Niceville won the Cecil Field Elite race with one returning state runner on the roster and leads Class 4A by two points. The preseason favorite never left the house. Here is how the 4A girls teams stack up.
Florida Class 4A girls cross country team rankings, after opening weekend: August 21-22, 2026
Niceville won the Girls Elite race at Cecil Field with one returning state runner on the roster and is No. 1 in 4A by two points. Creekside has the better five-woman average and is second. Spanish River, the projected 4A champion in the preseason, did not enter a meet and neither did any of its seven returners, so it sits third on a projection nobody has tested.
The top of this class is a two-point argument with an untested favorite standing behind it, and ten of the fifty-six scoreable teams never raced — the highest share of any class, and the single most important thing to know about this list.
As always this is data plus judgment, and we will miss somebody along the way. A (P) beside a team means it did not put five runners on a line this weekend and is entered on what its returners ran last November. How we sorted it all out is at the bottom for anyone who wants it. Races are not won until the kids have run. Enjoy.
The statewide lists: Week 1 girls team top 10 and Week 1 girls top 10. The 4A individuals are here. The other class team lists: 1A girls, 2A girls, 3A girls and 4A boys.
1. Niceville — 136 points
Cecil Field, and they won the Girls Elite race. Five-woman average 19:47.8, spread 1:16.0 — the tightest pack of any team in this top fourteen. Riley Marise 19:17, Anais Almonte 19:18, Harmony Holland 19:43, Lola Jackson 20:08, Carolina Ramos 20:33, with Delaney Diehl 21:15 and Courtney Gehringer 22:09 behind them.
Here is the striking part: one Niceville girl ran the 2025 state meet. Marise, and she was 19:11.3 there. Almonte, Holland, Jackson and Ramos are all new to the board — four scorers who did not exist in the preseason projection, which is why Niceville had no 4A team ranking in July and is No. 1 now.
That also means there is no November baseline for four fifths of this team. They beat Creekside head-to-head on the same course on the same afternoon, which is the strongest kind of evidence available in August, and they have the least corroboration of anybody in the top five.
2. Creekside — 138 points
Cecil Field, third in the Elite race and third in the B race. Best five-woman average in 4A at 19:40.0, and second by two points, because the spread is 2:32.0. Eva Delaney 18:57, Emma Godfrey 19:08, Ivey Edgell 19:16, Hadleigh Roberts 19:30, then a 1:59 wait, then Elena Schultz 21:29, with Kaitlyn Chapman 21:44 and Abigail Clark 21:56.
Creekside puts four girls in the top twenty of the 4A field and Niceville puts two. The entire two-point margin is the fifth runner: 20:33 against 21:29. That is the whole ranking.
Kaitlyn Chapman, 20:22.7 at state, came back at 21:44 and finished sixth on her own team. Emily Kate Longmire, 20:37.4 at state, did not race. Either of them at their November level makes Creekside No. 1 in 4A comfortably. They were second in the class in the preseason.
3. Spanish River (Boca Raton) — 155 points — (P)
Alba Antunez-Perez 18:49.1, Lailani Levy 19:11.0, Makaela Morilla 19:43.3, Julia D'Emic 20:32.6, Olivia Downes 21:09.3, with Debora Larancuent and Veronika Ahoeiva behind. Projected average 19:53.1, spread 2:20.2.
They did not enter a meet, and not one of their seven returning state runners raced anywhere in Florida this weekend. They were the preseason 4A favorite, with as many returners at state as any team in the class.
The projection is not generous. It prices them at exactly what they were last November — no summer improvement, no incoming freshman — while Niceville and Creekside get credited with what they actually ran in August. Antunez-Perez at 18:49.1 would be fifth in this 4A field and Levy twelfth. If that top two is intact, Spanish River is the best team in the class. Nobody knows whether it is.
4. St. Thomas Aquinas — 216 points
Cecil Field, sixth in the Elite race. Average 20:13.8, spread 2:35.0. Elise Brown 18:50, Kendall Parrott 19:16, Charlotte Lee 20:17, Caoimhe McConville 21:21, Taylor Gold 21:25.
Four of their five scorers improved on their state marks and two of them improved enormously: Brown went 20:04.1 at state and 18:50 in August, and McConville went 22:37.6 to 21:21. Brown is now the sixth-fastest 4A girl on the board and Parrott is fourteenth. They were fourth in the class in the preseason, and this is one of the few teams whose August and November results point the same direction.
The hole is the same one it was in June: sixty-one seconds from Parrott to Lee, and then another sixty-four to McConville.
5. Nease — 217 points
Cecil Field, third in the Girls C race. Average 20:22.2, spread 1:51.0. Lucia Misasi 19:33, Katherine Healey 19:55, Olivia Dhas 20:07, Ava Campbell 20:52, Emma Rodenkirch 21:24, with Natalia Lotinsky 21:26 and Katelyn Pitches 21:34 right behind.
The biggest riser in the class. Nease was twelfth in the 4A preseason projection and is fifth. All seven of their returning state runners raced, which nobody else in the top five managed, and six of the seven came home better than the going rate for the weekend. Against their raw state times, Misasi took off thirty-five seconds, Dhas fifty-four and Campbell sixty-three.
The 1:51 spread with a sixth and seventh at 21:26 and 21:34 means their scoring five could survive losing anybody but Misasi. That is the most durable-looking team in the top five and the only one whose August number is fully checkable against November.
6. Sunlake — 237 points
Lecanto, where they won both the varsity and the JV race. Converted average 20:26.1, spread 2:21.1. Ana Cecilia Maia Menard 19:10.5, Ella Pope 20:01.2, Anna Connett 20:12.2, Jolynn Chen 21:15.0, Harshita Anne 21:31.6.
Menard is eleventh in the 4A field and Connett took fifty-two seconds off her state time. But Lecanto is a course we cannot honestly price — only a handful of girls ran both it and the state meet and they disagree with each other by minutes. Sunlake is sixth or seventh under every defensible reading of it, so treat this as a tie with Sarasota rather than a placement.
The soft spot is Leah Foster, 20:36.2 at state, who raced and came back at 23:55.7 and did not score. Tenth in 4A in the preseason.
7. Sarasota — 238 points — (P)
Annabella Cicilioni 19:31.4, Jasmine France 20:11.8, Marley Bowen 20:19.8, Annabella Alger 20:48.4, Isabella Mendenhall 21:27.3, with Ella Cardell 22:29.2 sixth. Projected average 20:27.7, spread 1:55.9.
They raced, but not with this team — none of Sarasota's six returning state runners was on a line this weekend, and the squad that did run averaged well outside varsity range. So they are entered on their returning five instead.
Third in 4A in the preseason, and the returning five is the third-best returning five in the class behind Spanish River and Creekside. One point behind Sunlake in a virtual meet where one of them is a projection and the other is a conversion we do not trust, which is a long way of saying sixth and seventh in 4A are currently unresolved.
8. Hagerty — 350 points
Spikes & Spurs, second behind Ponte Vedra. Converted average 21:03.1, spread 1:41.6. Madison Thompson 20:04.7, Jessica Leon 20:53.1, Briella Daly 20:53.9, Samantha Gartner 21:37.3, Tara Brewster 21:46.3, with Julia Shemas 21:47.0 and Connor Ferguson 22:05.0.
Thompson took fifty-four seconds off her state time and Gartner sixteen, and Leon, Daly and Brewster are new to the board. Their two through six fit inside fifty-four seconds. Eighth holds across the whole plausible reading of their course, which makes this the most stable placement in the bottom half of the top ten.
9. Flagler Palm Coast — 376 points
Spikes & Spurs, third. Converted average 21:04.3, a second and change behind Hagerty's, and a spread of 3:44.8 that costs them twenty-six points. Anna Grigoruk 19:28.9, Avery Wisniewski 20:13.4, Everly Mucciolo 21:07.2, Audrey Bowman 21:18.5, then 1:55 to Hailey Brennan 23:13.7.
Grigoruk is nineteenth in the 4A field and took twenty-two seconds off her state mark; Mucciolo took fifty. Their front four comes back at a 20:32.0 average, which is eighth among the ten ranked teams — so this is not a team carried by its front. It is a team whose fifth runner is 1:55 behind its fourth. Same problem the Flagler boys have, one place further down their own page.
10. Bartram Trail — 383 points
Cecil Field. Average 20:53.0 — better than the two teams ranked directly above them — and the widest spread of the ten ranked teams at 3:57.0. Avery Hartley 18:13, then 2:18 of daylight, then Brianna Madora 20:31, Ava Tong 21:32, Emma Hartman 21:59, Brynn Jenkins 22:10.
Hartley's 18:13 is the third-fastest converted mark by any 4A girl this weekend, behind only Wiregrass Ranch's Natalia Gaona-Zelaya and a projection. She is worth three points. The other four are worth 380.
They were seventh in 4A in the preseason with a 4:15.4 returning spread, so the shape is not new — this is a team built on one runner and it has been for a year. Tong improved forty-four seconds off her state mark; Jenkins and Halle Hyman went the other way by eighty-six and 118.
Just missed
11. Buchholz, 387 — Cecil Field, 21:10.4 average, 2:29 spread. Phoebe Verschage 20:04 and Morgan Outcalt 20:19 are a solid front two, then sixty-eight seconds to third. Alexandra Rossi, their fastest returner at 19:38.9 in November, did not race.
12. Beachside, 420 — Cecil Field, 21:12.6, spread 3:10. Lilly Potts 19:21 is seventeenth in the 4A field. Sixth in the class in the preseason, and two returning scorers — Hanna Antonelli and Vespa Latino — did not run. This is the ranked team most likely to be sitting several places below where it belongs.
13. Riverview (Sarasota), 452 (P) — the second team in the class to race a JV squad while its varsity stayed home; none of six returners ran. Madison Muller's 17:37.7 state time is the fastest returning mark by any 4A girl in Florida, and she is second in this virtual field without having raced. Behind her, a 4:15.2 spread is what keeps the team thirteenth.
14. Plant, 457 — Jim Ryun, second in the varsity race and first in the JV race. Converted average 21:03.8, spread 4:45.6, the widest of any team on this page. Katherine Eudaly 18:13.8 is fourth in 4A and Rylee Nelson 19:28.6 is eighteenth, and then it is 2:21 to the third scorer. Eudaly improved forty-four seconds and Nelson sixty-four; Jada Ordway, 20:41.6 at state, comes back at 23:11.0.
Three more worth naming. East Ridge, 15th, was fifth in the 4A preseason projection and had all four of its returning scorers who raced run slower than their state marks. Lake Mary, 18th, has a 0:56.0 spread, the tightest five-woman pack of any 4A team in Florida, with nobody faster than 21:30.8. And Wiregrass Ranch, 21st, has the fastest 4A girl on the board — Natalia Gaona-Zelaya at 18:05.1 — attached to a 5:25.9 spread.
How we ranked them
- Courses do not all run the same speed, so we do not compare raw times. Cecil Field is the yardstick. For the other meets we look at girls who raced both that course and last year's state meet, and use the gap to work out what a time was worth. Seven of the top fourteen ran Cecil Field, so those seven are ordered by an actual head-to-head.
- Then every 4A team in Florida goes into one virtual race, scored the normal way: five count, six and seven displace, five finishers required, low score wins. This is a 4A-only field, so the point totals do not compare to the statewide list — only the order does.
- Fifty-six 4A girls teams scored. Ten are entered on projection and marked (P) — the highest share of any class, and three of them are in the top seven.
- The girls' side needs one more adjustment than the boys' does. The girls' field came home about half a minute slower in August than it did at the state meet in November; the boys ran level. So a projected girls team's November marks are taxed that half-minute before they sit beside a team that raced, and the projection still credits nobody with a summer of training.
- Two of the courses in play cannot be honestly converted, and both touch this top ten. Lecanto carries Sunlake at sixth: only a handful of girls ran both it and the state meet and they disagree by minutes. Push that number anywhere defensible and Sunlake is sixth or seventh, so the only thing the dispute decides is whether they finish ahead of or behind Sarasota — and Sarasota is a projection. Treat the two as a coin flip. Spikes & Spurs carries Hagerty and Flagler Palm Coast, and it is not measured on the girls' side at all. Hagerty is eighth across the whole range; Flagler is ninth unless that course was much faster than we think.
- Class is the 2026-27 FHSAA classification, not last year's. A school only appears in our returner data if it has a returning runner from the 2025 state meet, so a program that missed state or whose one qualifier graduated is invisible to us until we place it by hand.
- Georgia and Tennessee runners at Cecil Field are left out.
The honest read: Niceville and Creekside are a coin flip that Niceville won on the day, Spanish River is an unopened envelope, and sixth and seventh are a tie. Below that, Hagerty at eighth is the firmest placement on the page and Beachside at twelfth the softest. Check back for the updated top ten, and the full opening weekend recap with all eleven meets is right here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the No. 1 Class 4A girls cross country team in Florida in Week 1? expand_more
Niceville, on 136 points, two points ahead of Creekside. They won the Girls Elite race at Cecil Field with a 19:47.8 average inside a 1:16 spread, the tightest pack in the class top fourteen, and they did it with exactly one runner who had been to the 2025 state meet.
Why is Spanish River ranked third without racing? expand_more
They were the preseason 4A favorite and not one of their seven returning state runners raced anywhere in Florida on opening weekend. They are entered at those seven state times plus the half-minute the girls' field gave up between November and August, which credits them with no summer improvement and no incoming freshman. Alba Antunez-Perez would be fifth in the 4A field on that basis.
What separates Niceville and Creekside in Class 4A? expand_more
The fifth runner. Creekside has the better five-woman average at 19:40.0 and puts four girls in the top twenty of the class against Niceville's two, but its fifth scorer comes home at 21:29 against Niceville's 20:33. That is the entire two-point margin.
Which Class 4A girls rankings are least certain? expand_more
Sixth and seventh. Sunlake raced Lecanto and Sarasota did not race at all, and Lecanto is a course we cannot honestly convert. Sunlake finishes sixth or seventh under every defensible reading of it, so the two should be read as a coin flip rather than an order. Beachside at twelfth is the softest placement on the page, having raced without two returning scorers.