The Plano Prestonwood Christian volleyball team and the Flower Mound and Southlake Carroll cross country teams traveled out of state last week to compete against the nation’s best. All had remarkable showings.
Prestonwood finished third in the Durango Fall Classic in Nevada after losing 25-23, 20-25, 25-22 in the semifinals to tournament champion Mater Dei (Calif.), the new No. 1 team in this week’s MaxPreps national rankings. Prestonwood had wins over nationally ranked Los Alamitos (Calif.) and Redondo Union (Calif.) in one of the toughest tournaments in the country, and also won the one set it played against nationally ranked San Antonio Cornerstone in the third-place match. Prestonwood isn’t counting the Cornerstone match on its season record since it wasn’t a full match.
Texas pledge Macaria Spears and Kansas pledge Taylor Cook were named to the all-tournament team for Prestonwood. Prestonwood went 5-1 in the 64-team event that featured schools from 11 states, and it now has six wins over nationally ranked teams this season, including one over defending Class 5A state champion Lovejoy, No. 18 in the country.
Prestonwood (24-2) fell from No. 1 to No. 6 in the nation after seeing its 23-match winning streak end. Mater Dei is trying to be crowned a national champion in back-to-back seasons.
The Flower Mound girls won the team title at the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic in Irvine, Calif., becoming the first Texas team to ever win the largest and most competitive regular-season meet in the nation. Flower Mound, which has won four consecutive 6A team state titles and is ranked No. 21 nationally, got top-20 finishes from Alexandra Fox (14th), Ava Cole (17th) and Adeline Bennett (19th) and beat five teams ranked in the top 15 in the country by DyeStat — No. 2 Buchanan (Calif.), No. 3 Air Academy (Colo.), No. 5 Santiago (Calif.), No. 8 JSerra Catholic (Calif.) and No. 13 Ventua (Calif.).
The Southlake Carroll boys, ranked No. 6 nationally, finished second as a team behind Herriman (Utah), the No. 1 team in the country and the defending team national champion. Carroll beat No. 8 Coeur d’Arlene (Idaho), No. 11 Crater (Ore.), No. 16 Great Oak (Calif.), No. 18 Martin Luther King (Calif.), No. 19 Rock Canyon (Colo.) and No. 22 Hamilton (Ariz.).
Carroll’s Caden Leonard, the defending 6A state champion, finished fourth individually at the Woodbridge meet, running three miles in 13.41.8. Teammate Blake Bullard was 34th in 14:17.3 and Griffin Cords took 45th in 14:22.4.
Leonard finished 21st at the Nike Cross Nationals as a sophomore last year and helped Carroll win its fifth consecutive team state title. Leonard has the No. 2 5K time in the nation this season at 14:37.10, according to MileSplit.
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