Bishop Kenny moved up from 2A, two 4A runners landed in the class, and the best girl in 3A did not race at all. Here is how the Class 3A girls stack up after week one.
Florida Class 3A girls cross country, after opening weekend: August 21-22, 2026
3A got deeper over the summer without anybody running a step. Bishop Kenny moved up from 2A and brought its whole lineup with it. Katelin Wilcox of East Lake came down from 4A. Lyla Hallick transferred into Vanguard from a 4A school. Wilcox and Hallick then went out and finished third and fourth in the deepest race in Florida. Neither of them was a 3A problem in November. Both of them are now.
And the best girl in the class did not race at all.
As always, this is data plus judgment, and we will miss somebody along the way. A (P) next to a name means she has not opened yet and we are going on last November. How we sorted it out is at the bottom. 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 and 3A boys.
1. Annabella Tomasic, Bishop Moore (Orlando), So. — (P)
She won the 3A state meet as a freshman in 17:35.5. That is not just the best returning time in this class, it is the best returning time by any girl in Florida in any class, two seconds up on Madison Muller of Riverview-Sarasota. She did not pin on a number this weekend.
She would be first here either way. A defending state champion keeps number one in her class until somebody beats her in a race, and nobody has had the chance. The numbers agree anyway: even ranked on November alone and given no credit for the summer, she is clear of everything anybody in 3A ran in August.
Bishop Moore is third in 3A as a team and seventh in Florida, also without racing. There is no argument to be had here yet, and there may not be one until October.
2. Lydia Vincent, Zephyrhills, Sr.
The one 3A girl who has already raced somebody good. Vincent was second at the Lecanto Invitational in 18:40.7, 7.8 seconds behind Mary Summers of Seven Rivers Christian, the number one runner in 1A and seventh on our statewide top ten. Vincent was seventh in 3A at state in 18:38.4, so she opened her season right at her November level, which this early is a real result.
How much better than that depends on Lecanto, and Lecanto is the second course this week we cannot pin down. Read it one way and Vincent is comfortably second in this class. Read it the other way and she is fifth. We went with the first, because it is the reading we apply everywhere else, and we are flagging it because it is the softest number on the page. Our statewide top ten had the same doubt and left her off it entirely.
Zephyrhills sent one runner to one meet all weekend, and this was her.
3. Katelin Wilcox, East Lake, Sr.
The fastest 3A time of the weekend, and a class change story. Wilcox was 19th in 4A at state in 19:13.8. East Lake is 3A now.
She ran 18:35.0 for third in the Cecil Field Elite race, behind only Arabella Duffell of Lake Nona and Avery Hartley of Bartram Trail, both 4A and both in our statewide top ten. Against the best field anybody in Florida faced, that is a jump of well over a minute on her state meet time.
East Lake is 19th in 3A as a team, so she is racing for herself the rest of the way.
4. Lyla Hallick, Vanguard (Ocala), So.
The other import. Hallick was 20th in 4A at state in 19:14.4, transferred to Vanguard, and ran 18:37.0 for fourth at Cecil, two seconds behind Wilcox head to head in the same race. Another jump of better than a minute, as a sophomore, in the toughest field of the weekend.
She and Lainee Mercer are essentially tied on the board and Hallick is ranked ahead of her. The reason is where the two races happened. Hallick was fourth in a field with Duffell, Hartley and Wilcox in it. Mercer was second at Ragin' Storm behind one good runner and clear of everybody else by 26 seconds. Same time, different amount of proof.
Vanguard is seventh in 3A with a 3:21 spread, which makes Hallick the most valuable runner on a team that badly needs a second one.
5. Lainee Mercer, Springstead, Jr.
The best credentials in the class behind Tomasic, and the only girl here ranked below what she did last November. Mercer was third in 3A at state in 18:15.3, close to a minute quicker than Wilcox and Hallick were, and she opened by finishing second at the Ragin' Storm XC Challenge in 19:11.3 behind Natalia Gaona-Zelaya of Wiregrass Ranch, who is one of the four or five best girls in the state.
Adjusted for the course that is a small step forward, and small is the problem. It is the least improvement of anybody in this top five who actually raced, and it came in a race that asked her one question and then left her alone. That is why she sits behind two girls she would have beaten by the better part of a minute last fall.
She has the highest ceiling of the three and the least evidence for it. One Cecil-caliber field is all it would take. Springstead is 29th in 3A.
6. Emma-Claire Tanenbaum, Chiles, So.
Fifth in 3A at state as a freshman in 18:33.7, and she opened at 18:48.0 for sixth in the Cecil Elite race. A modest step next to what Wilcox and Hallick did in the same race, but she was already good and there was less room.
Chiles is the story attached to her. Second in 3A and fourth in Florida, the best 3A squad that actually raced, with Tanenbaum and Kaia Ables eleven seconds apart at the front.
7. Taylor Lawhon, Bishop Kenny (Jacksonville), Sr. — (P)
Second in 2A at state in 18:26.0, and Bishop Kenny is a 3A school now. She did not open.
Her ranking is a floor and everybody knows it. Bishop Kenny is the projected number one team in 3A and the projected number one team in all of Florida, and it did not send a single runner to a meet this weekend. Lawhon, Camila Giles and Jillian Jakab are all sitting on this board on paper. The first time that team races, three names on this page move.
8. Emma Poekert, Cypress Creek (Wesley Chapel), Jr.
Ninth in 3A at state in 18:40.6, and second at the Jim Ryun Invitational in 19:45.3 behind Katherine Eudaly of Plant. Holloway Park runs slow and Jim Ryun is the meet outside Cecil we trust most, so that is a genuine step forward on her state time.
Solid, defended, unspectacular. Cypress Creek is 24th in 3A, so like most of this list she is a one-woman argument.
9. Kaia Ables, Chiles, Sr.
The quiet one on a loud team. Ables was 21st in 3A at state in 19:23.8 and ran 18:59.0 for 11th in the Cecil Elite race, a jump of nearly a minute.
She finished eleven seconds behind Tanenbaum in a race they both ran, which is exactly where she is ranked. A senior who takes that much off over a summer usually is not done, and Chiles is the team most likely to be undersold by these rankings because of it.
10. Ashton Dahlem, Gulf Breeze, Sr. — (P)
Sixth in 3A at state in 18:35.8, and she takes the last spot without racing, which is not how we like to do it.
Normally this list gives a tie to the girl who showed up, and Piper Ross of Ponte Vedra is a stride and a half behind Dahlem on the board after her opener. The trouble is that Ross ran hers at Spikes & Spurs, a course we could not convert honestly no matter how we tried. We are not going to bump a proven state meet performer for a number we made up. More on Ross below, because she deserves it.
One opener at her November level and Dahlem is fifth or sixth here instead. Gulf Breeze is 16th in 3A.
Just missed
Piper Ross, Ponte Vedra, Fr. The most interesting name in the class and the one we could not price. Ross won the Spikes & Spurs Classic in 19:39.7 in her first high school race, 12.9 seconds clear of her own teammate Savannah LaVasser, and led Ponte Vedra to the team title with 37 points. That is a terrific debut by any measure.
The problem is entirely ours, not hers. The girls at that meet who also ran the state meet last fall disagree with each other so badly that her race could be worth tenth in this class or twentieth, and she has no state time of her own to check it against. So we are not ranking her on a guess. She is the runner most likely to show up high on this list the moment she races somewhere we can actually measure.
Camila Giles, Bishop Kenny (Jacksonville), Jr. — (P). Fifth in 2A at state in 18:48.1, 3A now, no opener. Same note as Lawhon: that is a floor, not a verdict.
Savannah LaVasser, Ponte Vedra, Sr. Forty-seventh in 3A at state in 20:03.5 and second at Spikes & Spurs in 19:52.6. Same course problem as her teammate, so we know she improved and we do not know by how much. Between the two of them, Ponte Vedra found scorers it did not have in November.
Sofia Jimenez, Lourdes, So. Jimenez was 64th in 3A at state in 20:26.2 and ran 22nd in the Cecil Elite race, better than a minute and a half faster. She is the biggest mover on this page under 20:00, and Lourdes is fourth in 3A behind her. Four 3A girls improved by even more this weekend, all of them from further back, led by Maegan Adkins of Fort Myers.
Cierra Mills, Vanguard (Ocala), Sr. Twenty-fourth in the Cecil Elite race and better than a minute up on her state time. She is the second runner Vanguard needed. She is also 46 seconds behind Hallick, which is why that spread is still 3:21.
Cecelia Lear, Mount Dora, Jr. — (P). Seventh in 2A at state in 18:55.6, reclassified into 3A, did not open.
Raced and lost ground. Two girls with top 25 marks in the class opened well off them, and we do not rank anybody on a time they had the chance to defend and did not. Jimena Nava Garcia of Tavares ran 21:14.9 at Jim Ryun and Caitlin Williams of St. Petersburg ran 21:23.3 at Ragin' Storm. Both get the same treatment as everyone else. The August number is the number until a better one exists.
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.
- The girls' fields ran noticeably slower in August than they did at state in November, so an opener that looks like a step back usually is not one. That gap is built into every number here.
- Girls 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, and seven of the ten above still could not be passed.
- Two meets we could not convert: Spikes & Spurs and Lecanto. Not enough overlap with the state meet, and the girls who do overlap disagree with each other badly. That is why Lydia Vincent carries a warning at number two and why Piper Ross is not ranked at all.
- Jim Ryun and Ragin' Storm are the two non-Cecil courses we trust. Both check out cleanly against the state meet.
- Class is the 2026-27 FHSAA classification, not last year's. Lawhon, Giles and Lear moved up from 2A, Wilcox came down from 4A, and Hallick is a 4A to 3A transfer. All five are confirmed.
- 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, and Bishop Kenny alone will move three names. 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 3A 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 runners who raced both a given course and the 2025 FHSAA state meet. Runners who did not open are entered at their 2025 state time plus 28.8 seconds and marked (P). Schools are slotted into their 2026-27 FHSAA classification, not their 2025-26 one.
Why is Annabella Tomasic ranked first in Class 3A without racing? expand_more
She won the 3A state meet as a freshman in 17:35.5, the fastest returning time by any girl in Florida in any class. A defending state champion holds No. 1 in her class until she is beaten in a race. The board agrees regardless: even taxed by the full August conversion she projects to 18:04.3, and nobody in 3A converted faster than 18:14.
How did reclassification change the Class 3A girls race? expand_more
Bishop Kenny moved up from 2A with its entire lineup, four of whom rank inside the class's twenty-five fastest returning marks, and it is now the projected No. 1 team in Florida. Katelin Wilcox of East Lake moved down from 4A and Lyla Hallick transferred into Vanguard from a 4A school. Wilcox and Hallick then finished third and fourth in the Cecil Field Elite race.
Why is Piper Ross of Ponte Vedra not ranked after winning her first high school race? expand_more
Her only mark was set at Spikes and Spurs, whose conversion is derived from the boys' figure rather than measured. The ten girls at that meet with a 2025 state time point the opposite way, pricing the course about 14 seconds fast against Cecil Field instead of 34 slow. With no state time of her own to anchor the raw run, there is nothing to rank her on until she races a course that can be converted.
Which Class 3A girls team ranks first in Florida? expand_more
Bishop Kenny, on projection alone, having entered no runner anywhere on opening weekend. Chiles is second in 3A and fourth in Florida and is the best 3A squad that actually raced, with Emma-Claire Tanenbaum and Kaia Ables 11 seconds apart at the front of the Cecil Field Elite race.