Mocorunning.com conducted an email coaches poll to determine who your coaches believed the favorites are. 17 coaches predicted the next county champion. 6 coaches picked Jessie Rubin of Wootton, 5 coaches picked Anna Bosse of Walter Johnson, 4 coaches picked Alyssa Henshaw of Northwest, 1 coach picked Anna Ryba of Whitman and 1 coach picked Abbey Daley of Clarksburg. The average predicted finishing time of the winner was 18:37.6. The fastest predicted time was 18:17 and the slowest was 18:55.
What the Fans Thought
MoCoRunning.com conducted an open online poll between October 13 and October 18 for anyone to rank their top ten girls in the county. 61 valid girls individual votes were collected and tabulated to form the ranking you see below.
Ava Farrell has been running minutes faster than she was running last year on identical courses. She started off the season with a 20:29 7th place finish at the Magruder Invitational. That turned out to be her slowest race as she ran 20:23 at Hereford, 19:32 at the Paul Short Run, and 19:30 at Glory Days.
Maryam seems to be one of the few on her team to make it this far into the season healthy. A season highlight came when she ran 19:15 at the Carlisle Invitational. She has been laying low the last few weeks with no hard races yet in October.
Stephanie started off the season on fire with a 19:31 at Mount St. Mary's and 19:53 at Magruder. She won her race over Abby Spitler at Hereford in 20:22 and ran 19:03 at the Paul Short Run, but the flu caught up with her and caused her to miss a few races.
The Whitman top 7 is very different from what was expected this season with injuries and illnesses plaguing the team, but Anna has been a consistent force in big races. She clocked 19:34 at Maymont and 19:15 at Great American.
Since finishing fourth at the Magruder Invitational in 19:55.50, Abbey is undefeated. She has won five straight races including the medium school race at Hereford in 20:21 and a 3 mile race over Abby Spitler and Stephanie Bryan in 18:09.3. Fans voted her to finish sixth, but this freshman is the most dangerous runner in the field.
Abby's season was going just ok. She had typical fast times like 18:22 for 3 miles at Frank Keyser, but she also experienced losses to Jessie Rubin, Stephanie Joson, and Abbey Daley. Then she dropped a course record time of 18:41 on the Gaithersburg dual meet course with no competition, giving fans reason to believe she will still be right up in the mix at the county meet.
Britt's times of 19:47.90 at Mount St. Mary's and 19:00 at Paul Short are faster than her times on those courses last year. Not many people thought she would win the county title last year, but she did. A slow and strategic race could play right into her hands.
Anna won the region and state titles last year, but at the county championship meet, she was only 5th. This year she is running better than ever with times of 19:03 at Octoberfest, 19:37.50 at AJ Everhart, and a win at the Howard County Invitational in 20:27.45. She is coming off a narrow loss to Jessie Rubin at Georgetown Prep.
After a mediocre race at the Magruder Invitational, Alyssa caught fire. She ran 19:33 at Oatlands before dropping a PR of 18:35 at Paul Short. She returned to Virginia for Glory Days and beat several girls who beat her at Oatlands with a time of 18:30. She didn't race last weekend, but she did show up to watch Rubin vs. Bosse at Georgetown Prep.
Jessie has defeated all of the top girls in the county. Now she just needs to win when it counts. She won the Magruder Invitational in 19:23 over several of the top girls in the county. She finished sixth at Oatlands in 19:05 and most recently won the Georgetown Prep Invitational in a close race over Anna Bosse. Many felt she was the favorite last year, but she finished 8th. All evidence points to this year's race being hers to lose.
Tie Breaker: The tie breaker question asked the voters to predict the winning boys time at the county championship meet regardless of who they thought would win. The average answer for the girls was 18:32.
Name
Comments
anonymous
Thursday, October 22, 2009 07:37:49 AM
how did alyssa henshaw get infront of anna bosse in the polls? that is messed up and not true.
Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:03:06 AM
Although more coaches (5) voted for Anna than for Alyssa (4), it looks like Anna was selected more often than Alyssa. Regardless of the polls, the top slot on Saturday could easily go to any of the top girls!
Thursday, October 22, 2009 03:51:41 PM
rubin beat boss with one shoe. shes got this meet in the bag
