Maria Coffin is the reigning Anne Arundel County Champion, while Natalia Jacobo was the county runner-up one year ago. Both are back as the county's top returning girls individuals in cross country. (Photo by Lisa McArthur)
MileSplit is previewing many of the major counties in the state of Maryland over the next week building up to the start of the cross country season. Check out the written preview below for Anne Arundel County as well as all the stats breakdown of the top returning individuals and teams from the county.
2015 XC Preview: Anne Arundel County
Virtual Meet Preview:
Boys - Girls
Fastest Individual Returnees:
Boys - Girls
Team Scores:
Boys - Girls
Last Year's County Meet Results:
Boys - Girls
Girls Preview
Both Severna Park boys and girls are the preseason favorites to claim the county team titles, but the Broadneck girls may pose a serious challenge and wrench in the plans of a team sweep led by #2 individual returnee Natalia Jacobo.
Last year, the top 3 team scores were close on the girls side at the Anne Arundel County Championships with South River winning with 41 points, while Severna Park was in second place with 52 points and Broadneck in third place with 57 points.
The defending county champions in South River have to overcome losing three of their top four as junior Caroline Tyrrell takes over as the team's top runner after finishing 7th in the county meet last fall. Severna Park only lost two runners from their top 7 to make them one of the top returning teams in the 4A classification.
Maria Coffin of Annapolis, preseason #1 ranked in the entire state by MileSplit, will be heavily favored to win her third straight Anne Arundel County cross country individual title. Last year, Coffin won comfortable as a sophomore by a margin of 67 seconds over Broadneck's Jacobo in a winning effort of 18:16 at South River High School's home course.
Charlotte Bader of Chesapeake High School and Severna Park's Rebecca Bosanko also expect to contend for top 3 individual finishes in the county championships in late October.
Boys Preview
There is no question that Severna Park boys should be expected to steam roll through their county championship meet once again as they are seeking to win their fourth straight Maryland 4A state title in cross country. Their unit enters the season ranked #2 in the state by MileSplit and will be led up front all fall long by one of the best duos in the state in Andrew Forsyth and Joshua Tucker. Forsyth and Tucker will be teammates battling each other and likely pushing for a sub 16 minute 5K time to become the county champion in their senior seasons.
Last year, Severna Park perfect scored the meet tallying only 15 points in having the top 5 individual finishers in the race. They will shoot for the same outcome this fall as they look to continue their streak of consecutive county titles in cross country that dates back to when many of their varsity runners were in elementary school.
However, several individuals on other teams will look to break up Severna Park's top five after Forsyth and Tucker including Broadneck senior Michael Weber and South River's Patrick Watson as both dipped under 17 minutes last fall. Watson finished 9th in last year's county race, while Weber grabbed 12th place.
Chesapeake has a pair of seniors as well that can run up with Severna Park's state title contending lineup in Charles Wood and Jake Daubert. Wood and Daubert finished 13th and 14th respectively in the 2014 Anne Arundel County Championships.
Broadneck and Chesapeake appear to be the two teams who will be competing for county runner-up honors behind Severna Park entering the season. The Broadneck boys last year took second in the county championship meet with 63 points, but took significant losses due to graduation. Cheseapeake finished fourth last year behind Severna Park, Broadneck, and South River but did not lose a single runner from their 2014 varsity lineup to put them in the position to make the leap possibly from fourth to second place.
The 2015 Anne Arundel County Championships will be held Thursday, October 22nd at South River High School in Edgewater, Maryland. MileSplit Maryland will be on-site with coverage!