Maryland Preview For Manhattan Invitational
At Manhattan, leading the Team Maryland delegation with MD #1 ranked runner Maria Coffin who returns to the same course which she finished 34th at last year's Foot Locker Northeast Regional, albeit on the 5K course rather than historic 2.5 mile course she'll race on Saturday. She will be racing against many of the top individual runners on the East Coast including 3 girls currently ranked in MileSplit's Saucony Flo50 National Rankings led by 2014 NXN Southeast Regional champ Rachel McArthur from Patriot High School in Virginia. It will be good opportunity for Coffin to measure up mid-season against some of the runners who may be competing with her for the same spots to nationals come November.
A few more boys teams than girls teams at Manhattan from Maryland as it looks like based off initial entry glance that McDonogh and Walter Johnson have elected to not bring their girls squads up to New York. It will be the MD #16 ranked McDonogh boys as the lone Maryland boys team in the elite Eastern States division, likely more to give their top runner Dalton Hengst an opportunity to race against a deeper individual field. The sophomore last week ran a 5K personal best of 15:50 at the Paul Short Run with a 7th place individual finish, but teammate Lucas Wright wasn't far behind him at 16:03. Both could potentially challenge for times well under 13 minutes on the 2.5 mile course.
Four Montgomery County schools are spread out over the boys Letter races with Northwest in C, Sherwood in D, Walter Johnson in E, and Walt Whitman in F. They will all race head to head in a few weeks at the Montgomery County Championships, but this weekend will just have to merge their times together to see how they all stack up. The Northwest boys just repeated with fast times and a win at the Tidewater Fall Classic on Wednesday out in Salisbury. Branson Oduor for Northwest will be their leading individual runner coming off his 16:07 PR win at Tidewater.
The MD #3 Walt Whitman girls will not see competition again this season as fierce as which they will see on Saturday in the Eastern States race with many of the nation's top ranked programs and traditional powerhouse squads. The winners of a huge invite earlier in the season at Oatlands, a good goal in a field like Saturday is simply hope to finish in the top half of the field and not get buried in the back. It will go a far way for the state of Maryland as far as how the state is viewed nationally if Whitman can be competitive in this race, similar to the affect that Severna Park boys have had with their national success over the last few years.