Gwen Huddle currently tops the freshman rankings this season
For this week's edition of Ohio Future Stars, we dove into the lists and selected two standout freshmen who are currently 1-2 on the class rankings:
Gwen Huddle (Napoleon 2028) and Kaitlyn Van Zandt (Watterson 2028)
Despite both of them having just started their high school careers back in late-August, Huddle and Van Zandt have already established themselves among some of the best in the state.
As of now, in the overall lists, Huddle is ranked 25th with Van Zandt ranked 26th, respectively.
Starting with Gwen Huddle, she started off her high school career strong, posting up a solid debut of 18:50.95 at Defiance Early Bird, where she took third; followed up with a big improvement the week after at Columbus Grove XC Invitational with her eventual current best of 18:31.40.
Most recently, she took fourth in the Division II Varsity race at Tiffin Carnival (18:41.7), a race in which two names who finished ahead of her were athletes that she had raced at the last two competitions, Ottawa-Glandorf's Anna Buddelmeyer and Wauseon's Ella Rhoades.
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Kaitlyn Van Zandt won Seneca East's Stars, Stripes, and Lights on Saturday.
Moving onto Bishop Watterson's Kaitlyn Van Zandt (bib 3049), prior to her earning her first win at Seneca East's Stars, Stripes, and Lights, she opened up her high school career at Newark Catholic Invitational and Westerville North XC Classic; two races where she put up back-to-back personal bests of 19:14.28 followed by an 18:53.59.
At Seneca East, she put up an improvement of a little over 20 seconds to clock an 18:32.92 at Seneca East.
Retrospectively, looking back at the results of her first two competitions, she got an idea of what to potentially expect this cross-country season in terms of competition, as at both Newark and Westerville, the athlete she finished runner-up to was the current state leader, Teays Valley's Katy Zang, who currently holds a recent personal best of 17:14.70.
With a little under two months left in the cross-country main season, we could potentially see these two find high spots on the podium at the OHSAA State Championships for their respective divisions in November.