Future Stars of XC - Girls Standouts at Season Start

We highlight the best girls performances by the Future Stars of the sport nationally from the first month of the high school country season. Presented by Hoka One One

Lets start with arguably the top performance by any underclassmen so far. Welcome to the high school running scene Bryn Morley of Montana! Last Monday, the Bigfork freshmen Morley ran a 17:33 for 5000 meters! If she keeps this up, Morley probably will finish being ranked among the top 25 best in the nation and competing for All-American honors by season's end.

Staying with the freshmen. Lets move to the South, which has already shown to be deep with an endless number of freshmen girls making immediate impacts in the early stages of XC. 

Tennessee state champ last spring in the 3200 (11:03) as an 8th grader, Rebecca Story of Christian Academy in Knoxville ran a 18:06 5K at the Cherokee Classic winning by a margin of 45 seconds.

Having a 4:46 miler in Madie Boreman as a training partner certainly helps push Helen Roddy of Leander Rouse, one of the top new freshmen from the state of Texas. Roddy went 1-2 with Boreman last weekend at the Pflugerville Invite with a swift new 5K PR at 18:16.

Meanwhile, Alena Sapienza-Wright of duPont Manual in Kentucky and Rafaella Gibbons of Winter Park in Florida are already beating all the seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen in their state with major invitational wins. 

Then you have top freshmen who are not only excelling individually, but giving a big boost to top national caliber teams including Madelyn Dalton of Carmel in Indiana, Liz Hogan of Monarch in Colorado, and Marissa Bishop of Cardinal Gibbons in North Carolina.

Now lets see where these top ninth graders could eventually progress a year from a now and recap some of the best performances so far from the nation's best sophomores.

We don't have to look too far back as this past weekend, three smoking times were posted by three girls from the Class of 2017.

Libby Davidson, a 4-time state champ from Virginia, won the Knights Crossing Invitational in a meet record time by 24 seconds. Davidson is going to win a dozen more state titles if she keeps this pace up. (Read our Future Stars Spotlight on Davidson)

In Colorado, Lauren Gregory blitzed the field at the Liberty Bell Invitational with an incredible performance of 17:16 at altitude. Gregory was the nation's fastest returning 10th grader in the 3200 with a 10:15 performance last spring and looks to continue to lead her class. (Read our Future Stars Spotlight on Gregory)

And the fastest time of them all came from defending Illinois 1A state champ, Anna Sophia Keller, who ran the 2nd fastest time in the country regardless of grade in a 16:59 performance. 4:52 1600 and 10:22 3200 in the smallest classification in her state, it will be see how much faster she can run with competition around her in some bigger invitationals and post-season races.

In that same state, another great sophomore exists in Hinsdale Central's Alexa Haff, who scored her second major invite win on Saturday at the First to the Finish Line Invite with a 16:41 effort at historic Detweiler Park (3 miles) to lead her team to a decisive victory as well.

Out West, Aubrey Argyle of Davis High School has been rolling in Utah. Leading a US top 10 ranked squad, Argyle won the Aggie Invitational at Utah State two weeks ago in 17:48 effort at altitude and beaten several past national championship qualifiers in her state already. (Read our Future Stars Spotlight on Argyle)

While in the Heartland, Macey Heinz, a South Dakota state champ at 100 meters, that's right 100 meters, has also been dominating cross country races at 4K too. With a 12.10 PR in the 100 from the track, Heinz held the nation's top time in the 4K and has a season best time of 14:22. (Read our Future Stars Spotlight on Heinz)

Wait for the Future Stars boys early season highlights video to come out later this week and look for next week's Future Stars Spotlights on top freshmen across the country!