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Photo by Alex Brust
9. Who will win 6A girls distance events?
Hannah Schemmel won the distance triple last year (Xc, 3200, and 1600) and helped her 4x800m relay team win as well. As a result, there were some 6A girls with tremendous talent who got overshadowed by her incredible year. I don't mean any disrespect to Caroline Hood, Ella Gibbs, or Mary Nesmith who all might be a little better than the girls on this list, but they all might win their events at state fairly easily in 4A, 1A, and 7A assuming they stay healthy (Samantha McGarity could prove me wrong here is she returns to form). In contrast, the girls in 6A will have plenty of competition for the win. There are AT LEAST 3 girls in this classification who could find themselves on the all time lists when the season is over, and two of them have already won a state title. So let's start with the one who hasn't quite achieved that yet.
Claire Shelton from Dunwoody came so close in the fall of 2022 to winning her first state title as she finished an agonizing 0.58 seconds behind Schemmel. She's been a star since middle school. She first broke 20 minutes as an 8th grader and also ran 5:43 in the 1600 as a 6th grader. She's been doing this, and doing it very well, for a long time. When she finished in 4th as a freshman in XC, it seemed inevitable that she would win a title eventually. Sadly, she's had multiple injuries that have derailed her over the years. She's looked like the favorite at times, only to come up short because of injury. Last year she opened the track season with a 4:58 in early February, but unfortunately went several weeks during the season without racing. She was able to get healthy and be ready to race come state, and in the 3200 she was definitely in the mix for most of the race. It's just been a series of unfortunate events for her that have had her coming up short too many times to count. So this is her last year and last chance to pull off a win. Hopefully the bad luck is behind her. But even if it is, she has two studs to contend with in the distance events...
Ruby Little from Marist is another one who has been on this stage since middle school. The message boards (R.I.P.) freaked out when she ran a 19:07 as an 8th grader. And while expectations have been high for her during her entire high school career, she's certainly delivered on many occasions. Maybe the most impressive thing about her career has been her consistency over the years. She has raced for an individual title eleven total times while in high school and has never finished worse than 5th. She has 3 state titles and 4 state runner up finishes which means she's usually 1st or 2nd when she races. She owns PRs of 5:00, 10:50, and 17:39. She's won a total of 60 races, 39 of them in high school. She can flat out race and might have had her best ever race to close out the cross country season by running 18:08 at state meet this fall in the last, and hottest, race of the day which is one of the fastest times ever run on that course. Unfortunately for her, she placed runner up in that race to...
Katelynn Dollar from Creekview who absolutely crushed it at state XC. That was actually Dollar's first ever GHSA state title, though she did win the Meet of Champions in 2021 back when she was racing in GAPPS. She has also had the occasional injury hinder her over the years to keep her off the top podium spot. But she's still run some pretty fast times, and the last two state meets she's done a good job of being very fit on race day, so she might have it figured out. She also owns the fastest PRs of all 3 girls. When she's healthy and feeling good, she might not be beatable. Her ceiling might be the highest, so if she stays on top of things this spring, look out.
These are the big 3 for sure and it's definitely a senior heavy group of girls in 6A. It's likely the 1600 and 3200 will be won by one of the big 3. But there are a few other girls who have shown they can run big races as well, so don't be surprised if any of them finish in the top 3 this spring, upsetting one of more of the big 3. The girls in the mix include Josie Hutchinson, Zoe Garcia, Stella Chambless, Caroline Rogers, Claire Petersen, and London Ray.