A whole new year in the Nike Southwest girls didn't change very much.
If the names of Katie Rainsberger and Lauren Gregory sound altogether familiar, it could be partly because they also went 1-2 in this race last year. Adding to the refrain, Courtney Wayment coupled her individual qualifier bid from last year with another this year.
Wayment's individual qualifier bid, though, could change to a team bid of her Davis team (Wayment ran as an individual last year but was part of the Davis team this fall) receives an at-large bid.
Joining Rainsberger, Gregory, and Wayment as individual qualifiers this year are Brie Oakley of Colorado and Amanda Mayoral of New Mexico.
The 1-2 of Rainsberger and Gregory, however, wasn't nearly the nail-biter it was last year. Whereas last year, Rainsberger passed Gregory only in the last 160 meters, this year Rainsberger made a decisive break from the lead group at about two miles and was never heard from again. Once Rainsberger made her break, you could have found more mystery and intrigue in the PIllsbury bake-off. By the time she reached the finish line in 17:06.7, Rainsberger had opened a margin of 20 seconds.
Amanda Mayoral made a late charge that came within three seconds of nipping Gregory for second.
Team scoring was dominated by American Fork (UT) throughout the race. The red-and-black singlets of AF were visible toward the front of the pack from the earliest stages of the race and remained there to the end. Slamming three exclamation points onto the American Fork title were the top-16 finishes of Sara Musselman (photo, left), Sophie Baird, and Sammy Hollingsworth, with a scant 19 team points between them.
Second place in the team scoring derby took a lot more calculation to settle.
When places had been confirmed, and all teams fully entered into the scoring, second place with to Xavier College Prep (AZ) by two points over Davis (UT). Sarah Carter paced the Xavier effort with 17:56.1 for 12th.
Davis now gets to sit and wait a week for the rest of the third-place regional teams to make their case. Davis's case is strengthened by a win at Bob Firman that included a solid defeat of Northwest champion Bozeman. But, much remains to be decided in the next week.
If Davis is granted an at-large bid, that would move Lexi Reed into an individual qualifying position with Wayment then becoming part of a team qualifier instead of an individual bid.
With a fourth-place team finish, the Air Academy season which showed so well at the same course at Desert Twilight seven weeks ago almost certainly comes to an end.
Meet Results, Photos, and Videos (posting all evening Saturday and into Sunday)