Satellite won its seventh straight Cape Coast Conference girls' title, 67-73 over Melbourne, in its first season without Doug Butler. First-year coaches Brianna Basford and Chelsea Basford Cone did it with a scoring five of freshmen and sophomores. Melbourne repeated as boys' champion and Rockledge's Brody Johnson won the race.
Cape Coast Conference Cross Country Championships, Wickham Park, Melbourne, Saturday, October 24, 2026
Seven straight. The Satellite girls won the Cape Coast Conference title on Saturday at Wickham Park, 67 points to Melbourne's 73. The Scorpions have now won it every year since 2020.
This one was different. It was the first without Doug Butler running the program.
New coaches, new runners
Butler stepped away after last season. It was a year later than he planned. Satellite had announced in December 2024 that the season just finished would be his last, and then he came back for one more in 2025.
This fall the team belongs to Brianna Basford and Chelsea Basford Cone. Both ran for Butler at Satellite and graduated in 2018, and both are first-year head coaches.
They were not handed a team of veterans. Last year's title team scored 48 points behind four seniors: Celina Coryell, second; Keira Merrick, fifth; Hannah Harris, sixth; and Caitlyn Bernard, 11th. A month later, that group was seventh at the 3A state meet, and Coryell was the state runner-up in 18:06.3. It was the 10th straight year the Satellite girls finished in the state top 10. All four of those seniors have graduated.
Of the seven Satellite girls who scored Saturday, only one, Maggie McNall, ran for Satellite at last year's conference meet. Four of the seven are freshmen. None is a senior.
How Satellite won it
Olivia Davis (Satellite, Fr.) led the Scorpions in third place in 18:56.3, her best time of the season by almost 30 seconds. Zuzanna Galant (So.) was 10th in 20:01.3 and Mitra Burr (Fr.) 11th in 20:10.2, so Satellite had three runners in the top 11.
That front three is what won it. Bella Stillie (Fr.) and McNall (So.) closed out the scoring five in 22nd and 23rd, 21:12.3 and 21:14.5, two seconds apart. McNall was 36th here last year in 24:04.5. She ran almost three minutes faster on the same course.
Emily Thomforde (Jr.) and Sanoe Leibman (Fr.) were sixth and seventh for Satellite.
It was close. Six teams finished within 30 points: Satellite 3A 67, Melbourne 4A 73, Viera 4A 81, Edgewood 2A 88, West Shore 2A 94 and Cocoa Beach 2A 97. Melbourne was sixth in this race a year ago. Savannah Thomson (Jr.) led the Bulldogs in seventh in 19:29.3, and Melbourne put five in the top 25, but Satellite's front three were too much.
The girls' race: half a second
Eva McMenemy-Hoang (Viera, Sr.) won in 18:02.5, half a second ahead of Selah Vignier (West Shore, Jr.) in 18:03.0.
Vignier is the defending 2A state champion. She was third at this meet last year, then won the state title as a sophomore in 18:14.7, 11 seconds clear of the field. Saturday she ran faster than she did at state, and someone still beat her.
That someone was seventh here a year ago. This fall McMenemy-Hoang has won the Flrunners.com Invitational and the Merritt Island Christian Invitational, and Saturday was her fastest race yet.
Behind Davis in third, eighth grader Esther Dobbin (Cocoa Beach) was fourth in 19:02.1. She was 10th here as a seventh grader. Rebecca Lee (Edgewood, So.) was fifth in 19:18.4 and Chancey Jones (Viera, So.) sixth in 19:19.5.
What Butler built
Few coaches in Florida have won like Butler. The FHSAA record book credits him with 18 state team titles in cross country.
- Holy Trinity (Melbourne), 16 titles. The boys won 1A in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The girls won in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2014. Four times, in 2004, 2006, 2013 and 2014, both teams won. In 2007 the boys tied Trinity Prep at 86 points, and the title went to Trinity Prep.
- Satellite, two titles. He moved to Satellite after the 2014 season. The Satellite boys were 2A runner-up to Bolles in 2017 and 2018, then won it in 2019 with 30 points and in 2020 with 26. They were second again in 2021, by eight points.
Add 11 runner-up finishes in cross country. His college bio, counting track and field too, lists 24 state championships and 15 runner-up finishes in his high school career. By Satellite's count, the 2024 state meet was the 25th he coached. By then the Satellite boys had finished in the top eight at state 10 years running and the girls in the top 10 nine years running.
The college job
Butler had been doing two jobs for a while. In 2021-22 he started the women's cross country program at Eastern Florida State College, the junior college in Brevard County. He coaches the Titans' men too, and he kept coaching Satellite at the same time.
The Titans got good fast. The men won three straight NJCAA Region 8 Division I titles through 2024 and were 22nd in the country that year. The women have won Region 8 twice in four seasons, have made the national championship meet all four years and finished in the top 21 every time. They were also seventh at the NJCAA half marathon championships in 2023.
Now the college team has him to itself. Satellite has his former runners.
Boys: Melbourne repeats, Johnson wins
Melbourne 4A won the boys' title again, this time by 15 points. The Bulldogs scored 41 to Rockledge 3A's 56. Last year Melbourne beat Viera by one point, 71-72.
Melbourne won it with depth. Charles Hanus (Sr.) was fourth in 16:11.6 and Trent Orcutt (Jr.) fifth in 16:18.4. Colin Hedgespeth (Jr.) was eighth, Maxwell Fernandez (Sr.) 10th and Jayden Pereira (Sr.) 14th. That's 52 seconds from first to fifth, and nobody in the top three.
Rockledge had the top two. Brody Johnson (Rockledge, Sr.) won in 15:47.3, just ahead of teammate Noah Childrey (Sr.) in 15:48.4. A year ago Johnson was 17th here in 17:31.8. This fall he has won the Rockledge Raider Cross Country Classic and the Harmony Longhorn Invitational, and Saturday was his fastest race of the season. Childrey was ninth last year.
Lars Manning (Cocoa Beach, Jr.) was third in 16:10.2. He was 25th last year. Cocoa Beach 2A was third as a team with 84, ahead of West Shore 2A (124), Viera 4A (133) and Satellite 3A (149).
Satellite's boys are rebuilding too. Last year's leader, Madison Carty, has graduated. Freshman Grayson Frantz led them in sixth in 16:32.6, his best by more than 45 seconds and the fastest by any freshman in the race. Lincoln Zederkof, also a freshman, was 28th. The Scorpions moved up a spot from last year's seventh.
What's next
District meets come next, then regionals, then the state championships on November 20 at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee. Satellite will be running the state series with a freshman-heavy team and two first-year coaches, the way Butler's teams always ran it: together. Full results for every runner, with each athlete's season and career bests, are in our results database.
Results: Elite Timing & Event Management, via the meet's official results; 2025 results from the timer's official results for that meet. State titles from the FHSAA record book; 2025 state meet results from the FHSAA's official results. Coaching history from Satellite High School and Eastern Florida State College athletics.
Photos: Cape Coast Conference Championships, Wickham Park, October 24, 2026, by Ashley Colangelo.