.
6. Alyssa Pujols-… now at Pine Crest… ran low 11:00s  in track before injury… hard to believe that PC’s third runner on paper can run that fast .

7.    Nicole Matysik- Key West, beat a hibernating Archer and Ruan in week 1 on a fast HT course… she seems to be for real

8.  Leigha Torino- North Marion, a proven all state runner

9.   Caitlin Collier- Bolles… a beast of a runner… state 800 and 1600 champion 

10..  Rachel Shapiro- Bolles, consistent as the day is long

11.  Skye Zeller- Space Coast, great track season if she can translate to 5K, can be top 5…  

12.   Natalie Varela- Gulliver… new middle school phenom to enter fray