Meet West, Southwest Orange County's top cross-country athletes

It’s no secret that West Orange and Southwest Orange are chock full of top-tier student-athletes across all sports. One of the sports the area is quickly emerging as a hotbed for is cross country, both on the girls and boys sides. 

To celebrate cross country’s full return to the fall high school sports season calendar, here are a handful of the area’s top girls and boys runners to keep an eye on for the 2024 season. 

BOYS

Girmay Buck, Horizon 

Last season was a wildly successful campaign for the Hawks runner — starting off with a win in the Ocoee XC preseason invitational. He finished the year with seven top 10s — including a third-place finish at the Metro West Championships — and a new personal best time of 16:53.1. Buck also qualified for states and helped Horizon to its best ever finish as a team. This year, the senior started off the preseason with back-to-back sixth-place finishes. 

Davis Empric, Windermere 

Despite only one top-10 finish as a sophomore, Empric showed off the type of leap he could take in a short period of time when he set a personal best time of 16:47.1 at the Class 4A Regional Championship meet. This time was a significant jump from his 17:01.3 time at Districts less than a week before and his 18:13.7 time set at Metros nearly a month before Regionals. Given this upside, Empric, now a junior, could be a runner to watch come the end of the season.

Jacob Finch, Horizon

The Horizon boys cross country record-holder, Finch, a junior, has established himself as one of the top runners in the area and holds a personal best time of 16:46.8, which he set at the Class 3A state championship meet last season — where he finished 40th. Finch finished in the top 10 five times last season, and in the young 2024 season, he’s already shown signs that this season will be special. He finished third and second in Horizon’s two preseason meets. At the Ocoee XC invitational, he not only finished second but also broke the 16-minute mark — a feat he accomplished only once last season. 

Jaiden McKee, West Orange

By far the fastest and most decorated boys cross-country runner in the area, McKee won four meets last season — including the Metro West Championships. He finished fourth at the Class 4A, District 2 championships, set a personal best time of 15:55.6 at Regionals and finished 27th at the state meet. So far in 2024, the senior has finished second at the FCA XC preseason invitational at Southern Hill Farms and fifth in the Kowboy XC Invitational.

GIRLS

Aubrey Frost, Olympia 

Frost, the defending district champion in both the 1,600- and 3,200-meter race in track and field, has kicked off the 2024 cross-country season with a top-three finish at the Ocoee High School XC Invitational meet — a race she won in 2023. The senior finished last season with four top-10 finishes and set a personal best time of 19:35.6 during the Class 4A, District 2 meet. She finished 10th at districts and also qualified for the state championship meet.  

Courtesy of Daniel Gonzalez

Emily Knopfle, Olympia 

The Titans’ star senior runner picked up where she left off in 2023 with a win at the 2024 Ocoee High XC Invitational — finishing with a time of 19:48.9. Last season, she won two meets — the Metro West Championship and the West Orange Invitational — with four top-three finishes. She also qualified for the state meet and finished 25th. Her personal best time is 18:26.6. 

Ava Lack, Windermere 

With fourth- and sixth-place finishes to start the 2024 season — at the Ocoee XC Invitational and DeLand Invitational — Lack, a senior, will look to improve on her three top-10 finishes from 2023. She set her personal best time of 19:17 at the Class 4A, District 2 meet, good enough for eighth place, while her best finish came at Metros (third). 

Abigayle White, Horizon 

The speedy sophomore has hit the ground running for the Hawks girls cross country team in 2024, with two podium finishes in the preseason — third at the FCA preseason invitational at Southern Hill Farms and second at the Ocoee High School XC Invitational, where she set her personal best time of 19:54.1. 

Maryn Whitesell, Horizon

As a sophomore, Whitesell’s personal best time and best regular-season finish of 2023 came at the Metro West Championships. There, she finished fourth with a time of 20:00.6. Whitesell’s 14th place finish at Regionals qualified for the Class 3A state meet. Overall, she had 10 finishes in the top 15 last season. The junior has started the 2024 season in similar form — finished 13th and 11th in Horizon’s first two meets.