Arabella Duffell ran away from the deepest field in Florida and the defending state champion watched from home. Nineteen 4A girls broke 19:30. Here is how the class stacks up after week one.
Florida Class 4A girls cross country, after opening weekend: August 21-22, 2026
4A is where the depth is. Nineteen girls in this class ran under 19:30 once you put every course on the same footing, and eight of the ten below actually raced. One of the two who did not is the defending state champion.
The other thing that happened is that Arabella Duffell of Lake Nona ran away from the best field assembled in Florida this month, and there is no honest way to read her weekend as anything other than the best run by anybody, in any class.
As always, this is data plus judgment, and we will miss somebody along the way. A (P) next to a name means that runner has not opened yet and we are going on last November. How we sorted everybody 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 top 10 and Week 1 girls team top 10. The other classes: 1A girls, 2A girls, 3A girls and 4A boys.
1. Arabella Duffell, Lake Nona, Jr.
Duffell won the Cecil Field Girls Elite race in 17:53. No girl in Florida, in any class, ran faster on opening weekend.
She was ninth in 4A at state last fall in 18:36.6. She just ran 43 seconds quicker than that in August, in a month when the girls' field as a whole runs a good half minute slower than it does in November, so the real gap is bigger than the clock says.
Avery Hartley, the returning state runner-up, was 20 seconds back in second. Katelin Wilcox, Lyla Hallick and Emma-Claire Tanenbaum, three of the top six in 3A, were all more than 40 seconds behind. Lake Nona sent one runner to that meet and she won it, so there is no team ranking behind her. She spends the fall running for herself.
2. Natalia Gaona-Zelaya, Wiregrass Ranch, Sr.
Third in 4A at state in 18:06.9 and third on the returning list behind Madison Muller and Hartley. She won the Ragin' Storm XC Challenge in 18:40.3, 31 seconds clear of Lainee Mercer of Springstead, who is fifth in 3A.
August times run slower than November ones, so an 18:40 in the third week of August is worth better than the 18:06 she closed with, not worse. That is a real step forward on a mark that was already near the top of the class, and it came against somebody rather than in a time trial.
She is behind Duffell and nobody else.
3. Madison Muller, Riverview (Sarasota), Jr. — (P)
The defending 4A state champion at 17:37.7, the fastest returning mark in the class by 23 seconds, and she did not pin on a number. Riverview sent a junior varsity group to Lemon Bay. Muller was not in it, and her name does not appear in any result from the weekend.
Projected forward she lands about a second and a half behind Gaona-Zelaya, and a second and a half is not a real distinction. Nobody should pretend it is. The tiebreaker is that one of them raced.
Muller may well still be the best runner in this class. She was in November, and the burden of proof on a state champion should be light. It is not zero. The first weekend she runs, this settles itself.
4. Avery Hartley, Bartram Trail, So.
State runner-up in 18:00.3 as a freshman, second at Cecil Field in 18:13. Thirteen seconds slower than her November time in a month when most of the field gives back half a minute is a quietly good opener.
She lost that race to Duffell by 20 seconds. Five of the ten girls on this page ran it, and Hartley was the first of them across, which is the cleanest piece of evidence anybody in this class produced.
Bartram Trail is 10th in 4A on a 3:57 spread, so her season is an individual one. Third place in this class is available to whoever wants it between her, Muller and whoever breaks through by October.
5. Katherine Eudaly, Plant, Jr.
Eudaly was 13th in 4A at state in 18:57.4, and she won the Jim Ryun Invitational out of a 204-girl field by 44 seconds, in 19:00.9.
Holloway Park runs slow, and Jim Ryun is the meet outside Cecil Field we trust most, so that race is worth a minute and more better than her state mark. It is also entirely a conversion argument, because the race itself gave her nobody to run with.
The course is solid enough that this ranking holds. It is still the mark on this page most likely to look wrong in October, in either direction. Plant is 14th in 4A.
6. Alba Antunez-Perez, Spanish River, Sr. — (P)
Sixth in 4A at state in 18:20.3, fourth-fastest returning mark in the class, and no opener. Spanish River is third in 4A and sixth in Florida on the strength of her and Lailani Levy, so this is a program that stayed home with something to show.
Projected forward she sits within a second of what Elise Brown actually ran. That is the whole margin between them. She is ranked here rather than lower because 18:20 in November is a serious credential, and rather than higher because it is eight months old.
7. Elise Brown, St. Thomas Aquinas, So.
Brown was 51st in 4A at state in 20:04.1 as a freshman. She finished seventh in the Cecil Field Elite race in 18:50.
That is 74 seconds, and there is no conversion in it and no projection. She ran it, in the hardest field available, and she beat Allison Austin, Eva Delaney and Peyton Cerasi, all three of whom were more than a minute ahead of her last November.
A sophomore who takes that much off in a summer is usually not finished. St. Thomas Aquinas is fourth in 4A behind her and Kendall Parrott.
8. Allison Austin, Atlantic Coast, So.
Ninth in the Cecil Elite race in 18:56, four seconds faster than the 19:00.0 that made her 17th in 4A last fall.
Running faster in August than she did in November, against a field that mostly gave back half a minute, is worth about half a minute of real improvement. She is a sophomore and there is no obvious ceiling in sight yet.
Atlantic Coast is 33rd in 4A with a ten-minute gap from its first runner to its fifth, so Austin is out there on her own.
9. Eva Delaney, Creekside, So.
Seventh in 4A at state in 18:21.1 and tenth at Cecil in 18:57. That is a few seconds off what the field as a whole did, which makes it a par opener rather than a bad one and not much to draw a conclusion from either way.
She is the fastest runner on the second-best team in 4A and the third-best in Florida, and Creekside was the only 4A program to put two girls in the top 14 of the Elite race. Her ranking here leans on the November credential more than the August one. The class is deep enough now that par does not hold seventh.
10. Peyton Cerasi, Matanzas, Jr.
The other class-change arrival on this page. Cerasi was 11th in 3A at state in 19:00.4, and Matanzas is 4A now. She ran 19:07 for 13th at Cecil, within seven seconds of her state mark and well inside what the field gave back, which is a solid and unremarkable day in the deepest race in Florida.
Matanzas brought three girls to Cecil and does not rank as a team. Cerasi holds the last spot by a single second over a freshman, which is a fair summary of how tight this class gets below the top five.
Just missed
Emma Godfrey, Creekside, Fr. Ran 19:08 for 14th in the Cecil Elite race, one second out of the ten, in what appears to be her first high school race. No state history and no second data point, which is the only reason she is here instead of tenth. A freshman who runs 19:08 in that field in August is a top-five runner in this class by November more often than not.
Avalyn Thompson, Lake Brantley, Sr. Won the Ocoee Kickstart Classic in 19:04.8, 30 seconds clear of Abigayle White of Horizon, after finishing 48th in 4A at state. On the raw clock that belongs in the ten. Ocoee is a course we cannot price: the girls who ran both it and the state meet disagree by more than three minutes end to end, four of the nine are Lake Brantley girls, and one of the four is Thompson herself. Under every reading we can build she still lands just outside, so this is not us punishing her, it is us not being able to see her clearly. One race on a course we can measure and she is in. Lake Brantley is 23rd in 4A.
Ana Cecilia Maia Menard, Sunlake, So. Fourteenth in 4A at state in 18:57.8 and third at Lecanto in 19:37.2. Lecanto is the other one we cannot price. Seven girls ran both it and the state meet, three of them are her own Sunlake teammates, and they disagree from 25 seconds fast to nearly four minutes slow. Her converted mark straddles the bottom of this top ten depending on which end you believe. Sunlake is sixth in 4A.
Lailani Levy, Spanish River, So. — (P). Eleventh in 4A at state in 18:42.2, no opener. Same situation as her teammate Antunez-Perez, two class years younger and 22 seconds slower.
Annabella Ekebergh, Windermere, Jr. Ran 19:12 for 15th at Cecil against the 19:37.0 that made her 28th in 4A, so 25 seconds in the toughest field of the weekend. Windermere is 25th in 4A.
How we ranked them
- Courses do not all run the same speed, so we do not compare raw times. Cecil Field is the yardstick, since most of the state's best runners were there. 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.
- On the girls' side, August is meaningfully slower than November. That is why an opener a few seconds off a state time counts as a step forward here and would count as flat on the boys' list.
- Runners who have not opened are ranked on last November and marked (P). It is a stingy way to do it, since it gives them no credit for the summer while everybody who raced is stuck with exactly what she ran.
- Two courses we could not price: Ocoee and Lecanto. Too few girls ran both those meets and the state meet, and the ones who did disagree by minutes. Avalyn Thompson and Ana Cecilia Maia Menard are the runners it affects, and both entries say so.
- Class is the 2026-27 FHSAA classification, not last year's. Peyton Cerasi moved up from 3A.
- We also checked the fast August runners from schools we have no class listed for. Nobody ran quick enough to crack this ten.
Week 2 is when a lot of these projections turn into results, Muller's first among them. Check back for the updated top ten, and the full opening weekend recap with all eleven meets is right here.
Frequently Asked Questions
How were these Class 4A girls cross country rankings calculated? expand_more
Every opening-weekend time from August 21-22, 2026 is converted to a Cecil Field equivalent using the girls who raced both a given course and the 2025 FHSAA state meet. Girls who did not open are entered at their 2025 state time plus the measured August gap and marked (P). Schools are slotted into their 2026-27 FHSAA classification, not their 2025-26 one.
Why is Madison Muller ranked third when she is the defending 4A state champion? expand_more
Muller did not race on opening weekend. Riverview sent a junior varsity group to Lemon Bay and she was not in it. Projected forward on her 17:37.7 state title she lands about a second and a half behind Natalia Gaona-Zelaya, which is not a real distinction. The tiebreaker is that Gaona-Zelaya and Arabella Duffell both actually raced. The first weekend Muller runs, it settles itself.
Who was the fastest Florida girl on opening weekend 2026? expand_more
Arabella Duffell of Lake Nona, who won the Cecil Field Girls Elite race in 17:53. No girl in any Florida class ran faster, converted or otherwise. She was ninth in 4A at the 2025 state meet in 18:36.6, and August times normally run slower than November ones, so the real improvement is larger than the 43 seconds on the clock.
Why is Avalyn Thompson not in the Class 4A top 10? expand_more
She won the Ocoee Kickstart Classic in 19:04.8, which belongs in the ten on the raw clock. Ocoee is a course these rankings cannot price: the girls who ran both it and the state meet disagree by more than three minutes end to end, four of the nine are her own Lake Brantley teammates, and one of the four is Thompson herself. Under every reading available she still lands just outside.