Of course she loved to run at that time because she was the best runner in the country and only 13. She and her dad expected that she would be breaking 15 minutes by now. Much like child stars, it makes for a tough transition into adulthood when you become just another face in the crowd.
https://results.wingfootfinish.com/meets/4716/xc-events/175391/resultsMN girls rule wrote:
It will be really difficult for Grace to get back to previous level coming off of injury.
Grace Ping ran a 18:23.8 for 2nd place at today's section meet. Caroline McLeskey was 1st in 17:47.7. The girl in 3rd place was almost a minute behind Grace. So Grace is making progress in her recovery.
Desert Vista was second as a team to Highland.
Note that Lauren Ping, Katy Clausen, Olivia Thatcher, and Eve Boardman (all usual members of D.V.'s top-7 squad) didn't run today. The team still easily qualified for State (on 11/16), so I would assume it was a strategic decision to keep them off the start list today.
Would be cool to see one of them to become the next Dani Jones (2015 Desert Vista grad who got 3rd at NXN)
This is a bit late, but he high school running situation actually is not that bad here. We have Leo Daschbach of Highland - ranked first in the country for cross country- as well as the Ping sisters. Xavier College Prep and Desert Vista are consistently strong, coached by Coach Van Sickle and Coach Messer (who actually both used to coach together at Xavier). Besides, Xavier probably has the top overall girls' cross country program in Arizona and your stats are a little off - they also went to NXN and placed 21st out of 25,000 schools in 2015. Desert Vista is currently #1 in the state (because the Pings moved here) and Xavier is ranked #2. However, Xavier's two stars, Jamie Stelnik and Mia Olsen, both keep getting better and better, so state will be very exciting. In short, Arizona actually has some very good programs (Xavier, the state championships last year, had a better 5k team time on average at state than most other states' teams). And Coach Messer is very talented, but so are Coach Van Sickle from Xavier (who was recognized both in the state and on a nationwide basis last year) and Coach Montgomery of Highland, so the AIA has three good coaches.
According to the results only 4 girls went under 20 minutes.
Hot? Hilly? Or just not very good?
Highland went 1,3,5,6,8=23 to crush Desert Vista 2,10,11,12,17= 52.
Lauren Ping winning it would change that to
Highland 2,4,6,7,9=28 to Desert Vista 1,3,11,12,13=40
Add in Josephine Gregory and Katy Clausen at 19:00 and Desert Vista wins
1,3,4,5,13=26 to 2,6,8,9,11=36
Clearly Desert Vista wasn't interested in taking home the first place trophy.
Unless there was some kind of scandal that got a bunch of placers suspended.
Strategic rest seems likely. 3rd place was 100 points back, so no contest.
We'll know for sure after the state championships on saturday.
https://az.milesplit.com/meets/362868/results/680780/formatted#.XcjCFtV7nIU
They posted an article that speculates that both the boy's and girls' course records could be broken tomorrow morning at the Arizona state meet:
https://az.milesplit.com/articles/271286?page=1
It would be fun to see both Daschbach and Ping pull that off.
Leo Daschbach 1st in 15:27. Highland team 1st; Desert Vista 2nd.
Lauren Ping 1st in 17:36. Grace Ping 2nd in 17:57. Caroline McLeskey was in 3rd at the two mile mark, trying to stay with them. She dropped to 13th at the finish. Desert Vista team 1st; Highland 2nd.
Arizona state meet results: wrote:
Lauren Ping 1st in 17:36. Grace Ping 2nd in 17:57. Caroline McLeskey was in 3rd at the two mile mark, trying to stay with them. She dropped to 13th at the finish. Desert Vista team 1st; Highland 2nd.
Katy Clausen, typically D.V.'s #3 runner, didn't run today. I hope she's ready to run next weekend, at Nike Southwest.
Arizona state meet results: wrote:
Lauren Ping 1st in 17:36. Grace Ping 2nd in 17:57. Caroline McLeskey was in 3rd at the two mile mark, trying to stay with them. She dropped to 13th at the finish. Desert Vista team 1st; Highland 2nd.
Last year, Abi Archer's 17:56 at AZ state was speed rated @ 142+. Assuming Grace's 17:57 is rated comparably, and assuming the typical 3 seconds per speed rating point, perhaps Lauren's time might work out to about a 149. I don't think we've seen her top-end this year though. There's still NXR SW, and presumably then next NXN, for her to yet run.
xcgirl1129 wrote:
This is a bit late, but the high school running situation actually is not that bad here. We have Leo Daschbach of Highland - ranked first in the country for cross country.
Wrong, try again.
xcboy1130 wrote:
xcgirl1129 wrote:
This is a bit late, but the high school running situation actually is not that bad here. We have Leo Daschbach of Highland - ranked first in the country for cross country.
Wrong, try again.
Well, I believed that was true at the time that I wrote that. Now Leo Daschbach is second at 14:14.3 to Ryan Schoppe of Texas. So we have the number two boy in the country and the number 10 girl (Lauren Ping). Arizona is not a bad state at all for running.
xcgirl1129 wrote:
This is a bit late, but he high school running situation actually is not that bad here. We have Leo Daschbach of Highland - ranked first in the country for cross country- as well as the Ping sisters. Xavier College Prep and Desert Vista are consistently strong, coached by Coach Van Sickle and Coach Messer (who actually both used to coach together at Xavier). Besides, Xavier probably has the top overall girls' cross country program in Arizona and your stats are a little off - they also went to NXN and placed 21st out of 25,000 schools in 2015. Desert Vista is currently #1 in the state (because the Pings moved here) and Xavier is ranked #2. However, Xavier's two stars, Jamie Stelnik and Mia Olsen, both keep getting better and better, so state will be very exciting. In short, Arizona actually has some very good programs (Xavier, the state championships last year, had a better 5k team time on average at state than most other states' teams). And Coach Messer is very talented, but so are Coach Van Sickle from Xavier (who was recognized both in the state and on a nationwide basis last year) and Coach Montgomery of Highland, so the AIA has three good coaches.
Used to race against Coach Dave Van Sickle (Xavier) and Coach Dave Montgomery (Gilbert Highlands) on the roads in our earlier days. Both were gritty competitors. You really had to dig deep to beat them.....and you had better bring a "good day".
Don't know about this Messer character though.
McLeskey was in third trying to hang with Grace Ping when she collapsed about 50 yards from the finish. Crawled across in 13th.
https://www.azpreps365.com/articles/11118-d1-xc-highland-boys-desert-vista-girls-prevail
Desert Vista only had 1 senior, who didn’t even score. Wow
I felt horrible for Caroline McLeskey. She most likely would have placed first in the state this year had the Pings not come to Arizona. 19:09 on the state course is still an amazing time since it is such a hard course. I admire her determination in finishing to score for her team. Without her effort, Highland would have placed third and Xavier would have been the runner up.
It seems as if quite a few of the top runners from a lot of schools didn't run. Katy Clausen, a senior who is normally Desert Vista's number three runner, didn't run. Is she saving up for NXR? Two of Xavier Prep's normal top runners, Holland Carey and Jess Mirmelli, sat the state meet out due to injury. Carey, who has only run at Twilight so far, runs around 19:40 and Mirmelli runs around 19:00. Xavier instead had to rely on a few runners who are not quite at that level yet.
It would have been interesting to see the outcome of the state meet if these girls (Mirmelli, Carey, and Clausen) had run it or if McLeskey hadn't passed out. But I guess cross country is all about how you handle the unexpected.
If the Pings had not moved to Arizona, the winner would probably have been either Xavier or Highland and the top five most likely would have been:
1) Caroline McLeskey (Highland)
2) Taylor Lovell (Perry)
3) Rujuta Sane (Hamilton)
4) Cami Merickel (Pinnacle)
5) Mia Olsen (Xavier)
To their credit, the Ping sisters both seem like really nice girls. They both hugged all of their competitors at the medal ceremony.
McLeskey is a good runner. She's headed to BYU. I thought she had a shot at qualifying for NXN but not so much now. It will be hard to recover from this in one week.
Ali Upshaw won D4 with a 17:49 and there are three girls from Colorado who have speed ratings of 142 or better.
Grace will need a good day to make it to NXN.
Hana Hall who finished 2nd at NXR/SW last year won D2 with an 18:15.
Somebody has to bring the U-Hauls back to Illinois
D.V. girl's #3: wrote:
Katy Clausen, typically D.V.'s #3 runner, didn't run today. I hope she's ready to run next weekend, at Nike Southwest.
Katy Clausen is recovering from pneumonia. She may be ready for NXR however. (Fingers crossed.)
Girls D1
1 Lauren Ping 9 Desert Vista 17:36.84 144.72 145
2 Grace Ping 11 Desert Vista 17:57.73 137.76 138
3 Taylor Lovell 10 Perry 18:35.29 125.24 125
4 Rujuta Sane 10 Hamilton 18:36.52 124.83 125
5 Cami Merickel 11 Pinnacle 18:41.25 123.25 123
6 Mia Olsen 12 Xavier College Preparatory 18:46.11 121.63 122
7 Jamie Stelnik 11 Xavier College Preparatory 18:47.99 121.00 121
8 Niki Hemmerlin 12 Red Mountain 18:49.42 120.53 121
9 Emily Littlefield 9 Desert Vista 18:55.76 118.41 118
10 Emma Finchum 11 Highland High 18:56.98 118.01 118
11 Tiaree Towler 12 Chaparral 19:03.77 115.74 116
12 Madeline Reeves 10 Liberty 19:04.11 115.63 116
13 Caroline Mcleskey 12 Highland High 19:09.16 113.95 114
14 Taylor Jacobs 10 Red Mountain 19:11.71 113.10 113
15 Kylie Miller 11 Perry 19:26.56 108.15 108
16 Olivia Thatcher 11 Desert Vista 19:27.43 107.86 108
17 Anna Haralson 11 Hamilton 19:33.68 105.77 106
18 Ariel Fendenheim 10 Red Mountain 19:43.57 102.48 102
19 Jade Boyles 11 Skyline 19:46.62 101.46 101
20 Ansley Burns 10 Xavier College Preparatory 19:47.42 101.19 101
21 Bailee Christofis 9 Desert Vista 19:54.34 98.89 99
Lauren will be running in Portland at NXN. Meanwhile, I see Grace's name on the entries list for Foot Locker West: