The Battle for the girl's Class B title is a close one. There are two teams That have set themselves apart all season that will be facing head to head next Monday, Christ Episcopal School and Episcopal of Acadiana.
Episcopal of Acadiana has been a Class B distance powerhouse and has always had their name in contention for a team title. This year, they could possibly place their top five runners in the top ten at the state meet. This team is dominant when it comes to its 1-5 split, which is a mere 25 seconds based on their best times of the season.
Leading Acadiana is a tight front pack of four runners, Taylor Guillotte, Grace Pellegrin, Gase Broussard, and Bailey Guillotte. This is the reason for this team's great success. Acadiana is always running together and taking advantage of being able to pull each other along.
Opposing Acadiana for the title is Christ Episcopal School, which stands strong with three of the top runners in Class B, Svenya Stoyanoff, Addie Lee, and Noah Watson. It is very possible that these three runners could sweep the podium and hold a commanding lead of the team score. Last year, Stoyanoff took the title with Lee and Watson finishing in 5th and 6th, respectively. Christ Episcopal then rounded out its top 5 with a 13th and 14th place finish. That year, Acadiana took the gold with a victory of 13 points over Christ Episcopal.
Svenya Stoyanoff winning the Blue Division at the Watson Invitational 5k
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From 2020 to 2021, Christ Episcopal lost none of its runners and has only improved and Acadiana lost two of its best runners and is forced to rebuild. This is going to be a tight battle between these two distance giants next Monday.
Other notable runners outside of Christ Episcopal and Episcopal of Acadiana are Peyton Sievers of Midland and Kaitlyn Sawyer of Hathaway. These two runners hold the fourth and fifth-best times in the state for Class B and could play a crucial role in how points are divided at the state meet. However, Sawyer has not run since late September, so it is questionable if she will make an appearance this Monday. On the other hand. Sievers is fresh off of a PR and is most likely in shape for a good performance at state.