Elissa Mann and Claire Green are two of Monarch's seven girls who've run below 19:00 at some point during this season. Photos by Alan Versaw.
Oh, what a doozy we've cooked up. How many more top-tier teams can one classification handle?
Five years or so ago, it was conceivable to win a state championship in 5A girls with a couple of scoring runners around 20 minutes. That day has come and gone. The threshold for that last scoring runner now sits at about 19:30 and is dropping like the State of California's bond rating.
Nobody is getting out of this one easy. As things look at the moment, there are four teams with less-than-extreme odds against them of being able to overcome the rest. There are another five or so teams that are very, very good, but who haven't shown yet that they can expect to match scores with the others. Here we go:
Cherry Creek - Jordyn Colter gets Creek scoring off to a great start every meet she runs. So far, nobody has run with her this year...