Week 1 Class 1A Girls Team Top 10: Florida Cross Country Rankings

Florida Class 1A girls cross country team rankings, after opening weekend: August 21-22, 2026

The preseason No. 1 team in Class 1A raced, ran badly, and finished sixth. That is the story of the 1A girls board in week one, and it is worth saying up front that the method is unkind to Providence here in a way it is not unkind to the four teams above them that stayed home.

Holy Trinity is first by two points over Indian Rocks Christian, which has not run. Two teams that appear in no preseason document anywhere — Maclay and Southwest Florida Christian, neither of which sent a single girl to the 2025 state meet — are eighth and ninth.

Two points is not a ranking, it is a coin flip we have to write down in some order. We put the team that raced first.

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 1A individuals are here. The other class team lists: 2A girls, 3A girls, 4A girls and 1A boys.

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1. Holy Trinity (Melbourne) — 131 points

Cecil Field. Five-woman average 21:19.4, spread 1:27.0. Kelly Geraghty 20:28, Taylor Geraghty 20:38, Juelle Maaser 21:43, Caleigh Schmoll 21:53, Abby Connors 21:55, then Frances Hale 22:13.

First by two points, and it is a real two points. Holy Trinity was fourth in the preseason at 21:13.5 with a 2:31.4 spread. What changed is the back of the lineup, on a weekend when the 1A girls field as a whole ran about half a minute slower than it did in November. Schmoll came in 42.9 seconds faster than her state time and Hale 63.5 faster, which means both of them effectively improved by well over a minute. Kelly Geraghty gave back only fifteen seconds, half the going rate.

And Juelle Maaser, who did not run the 2025 state meet at all, walked straight into the lineup as their third at 21:43.

The result is a 1:27.0 spread, the tightest of any team in this top ten, on a squad that raced without Elizabeth Stewart. Connors was the one who struggled, 64 seconds off. This is the most complete evidence any 1A girls team produced this month.

2. Indian Rocks Christian (Largo) — 133 points — (P)

Adelyn Lubke 19:21.8, Alexandra Middleton 19:58.7, Sage Bonham 21:04.1, Emma Tress 21:46.2, Makena Webb 21:50.0. Projected average 21:17.0, spread 2:28.2.

Second in the preseason, second now, two points behind a team that ran. They sent nobody to a girls race on opening weekend.

The projection is a strong one for a specific reason. Lubke's 19:21.8 is the fourth-fastest returning mark in the class and our No. 6 individual in 1A, Middleton backs her at 19:58.7, and Indian Rocks has seven returners at state, so unlike several of the projections below them there is real depth behind the scoring five. The 2:28.2 spread is a full minute worse than Holy Trinity's raced spread, and that is exactly why this is 133 and not 110.

Hold this pair loosely until Indian Rocks enters a meet.

3. Westminster Academy (Fort Lauderdale) — 160 points

Cecil Field. Average 21:33.6, spread 3:19.0. Noelle Richardson 19:36, Reese Richardson 21:22, Avery Carvell 21:37, Lauren Sauer 22:18, Isla Oles 22:55, then Eleana Nowicki 23:51.

Third in the preseason, third now, and ranked here with their No. 1 runner two minutes off. Avery Carvell ran 19:35.2 at the state meet and 21:37 at Cecil Field — and Carvell is the sixth-fastest returning 1A girl in Florida.

Everything else went the right way. Noelle Richardson ran 19:36, five seconds up on her state mark on a day the class as a whole was half a minute down. Sauer took 62.7 seconds off. Reese Richardson took twenty off.

The 3:19.0 spread is what keeps them at 160 rather than in the argument for first, and most of that spread is Carvell's bad day. A healthy Carvell puts this team around 120 points and makes the top of Class 1A a three-way fight.

4. St. Johns Country Day (Orange Park) — 210 points

Cecil Field. Average 21:57.2, spread 2:43.0. Catherine Staten 20:30, Ella Rose Hanna 20:38, Lillian Hanna 22:40, Olivia Morris 22:45, Eleanor Myers 23:13, with Graham Morris 23:25 and Xiaoxing Troxell 23:54 behind.

Ninth in the preseason, fourth now, and the improvement is team-wide rather than one runner. Ella Rose Hanna took 97.5 seconds off her state time, Olivia Morris 96.8, Lillian Hanna 76.6. Three girls each better by more than a minute and a half in real terms, and Hanna's is the biggest gain by any 1A girl who came home under 21:00.

A note for anyone checking our returner files against the results: Catherine Staten in the Cecil results is the same runner as “Kate Staten” in the returner rankings, 20:04.6 at state. She raced, she ran 20:30, and she is correctly scored here. She was not a no-show.

Seven girls on the course, seven returners in the program. This is the deepest 1A girls team in Florida and the one most likely to still be climbing in October.

5. Oak Hall (Gainesville) — 216 points — (P)

Reese Allen 19:52.8, Lola Murfee 19:55.1, Alexis Thur de Koos 20:41.6, Macie Bell 22:26.7, Kailyn Simmons 24:05.7. Projected average 21:53.2, spread 4:12.9.

Fifth in the preseason, fifth now, and did not race. The front three is the best projected trio in the class after Indian Rocks — three girls inside 20:42 — and then it falls apart: 1:45 to Bell, another 1:39 to Simmons, for the worst spread in this top ten by more than fifty seconds.

Projections flatter teams shaped like this, because the fourth and fifth runners sit frozen at their November form while everybody who raced had to prove it in August heat. Read Oak Hall's fifth place as a ceiling.

6. Providence (Jacksonville) — 217 points

Cecil Field. Average 21:57.8, spread 3:51.0. Emma Akhundjanov 19:43, Sara Palmer 21:02, Katie Cunningham 22:12, Leeza Loftin 23:18, Lyla Frady 23:34, with Gigi Akhundjanov 24:03 and Calah Drake 25:08.

First in the preseason. Sixth now. The biggest drop on any 1A board this week, and it happened because they showed up.

Providence entered six of their seven returners at Cecil Field. Only Maggy Koenig, their projected No. 2 at 20:07.8, was missing. Emma Akhundjanov ran 35.6 seconds faster than her state mark, which on this weekend is a big day. The other four gave back between 64 and 105 seconds when the class average was thirty. Their preseason 1:35.8 spread, the tightest projection in 1A, opened to 3:51.0 on the course.

We are not going to dress this up. A team that races in August and runs badly is treated worse by this method than a team that stays home, and Providence is the clearest case of it in the state. It is also true that they ran badly. The preseason number said 20:31.2. The course said 21:57.8. Both are data and only one of them is from this year.

7. Cornerstone Classical (Jacksonville) — 237 points

Cecil Field. Average 21:55.4, spread 3:41.0. Faith Dykens 20:23, Abigail Love 20:45, Molly Kline 20:49, Elle Zimmer 23:36, Peyton Leavitt 24:04, then Olivia Zimmer 24:51.

Eighth in the preseason, seventh now, and structurally the strangest team in the class: three girls inside 26 seconds of each other at 20:23, 20:45 and 20:49, and then a 2:47 gap to the fourth.

That front three would score with anyone — it is better than what Holy Trinity or Westminster put on the course. The four and five are what turn a 130-point team into a 237-point one. Cornerstone does not need improvement so much as it needs a fourth runner to appear.

8. Maclay (Tallahassee) — 258 points

Cecil Field. Average 22:32.6, spread 1:48.0. Lilly Bell 21:42, Madison McVay 21:55, Ava Wenleder 22:08, Marguerite Miller 23:28, Abigail Stephens 23:30, then Mackenzie McVay 23:47 and Mary Price 25:23.

Zero returners from the 2025 state meet. Maclay's girls had no preseason team ranking, no projected score and no presence in the returner data at all. They are eighth in Class 1A.

Their 1:48.0 spread is the second-tightest in this top ten, built on a three-girl block inside 26 seconds and nobody in the scoring five slower than 23:30. Seven finishers. This is a program that assembled a full team over the summer and it is not visible in any preseason document anywhere.

9. Southwest Florida Christian (Fort Myers) — 272 points

Lemon Bay. Average 22:19.6, spread 4:08.8. Ayla Tobias 20:30.6, Jayden Wilkins 20:35.8, Noelani Love 22:43.0, Julianna Idle 23:09.4, Shiloah Love 24:39.4, with Rileigh Bell 24:55.1 sixth.

The other team that did not exist in July. Zero girls at the 2025 state meet, no preseason ranking, ninth in Class 1A now — and their boys did the same thing, ranking sixth on a fifty-second spread. Something is happening at that school.

Tobias and Wilkins came home within five seconds of each other and are a top-twelve 1A pair. Then a 2:07 gap, and a 4:08.8 spread that is the second-worst in this top ten. Lemon Bay grades essentially level with Cecil Field for girls, so their conversion is among the more trustworthy on this board even though the meet was small.

10. Masters Academy (Vero Beach) — 292 points — (P)

Rachel Judy 18:46.6, Avery Gervais 21:54.9, Amelia Gogley 21:59.2, Haleigh Silver 22:22.5, Amanda Rodriguez 24:39.3. Projected average 22:25.3, spread 5:52.7.

Sixth in the preseason, tenth now, and the widest spread of any ranked team in Class 1A. Judy's 18:46.6 is the second-fastest returning mark in the class and our No. 3 individual in 1A, and it is worth almost nothing to a team score when the second runner is three minutes behind her.

Exactly five returners, so no displacement and no margin. They did not race.

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Just missed

11. Community School (Naples), 296 (P) — seventh in the preseason, five returners, no race. The team on this board most sensitive to the August adjustment; see the notes.

12. Wildwood, 369 (P) — eleventh in the preseason, unchanged, did not race.

13. Lakeland Christian, 381 — Emma Wilkinson came back at 19:02.0 from Ragin' Storm, the fastest 1A girls mark of the weekend by anybody except Mary Summers, and our No. 2 individual in the class. Her team's spread is 6:20.3. Four returners at state, so no preseason team ranking.

14. St. Edwards (Vero Beach), 388 (P) — tenth in the preseason, 6:10 spread, did not race. Jacquelyn Perrin's 19:33.0 is the fifth-fastest returning mark in 1A.

15. Foundation Academy (Winter Garden), 399 — raced Ocoee, four girls inside 1:38 and then a 3:14 gap.

Not ranked, and worth saying why

Apex put a full girls squad on the course at Cecil Field with a five-runner average of 22:13.2 — a top-ten number in this class — and does not appear in FHSAA's finalized 2026-27 cross country classification document. Neither does Geneva Classical Academy at 22:36.6. Neither can be scored in a class ranking. If either turns out to be an FHSAA member, this top ten changes at the bottom, and we will say so.

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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.
• Then every 1A 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 1A-only field, so the point totals do not compare to the statewide list — only the order does.
• Thirty-six 1A girls teams could be scored: twenty-one raced, fifteen are entered on projection and marked (P). A projection credits a team with no summer at all, while a team that raced is stuck with what it ran in the heat.
• 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 girl's opener is not comparable to her state time until you take that half-minute off, and a projected team's November marks have to be taxed the same way before they sit beside a team that actually raced.
• That single number moves this board more than any course does, so we ran the whole ranking four ways — no adjustment at all, half of it, ours, and half again as much. Westminster is third in every version, and the same ten teams hold the top ten in all four but for one swap, with Community School and Southwest Florida Christian trading the bottom of it. The only thing that moves at the top is the Holy Trinity–Indian Rocks order, and it moves somewhere between half our number and all of it.
• Which means the real story of Class 1A girls in week one is not who is first. It is that the preseason favorite raced and finished sixth, the preseason fourth-ranked team beat it by eighty-six points, and two teams that were in no preseason document are now inside the top nine.
• Class is the 2026-27 FHSAA classification. 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.

Week 2 is when Indian Rocks, Oak Hall and Masters Academy get to answer for themselves. Check back for the updated top ten, and the full opening weekend recap with all eleven meets is right here.