Girls 3A Team Rankings — Week 1

Did not enter a meet. Five returners, none of whom opened: Taylor Lawhon 18:54.8, Camila Giles 19:16.9, Jillian Jakab 19:36.6, Rebecca McEnany 19:58.0, Ava McEnany 20:30.8. Average 19:39.4, spread 1:36.0.

They are the No. 1 girls team in Florida in any class, and they got there while being charged 28.8 seconds a runner for not racing. Reclassification moved them up from 2A with their scoring core intact, and it dropped a state-title-caliber team into the deepest girls class in the state.

The honest caveat runs both ways. Nobody has seen this team in 2026, and five runners is exactly five — there is no sixth on the board, so any injury is a scoring crisis rather than an inconvenience. But 84 points in a 45-team 3A field, from a projection that assumes nobody got any faster, is not a placement you argue with. It is a placement you go beat.

Cecil Field, and the best actual performance by a 3A girls team this weekend. Average 19:45.4, spread 1:52.0. Emma-Claire Tanenbaum 18:48, Kaia Ables 18:59, Charlotte Sikes 20:04, Chloe Molen 20:16, Madeline Brockmeier 20:40, then Savannah Stanley 21:18 and Katherine Baker 21:44.

Their returning six projected to a 19:56.6 average. They raced to 19:45.4 — eleven seconds a runner faster than their own November baseline, in August, on a neutral course. Every scorer who ran state came back and ran. That is the cleanest evidence any team in this class produced.

Tanenbaum and Ables 11 seconds apart at the front, a 65-second gap to third, and then three runners inside 36 seconds. Fourth in Florida overall, and the highest-ranked 3A girls team that has actually raced.

Did not enter a meet. Seven returners, none of whom opened: Annabella Tomasic 18:04.3, Ella Valentina Valenzuela 19:45.9, Lauren Susnis 20:14.4, Carolyn Susnis 20:31.1, Ava Hryciw 20:44.9, with Kate McWhorter 21:33.8 and Marisol Ambrico 21:56.6 behind them. Average 19:52.1, spread 2:40.6.

Tomasic is the No. 1 individual in 3A and the reason this projection is worth what it is: she is 1:41 clear of her own No. 2, and in a scored race that front-runner is worth more than the spread suggests. Seven returners is the deepest projected roster in the class — this is the one sat-out team with a real sixth and seventh.

The 2:40.6 spread is the widest in the top eight. That is the vulnerability, and it is a vulnerability the projection is not hiding: those are the same five gaps they had at state.

Cecil Field. Average 20:10.4, spread 1:45.0. Sofia Jimenez 19:21, Alessandra Perez 19:43, Marisa Mantecon 19:52, Ava Barrera 20:50, Emilia Volz 21:06, then Mika Macdonald 21:43 and Carlota Tamayo 21:45.

Projected off their returning five at 20:28.0; they ran 20:10.4, seventeen seconds a runner better. Jimenez was their fourth-fastest returner in November and led them in August, which is the kind of internal reshuffle that usually means a team is fitter than its returning order.

Three runners inside 19:52 and then a 58-second gap. Eighth in Florida overall. They and Chiles were in the same Cecil race and Chiles beat them by a comfortable margin, which is the only head-to-head data point among the top five.

Did not enter a meet. Six returners, none of whom opened: Shynah Collins 19:37.2, Miley Gill 20:30.1, Peyton Williams 20:37.3, Kelly Greene 20:38.7, Maddison Simpson 21:15.7, with Paris Sapp 23:48.7 sixth. Average 20:31.8, spread 1:38.5.

Gill, Williams and Greene finished within 8.6 seconds of each other at the state meet — a genuine three-runner pack — and Collins gives them a scorer nearly a minute clear of it. The projection prices all of that at exactly its November value.

The sixth runner at 23:48.7 is the number to watch. This is a five-and-a-half-deep team on paper, and in a class this crowded the difference between fifth and eighth is one athlete stepping into that gap.

Spikes & Spurs. Converted average 20:22.5, spread 2:37.3. Piper Ross 19:06.1, Savannah LaVasser 19:19.0, Mary Chase Fender 20:43.9, Rio Ossi 21:00.3, Sasha Chandlee 21:43.4, with Lucy Lommel 21:45.9 and Harlee Howton 22:15.6.

The best front two of any 3A team that raced — Ross and LaVasser 13 seconds apart, both converting under 19:20 — and then an 85-second drop to the third scorer. They put 48 girls on the line, the largest girls entry at any Florida meet this weekend, and the depth behind the five is real even if the gap in the middle of it is not flattering.

This is the one ranking on the page resting on an unmeasured conversion. See the table above: fifth to seventh, and no better answer available until somebody runs Spikes & Spurs and a state meet in the same season.

Cecil Field. Average 20:22.4 — a tenth of a second better than Ponte Vedra's — spread 3:21.0, the widest in this top ten. Lyla Hallick 18:37, Cierra Mills 19:23, Reese Cartwright 20:39, Annalise Hallick 21:15, Natalie Lammens 21:58, then Anya Bryniarski 22:56 and Trista Carter 25:01.

Projected at 20:43.7 off their returning five; they ran 20:22.4, twenty-one seconds a runner faster, the biggest gain of any team in this top ten. Lyla Hallick transferred in from a 4A school and immediately became one of the four fastest girls in the class — she is why Vanguard is here at all, and the 3:21 spread is why they are seventh rather than fourth.

Their fifth scorer converts to 21:58. Five of the six teams ahead of them have a fifth scorer under 21:16.

Jim Ryun, on a conversion supported by 30 returners. Average 21:03.5, spread 2:03.7. Laken Hartley 20:13.6, Isabella Neal 20:25.6, Jimena Nava Garcia 20:27.8, Sophia Maldonado 21:53.3, Caitlyn Noll 22:17.3, Cassidy Noll 22:49.5.

A tight front three — 14 seconds covers all of them — and then a 1:26 gap. Same shape as the Tavares boys team seventh in their class: strong four or five deep, then a cliff. Both Tavares squads are top-eight in 3A on the same structural profile, which suggests a program building from the front.

Holloway at +47.1 off 30 runners is the firmest non-Cecil number on the girls' side. Nothing about this placement is an estimate.

Ragin' Storm. Converted average 21:28.3, spread 2:43.3. Isla Trunk 20:18.6, Caitlin Williams 20:48.1, Ellah Durliat 21:09.0, Lucy Hammond 22:04.0, Isabella Grasso 23:01.9, then Mackenzie Rood 23:26.1.

Eighty points behind Tavares and four in front of the next team, which is where this class finally opens up. Trunk, Williams and Durliat inside 51 seconds is a solid front three; the fourth and fifth are 55 and 113 seconds off it.

Ragin' Storm graded 35.2 seconds slow off 23 returners — a usable number, and the reason both this team and the one below it can be ranked at all.

Ragin' Storm, four points behind St. Petersburg on the same course on the same day. Converted average 21:32.4, spread 2:43.0. Luna Mehltretter 20:10.0, Quynh Tollon 20:11.6, Ashlynn Clements 21:42.8, Lyncoln Jones 22:44.7, Lindsey Geiger 22:53.0, with Cadence Mayer 23:38.2 and Kennedy Hummer 23:43.2.

Mehltretter and Tollon finished 1.6 seconds apart and are the fastest 1-2 of the three teams in the bottom of this top ten. Then 91 seconds of nothing.

This is the only pair of ranked 3A girls teams below the top four that actually raced each other. St. Petersburg won it by four points and both teams have the same problem: two good runners and a 90-second hole.