Chloe Taylor of Princeton is The Times of Trenton Girls XC Runner of the Week (VIDEO); Area rankings

Princeton senior Chloe Taylor began her week by winning the Colonial Valley Conference regular-season meet at Mercer County Park. By week's end, she posted a strong finish on a course for which runners all over the state aim for come late November, and for that Taylor is The Times' girls cross-country Runner of the Week.

At the Bowdoin XC Classic last Saturday, Taylor had the 15th-fastest time of 324 girls to run the 5,000 meters and third-fastest among New Jersey runners. Taylor's 20:38.40 was behind only the 19:20.30 from Warren Hills junior Alexa Westley and the 20:19.50 from Kingsway senior Alexis Mullarkey. Sarah Trainor, a sophomore from Roosevelt High School in Hyde Park, N.Y., set the pace in 18:51.60.

"She really showed she's a veteran," Princeton coach Jim Smirk said of Taylor. "She broke the course down perfectly, stayed aggressive when it counted."

Taylor is among three returners in the top five from last year's Mercer County Championships, along with Allentown senior and last year's runner-up Devon Hoernlein and West Windsor-Plainsboro South senior Kelsey Kobus, who finished a spot ahead of Taylor in fourth at last year's county meet.

Once the NJSIAA postseason began, Taylor went on to finish 12th at the Central Jersey, Group 4 meet and 20th at the Group 4 meet before earning an individual bid to the Meet of Champions and finishing 54th there. Taylor went on to take 64th at the Nike Cross Northeast Regional on the same Bowdoin Park course where Saturday's meet was held, clocking 20:10.2.

Taylor's time at last year's Bowdoin XC Classic was 20:36.20 before she trimmed 26 seconds off in the two months before the Nike meet.

"We haven't put in any of our hard workouts, like our thousand (meter) repeats and stuff like that yet," Taylor said. "When that comes in, hopefully I'll peak later in the season and I'll be able to drop my time a bunch."

Girls Top 101. West Windsor-Plainsboro South2. Princeton3. Allentown4. Robbinsville5. Lawrenceville6. West Windsor-Plainsboro North7. Notre Dame8. Hightstown9. Lawrence10. Pennington