No Clear Favorite for NXN Girls Title?

Ritzenhein has been 18th, 1st, and 5th in her NXN Career

Other Top 10's in the Field are Keller, Rahmer, Williams, Rodriguez.

Top returners mentioned that raced last year in similar conditions - Ritzenhein (5th), Rodriguez (8th), Lowen (78th). Alder, Williams, Keller, and Rahmer DNQ last year. Dudek DNQ last year. Bartlett did not run at all last year.

Looking at track and XC... looks like Rodriguez and Ritzenhein are 2-2 vs each other... Bartlett has the fastest 3000m PR (9:13) in the field over Ritzenhein (9:19), Williams (9:20), Latta (9:20), Weber (9:21), and Rodriguez (9:22).

My picks: 1) Dudek (sophomore champion like Ritzenhein); 2) Bartlett (debut champion); 3) Wildcard...

Great note: Hedengren only qualified to NXN one (1) time in 4 years... riddle me that.

Last year Keagan Edwards was ranked 28th and finished 4th. Hagen was ranked 20th and finished ninth. In 2022 Michalek wasn’t ranked and finished 3rd. As stated earlier, the 2nd and 3rd seed last year finished 11th and 28th. There is a reason they run the race. Nobody is head and shoulders ahead of the competition this year.

+1. There are a lot of great girls this year and Addy Ritzenhein is one of them. Winning will be a tall order for her AND every other girl in that race. Being a top returner 2 years in a row takes a great deal of consistency.

Just look at Addy’s peers at NXN last year who didn’t graduate: Leachman, Ferebee, and Sirois. All those girls were either not able to maintain that form or have been injured the entire season. It’s hard to get there but it’s even harder to stay there. Props to her for that and to all the people saying she has zero chance: you are delusional and naive to think that there are only 3 girls in contention especially given these conditions.

This year there will probably be multiple girls up front which will make the video more interesting because last year all we saw in the race video is Jane

Give it a rest already. No one really cares

That's the only difference between Hedengren and the standard xc legends. She had one amazing year, but the best year ever. Cook and Riggs very similar.

Others not as fast had 3-4 seasons of relevance. That includes but is not limited to Fairchild, Hasay, Baxter, Engelhardt, Lane, Hutchins and Touhy.

LOL, I'm actually from Northeast, but I follow what happens nationally. The dyestat rankings don't really seem that great this year.

There is pretty good consensus around 4 favorites of Bartlett, Dudek, Lowen and Wilson with a bunch of experienced runners not far behind.

I'm just picking Alder to win in an upset. I don't think Ritz will win, but it has to be considered possible since she has already done exactly that as a soph. Top 5 for Ritz surely possible, although again that would shock people who handicap based on rankings.

Is also think the much maligned wild cards, Rodriquez and Lincoln, will be top 20, more likely top 15.

Race will certainly be interesting.

Not only will Lincoln not be in the top 20, she won't even be close to being in the top 20.

Hedengren did NOT have the best xc year ever. She had only two great races last year. Touhy's junior year she had one amazing race after another.

Here's a list of both of their races.

http://www.tullyrunners.com/articles/TopGirlsStatsXC.htm

I think it’s too close to call between the top 3, which will make it a super exciting race considering they all like to take it out hard which could backfire and allow the good runners outside the top 3 to have a chance. I did do some quick A-Net research on how many times each favorite has raced this season as in my experience I’ve seen coaches who rest their athletes/limit duel/useless invites to be ready for a full postseason to December, and then top girls who run as hard as they can including sub 17s in 3 team races on a Wednesday winning by over minute as a couple athletes here have done. We’ll see how that pays off!

Lily A- 7
Blair B-8
Averi - 7
Dudek- 11
Summer- 8
Jaelyn- 12 (although 8 were less than 3 miles?)

Jaelyn Williams' team always runs lots of races that are only 2 to 2.5 miles for whatever reason. Half are dual meets and the other half are invitationals.

The San Diego Section Championships is listed as less than 3 miles because it's something like 2.96 miles. Not sure why they don't just change it to be an even 3 miles.

Interesting stat - In the last 2 races that were muddy and the girls went second after the boys race (2019 and 2023), only ONE girl in both races combined broke 17:15, which was Addy Ritzenhein in 2023 when she ran 17:10.

Trying to convince a top girl to run 17:10 or 17:20 pace when she is used to running sub 16:30 pace isn't easy. That's why so many top girls run out of gas in muddy races. They refuse to significantly reduce their pace.

Tuohy? Seriously?

The ONLY runner who had a year like Hedengren was Melody Fairchild in 1991.

Won her second consecutive Footlocker (when Footlocker was the only championship and everybody ran it) in a course record time that still stands 34 years later.

Followed that up with a 3rd at the World Cross Country Championships Junior Race, where she beat Gete Wami (Olympic silver and 2x bronze, World Outdoor gold and bronze), Gabby Szabo (Olympic gold, silver, bronze, World Outdoor 3x gold, World Indoor 4x gold and 1 silver), Deena Kastor (Olympic bronze), and Paula freakin' Radcliffe.

Pretty fair short-but-precise reasoning.

Hedengren senior xc season was the best ever for a US hs girl.

While Fairchild & Tuohy had the best overarching hs xc careers, thus considered by everyone to be the GOATs of hs girls xc running. Take your pick.

While Hasay is arguably the most influential of all hs girls xc runners due especially to her charisma, record-breaking talent, the period of time she ran in hs, and her two Foot Locker national championships.

Here is are a few pieces of data to consider for tomorrow's NXN race.

Hedengren won the 2024 NXR SW Regional in 15:50, the unofficial record for a hs girls 5k xc race. Race was held at the Toka Sticks Golf Club, Mesa, AZ -- very flat, on dry, short cut grass w/super shoes. A couple weeks later she wins NXN in a 16:32/5k CR -- on soggy grass thru mud puddles w/super spikes.

Wilson won her 2025 CIF-SS final on Mt SACs rain course in 15:15, the unofficial record for a hs girls 3 mile xc race. This is roughly equivalent to 15:45 for 5k. On pavement & track w/super shoes. A week later she wins her CA state meet division race in a 16:20/5k Woodward Park CR -- on dry grass & dirt, some pavement, one significant hill, w/super shoes.

Sure seems you can draw similarities between what Jane did last year vs what Summer has accomplished these past couple weeks. For someone who was already a national calibre runner at the start of the season, Summer's improvement since Woodbridge and Clovis have been astounding.

Question is now, can Summer now spike up and race thru Glendoveer's mud & slop as well as Jane did last year? If so, does she even get top-5, much less win?

We find out in 12 hours . . .

Only thing that throws a wrench into that logic is that Jaelyn Williams was only :08 back in a race she didn’t get to race Wilson… so not as dominant as Jane winning her NXR by like 30+ seconds over the defending NXN champion.

and how is Engelhardt a XC legend? Never won Foot Locker or NXN and placed 11th as a Senior.

Probably more than one monkey wrench in that logic, including comparing a 3-mile road race to a 5k xc race.

However, Jaelyn Williams only being 8 secs slower than Wilson last week at Woodward Park could very well mean she could have finished well within 30 seconds of Jane for a clear 2nd place at last year's NXN. It does mean this year's up-front depth of record-setting runners is superior to last year's and is very probably the best field ever assembled for a US girls national xc championship.

Also, presume Sadie was mentioned by mistake. Her name does not appear in this thread.

Engelhardt is a 4 time CA State D1 Champ, and 4 time FL/Nike runner. Lastly, she's now #2 on the Woodward Park list behind Wilson, but still ahead of Trotter, Bei, Stamps, Lane, Baxter &Hasay. So other than not winning a national title, her xc career is quite good.

If you combined 4 x xc champ plus 2:02/4:27/9:52 range, it's quite a unique career.

Unfortunately for Sadie not only did she not win nats xc, but her whole sr season was eclipsed by Jane. You could argue that Sadie's sr year was the 2nd best 1 year performance behind Hedengren, even though it was quiet.

Engelhardt finished 15, 10, 26, 11 at nationals from 2021-24. First two at FL, last two at NXN.

She qualified all years for NXN, but chose to run FL West and go to the San Diego final in grades 9 and 10.

Hedengren had only TWO great races last year, and she lost once. Touhy in her junior year had EIGHT great races, and she never lost. Some of you posters are letting recency bias confuse your thought process.