Mercer County Girls Team Rankings for November 21
Here is the third and final installment of the Track Mercer cross country rankings! Below are the top girls teams from Mercer County. Click here for the boys team rankings. And stay tuned for an article about the CVC coaches’ all-conference individuals!
1. Princeton
This Princeton team has had the best season out of any Mercer County girls team ever. The highlight was undoubtedly the 2nd-place finish at the Meet of Champions, but even that understates how successful they were. They faced the toughest regular-season schedule that a New Jersey team could string together and consistently finished as one of the top 3 NJ schools at every meet (even counting merged results). Starting with the CVC Championship – not coincidentally, once #3 runner Eowyn Deess took her race results to the next level – the only NJ team that could beat Princeton was Union Catholic, a team ranked Top 20 in the country! Princeton will run at NXR this Saturday with a legitimate shot at booking a trip to Portland, which is itself a huge testament to their success this season.
2. Hopewell Valley
Hopewell Valley had a historically good season by their own high standards. They were already having a very solid season — winning the TCNJ Invitational, getting 16th in the merge at Shore Coaches, winning the CVC Valley Division — when Sydney Young returned to the lineup and picked up right where she left off last season, dropping sub-20 times at Holmdel. That was enough to vault the Bulldogs up the state rankings and secure the final wildcard to the Meet of Champions, where they made their first team appearance since 2009! They finished the season ranked #12 in the whole state.
3. West Windsor-Plainsboro North
West Windsor-Plainsboro North probably had their best XC season ever, crushing their school record averages at both Thompson and Holmdel. And it wasn’t just because of massive times up front by Allison Lee and Zui Chinchalkar. For instance, newcomers Sara Secora and Juliette Halpin also became two of North’s top 20 girls all-time on both courses. The Knights capped a strong season by getting 5th at the Group 3 championships, which was good for 16th overall in the statewide merge.
4. Allentown
Allentown ran a great race at Central Group 2 sectionals, where they edged Pt. Pleasant Boro for 2nd place. They averaged 21:28 on the Thompson Park course and were the only team in the race with a 1-5 spread of less than 2:00. At the group championships, they averaged 22:04 and placed 47th out of 104 teams in the merge.
5. Lawrenceville
At the Mercer County Prep quad meet on October 25, the Lawrenceville girls impressed by averaging 20:54 on their home course to outduel Wilberforce, 28-33. The next week, at the MAPL Championship at Mercerburg Academy, the Big Red narrowly lost to the host school but still ran a nice 21:42 average. They capped off their season with another home dual meet against the Hill School, where they ran even faster than last month and averaged 20:47.
6. Wilberforce
While the CVC schools were at sectionals, Wilberforce went to the Bob Kiessling Invitational at DREAM Park and averaged 20:58 on the fast course. They took 2nd in the Non-Public B race at the group championships, averaging 22:30 and placing 61st in the merge. This was the same lineup that averaged 21:38 at Thompson Park at the XC Fall Classic, which was the fifth-fastest average time by a Mercer County team this year.
7. West Windsor-Plainsboro South
West Windsor-Plainsboro South had a nice race at the CVC Championship, averaging 21:50 and finishing in fourth ahead of Allentown. (The Redbirds’ top girl didn’t run that day, but the scores would still have been very tight if she had.) The Pirates ran almost the exact same average the next week at sectionals to finish 7th in Group 4 and 19th out of 46 teams in the merge.