Girls Leap Of The Year: Natalie Buchanan

Pine Creek junior Natalie Buchanan a leap of 3:34 from last year.

Who made the biggest leap from 2019 to 2019?

Natalie Buchanan takes the honors!

The Pine Creek junior clearly put in a ton of work since 2019, because she dropped a staggering 3:34. Let's take a dive into her improvement, because it really is impressive. 

Last year Buchanan ran a season-best of 22:57 at the Palmer JV Cross Country Open Championships. It was her lone sub-24 performance of the season, and clearly a hint of what was to come. 

She opened her 2020 season with a PR of 22:06, and then got rolling. 

Buchanan continued to climb downwards in time, chopping off another two minutes the following week, and cracking 20 for the first time at the Wolverine Quad, running 19:59. 

And she wasn't done there. 

She went on to run a PR of 19:22 a week later, but what really solidified her Leap was her performance at State. After not qualifying last year, she finished 34th in the 5A Championships this year, running 19:34.

For her work, Buchanan earns The Leap Of The Year!

Behind her, there were plenty of big improvements as well. 

Heritage's Lauryn Wojcik was close runner-up here, improving by 3:22. She ran 24:01 in 2019, and leapt all the way down to 20:38 this past season. 

Two more cracked the three-minute improvement barrier. 

Palmer Ridge's Morgan Scarsbrook, and Riverdale's Mia Nava both improved by 3:07. 

Last year Scarsbrook ran 24:50, and this year? 21:43. Very similarly, Nava went from 24:35 last year to 21:28 this year.

Editor's Note: The list was taken from the top 2,000 runners from 2019 and 2020.