By Coach Grant Mollett, ERHS
September 20, 2025
Winter Garden, Florida
The East Ridge High School girls cross country team competed in the West Orange High School Invitational in Winter Garden on Saturday morning. This annual tradition has often brought the Knights both team and individual success. In both 2023 and 2024, the Knights were the team champions. This season, they sought to complete the trifecta! This season there were a couple of minor changes to West Orange’s course. The start and finish were moved from the practice fields into the football stadium. Also, this change lessened the number of tight angled turns, which can help runners shave a few seconds off their times. However, most of the course from previous years was still intact, to include the two large loops of the back of the campus. The runners then pushed through a long straightaway and into the stadium for an approximate 60m track finish.
Girls from fourteen complete teams throughout Central Florida participated in the West Orange High School Invitational on Saturday. The varsity girls race started at 7:15 AM. The start of the race took the girls across the turf of West Orange’s football field, out the gates, and onto the course.
For the second time this season, senior Veronica Peterson was the first Knight to cross the finish line! Peterson quickly made her way into the front portion of the large field of runners and held her position throughout the duration of the race. At the first mile mark, she was clocked at approximately 6:10, as she positioned herself between two sizable packs of runners. The pack slightly ahead of her consisted of some of the area’s other top runners, including district rivals from Lake Nona, Horizon, and West Orange. Peterson kept some of that pack in sight for the remainder of the race, as she finished in a time of 20:14 and placed ninth overall out of a field of 115 varsity girls! This was Peterson’s second fastest time of the season and her result from Saturday is now currently the tenth fastest time set by a Knight at the West Orange Invitational in East Ridge’s school history!
The pack in close proximity behind Peterson consisted predominantly of four of her teammates! Freshman Hortance Sallault ran at the front of the pack for the majority of the race. Sallault pushed the tempo a bit more this week, which prompted her teammates to push, as well. Her and her teammates were able to keep Peterson in their lines of sight for some of the long straightaways. Sallault was the second Knight to cross the finish line, taking tenth place overall and clocking a time of 20:29 – a new career/season personal best by twelve seconds! Her new personal best moved her into the eleventh spot in East Ridge High School’s All-Time Fastest Girls list!
Senior Adriana Mustin, junior Taylor Walker, and junior Jessie Volz claimed eleventh place, twelfth place, and fourteenth place, respectively! Mustin and Walker sprinted it out against each other in the short track finish. Mustin clocked a finish time of 20:37.4 while Walker clocked a time of 20:37.8! Both Mustin and Walker improved by nearly a minute and a half from their performances at West Orange last season! Volz, as the final scorer for the team, clocked a 20:52 finish time – an improvement of nearly three and a half minutes from her performance at West Orange last season!
The sixth Knight to cross the finish line was junior Lexi Whitehead. Whitehead took 21st overall and finished in a time of 21:16 – a new career personal best time by nineteen seconds! Whitehead’s performance yesterday moved her into the 23rd spot in East Ridge High School’s All-Time Fastest Girls list!
Finishing seventh for the Knights was sophomore Helen Robertson. Robertson placed 28th overall and finished in a time of 21:56 – her second fastest time of the season. Freshman Jamie Volz was the eighth finisher for the Knights in the varsity race. Volz, in her varsity debut, placed 55th overall and finished in a time of 23:50 – a new career/season personal best performance by nearly thirty seconds!
For the third year in a row, the Knights won the West Orange Invitational. Additionally, this was the third time the Knights have won an invitational this season! East was able to outperform all of the Class 4A District 3 rivals that competed at West Orange this morning, to include Horizon, Lake Nona, and West Orange. Horizon High School was the team runner up, as they placed their top three scorers within the first nineteen positions. The overall individual winner for the girls varsity race was sophomore Arabella Duffell from Lake Nona High School. Duffell finished today’s race in a swift time of 18:46.
The Knights also had seven runners participate in the girls junior varsity race this morning at West Orange High School. Junior Yeidy Diaz finished in 27:02 – a new career personal best performance by seven seconds! Diaz’s result was a near three minute improvement from her performance at West Orange last season! Next up for the Knights, was freshman Saryna Stewart, who finished in 28:49. Freshman Gabriel Paul was the third finisher for the junior varsity team, as she finished in 30:07 – her second fastest time of the season. Finishing fourth for the Knights was junior Marietta Aguirre Rincon. Rincon finished in a time of 30:52 – a new career/season personal best performance by more than a minute and a half! Freshman Isabelle Gutierrez was the fifth finisher for the Knights. Gutierrez finished in a time of 31:04 – a new career/season personal best performance by two seconds! The sixth finisher for the Knights was freshman Annabelle Baggett, who finished in a time of 33:16 – her second fastest time of the season. The seventh finisher for East Ridge was junior Alexa Puello, who finished in a time of 41:07 – a new career/season personal best performance by more than two minutes!
For full results for the girls varsity and junior varsity races at the West Orange High School Invitational visit: http://results.tfmeetpro.com/Elite_Timing_and_Event_M/West_Orange_Invitational_2025/.
Senior Rhyen Foley has the opportunity to compete in the North Port Invitational in southwest Florida on Saturday morning. North Port is one of the most competitive races in Florida, as it attracts some of the best runners throughout the state. In fact, the elite girls division saw thirty girls finish under the nineteen minute mark at North Port on Saturday morning. After having spent most of her summer recovering and restrengthening, Foley needed to use her first several weeks of the cross country season to improve both her endurance and her speed. By the third week of the regular season, she clocked a sub-twenty minute performance at Whispering Pines, and could recognize that her endurance and speed were coming back. A couple more weeks of great practices, Foley opted to test her mid-season condition at North Port. Placed into the elite division, Foley took 21st overall out of a large field of 245 elite athletes and clocked a finish time of 18:40! Her performance at North Port is now the sixth fastest performance in East Ridge High School’s cross country program’s twenty-four year history!
For full results of the North Port Invitational visit: https://fl.milesplit.com/meets/699080-north-port-xc-invitational-2025/results.
