Originally Posted by Drip

Also helps quite a lot (as with all maps for this event) if the squads are of comparable speeds. Only the second squad leaving from top left corner could do with being slightly faster, but not by too much. About 50 speed faster would be ideal, wouldn't make it more than 150 speed faster. But squads at exact same speed works, you just might miss the right side moving pest, but those don't count for three medal anyway, they just drop some gold.

My second squad is a bit weaker than my first, but about 45 faster (it's harder to match speeds with evolved Alpinia; that squad has every one of the slowest girls in the set on it). Even going the somewhat more roundabout route the first squad beat it to the last boss but just barely.
My third and 4th are a bit slower but that central node is less critical speed wise (still total variation is from 585 to 660 so not huge either).
Both runs were in the two to the left, 3 in center setup and both were three medal runs.

Every one of the 5 runs I've done in phase 2 has spawned a secret garden FWIW. In the unlikely event that I reach 4000 I may farm E-4 rather than E-8 for life crystals because it spawns the regular secret garden (although not very often).