Varsity Girls Gold Race - 2021 Watson
Brookelyn Morgan of Tupelo doing her thing up front in the GOLD Girls Varsity Race at Watson
Next up, the girls Gold Race, which was almost just as deep as the boys. There were certainly just as many PR's, as well as a lot of people that really surprised me. There were 22 total girls under 20 minutes, which I believe is also a record for most under that barrier at a Mississippi XC Meet. Like I stated earlier, what a weekend it was for Mississippi running!
The race started off as predicted - As shown above, Brookelyn Morgan took it out hard, strung it out very early and lead the race through halfway. Only Lily Garrett and Ella Chesnut from Louisiana went with her. Even 2020 Louisiana Gatorade Runner of the Year Kelsey Major decided the pace was a little too hot for her.
At the halfway mark, C.E. Byrd's Jenna Key was pulling a Leverett, which was hanging back in the first mile simply having it to herself, and then slowly reeling the leaders in through the halfway point. Once they reached the hill right after the halfway point, Key sprung to the lead, and only Chesnut went with her. From that point up until about 400 meters to go, it would remain exactly like that.
Back and forth they would go... Chesnut would hit a surge, and Key would reel her back in. Key would change pace to try and break Chesnut, and she would respond immediately. They were running neck and neck, on pace to crush last year's meet record.
Finally, at the hill with about 500 meters to go, Chesnut surged yet again, and Key was showing signs of breaking. However, again Key somehow found another gear and fought her way back, and they were neck and neck yet again with a little under 400 meters to go. However, Chesnut made one more decisive move, and she finally began to pull away from Key...
But the race wasn't over just yet! Chesnut was pulling away, but in the distance, there was a huge late surge coming from Louisiana POY Kelsey Major, charging hard toward Chesnut in the final 200 meter climb. Major passed Key with under 100 meters to go, and was coming on strong to pass Chesnut in the final seconds...
But in the end, it was Chesnut that prevailed, as Major ran out of real estate and Ella was able to hold her off. Chesnut won in 18:32, 18 seconds faster than last year's 'new course meet record' (Technically, Morgan Claire Rose still holds the meet record with a phenomenal time of 17:50, which was run on the old course). Major was 2 seconds behind in 18:34, and Key finished 3rd running 18:37.
There were 5 total girls under last year's winning time of 18:50. The 4th to do it was Major's teammate, Morgan Trauth of Dominican. And finishing it off was last year's runner-up, Lindsey Baxter of Baker, running 18:49 and just 0.02 seconds off of Trauth. Most of the girl's ran PR's, all were Season Bests, and most of the Louisiana girls times would have converted to faster than their 3-mile PR's.
The first Mississippi finisher was the one who made the race from the start, Brookelyn Morgan, coming in oh so close to breaking the 19 minute 5k barrier, running 19:00.4 to finish a solid 6th.
And just 1 second off of Morgan was the 2nd Mississippi finisher. Another cinderella story, seemingly coming out of nowhere to run a HUGE PR was Ella Rankin, the 8th grader from Hartfield Academy, running 19:01 to finish 7th overall. Rankin perhaps had one of the smartest races in the whole field, who was a solid 10-15 seconds back off of the front pack in the first mile, but made up some huge ground on the back half, taking down names such as Jessica Cartwright and Riley Jackson, 2 All-State members who still ran extremely well, both running under 19:20.
In the team race, much like the individual race, Louisiana showed up and showed out as Dominican and Ruston took down the #1 team in the state, Hernando High School, with Dominican handily taking the win - placing 2 in the top 4 in this stacked race definitely helped. Hernando came in 3rd, impressively placing 3 of their girls under 20 minutes for 5k, and their #4 was not far behind in 20:15. Ocean Springs was the 2nd Mississippi school in 4th, and that was without one of their top 5 runners who probably would have made a pretty big difference. Ocean Springs still got the job done though with a solid 4th place finish, automatically qualifying them to the All-State Meet.
Rounding out the top 3 in Mississippi schools was Jackson Preparatory School, finishing in 6th and the lowest 1-5 spread out of every other team in the Gold race.
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Watch the girls race video BELOW