Ten Class A Girls Squads Who Believe 2018 Is Their Year

Cotter

With the return of the Ping family from Utah before last season, most expected Cotter to far better than their 18th-place finish at Sections in 2016. Just how good, however, remained to be seen. As the season wore on, the Cotter girls consistently improved and rose up the rankings until many saw them as a contender for the State title. Though they fell agonizingly short of the championship last season, they may have the pieces in place to avenge their loss in 2017. Grace and Lauren Ping may be the best 1-2 punch in the entire country, and if healthy, should be locks for the top two team scorer finishes. Morgan Arnold emerged as an exceptional third runner last season, placing 16th at State. And Cotter's fourth, Aubrey Williams, was also in the top forty at State a year ago. This core four returns, meaning there's good reason to be optimistic: through four runners, Cotter was leading Perham, 29 points to 60. However, Perham made up that gap with a stronger fifth athlete, which is why the loss of Jennifer Lai is such a huge blow to Cotter's title chances. Although their frontrunners should perform as expected, it will ultimately be up to whoever replaces Lai in the team score. Fatima Mota is the most likely candidate, as she was their 6th athlete last season. However, her best in 2017 was over 90 seconds behind Lai's. With this lack of depth (and little room for error), Cotter will need a big improvement from their fifth runner spot to greatly improve their title odds.