Oakton junior Allie Klimkiewicz rolled at Wendy's Invitational with a 17:34 victory.
We might as well label the first weekend of October every year as Virginian Invasion of North Carolina weekend as a significant number of the state's teams and individuals venture to several invitational meets to our neighbors to the south between the Great American Festival in Cary, the Wendy's Invitaitonal in Charlotte, and Hagan Stone Classic in Greensboro. Below are some quick highlights so far from early reports from those meets.
- The nationally ranked Blacksburg girls nearly pulled off a huge win in the Race of Champions at Great American as they were caught just by one place by team champions Assumption High School of Kentucky, who have been one of the top programs in the Southeast in recent years. The Blacksburg girls had 96 points in the end compared to Assumpton's 95 points as they were led by top 20 finishers Bonnie Angermeier (13th, 18:34), Emily Beatty (17th, 18:37), and Claire Ewing-Nelson (23rd, 18:47). The Western Albemarle girls in 10th place were the next best Virginia school in the elitest division race followed by Patriot (14th) and Hidden Valley (15th).
- Only 1.5 seconds separated the first four individual finishers in the Race of Champions boys' race at Great American and Thomas Edison senior Louis Colson ended up being on the back end of that tight finish for the win. Colson's 4th place time of 15:00.9 is easily a new PR for him, but likely is wishing that he could have pulled out a win in Cary to further cement himself as a national elite runner this fall. Other Group 5A stars in George C. Marshall's Mackenzie Haight (11th, 15:22) and Albemarle's Ryan Thomas (14th, 15:25) also ran season best races to finish among a loaded top 15 of individuals.
- Not the best of days for the boys' teams from Virginia in the Race of Champions with none making a splash inside the top 10 as Blacksburg boys were the highest finishers in 11th place (299 pts) followed by Stone Bridge (16th), Patriot (18th), Albemarle (19th), and Midlothian (20th) among the top 20 of 23 competing teams in the ROC.
- Great times and battle found by the Virginia girls in red invitational division race with Woodbridge's Eliana Harnage able to hold off Manchester's Elizabeth Hutton for the win as both runners timed at 18:35. It was a top 3 sweep for VA in the race with Forest Park's Teresa Gregory pulling in third place at 18:47.
- The Annandale boys were team champions in the blue invitational division race as they were trailed in second and third place by Prince William County schools Forest Park and Woodbridge.
- In the seeded boys division, Miles Clikeman and Veritas School were both runners-up with Clikeman dipping under 16 minutes for 5K for the first time at 15:59, while his Veritas squad was able to edge out the VA #8 ranked Brentsville District boys for second place by 1 point.
- Oakton junior Allie Klimkiewicz blazed to a 17:34 clocking on the home course for the Foot Locker South Regional later this fall (which she hopes to become a 2-time Foot Locker finalist at) to claim victory in the invitational division race at the Wendy's Invitational in Charlotte. Klimkiewicz was an 8 second winner over Kayla Montgomery from Mount Tabor (NC) and also helped the Oakton girls take the runner-up trophy back home with them all the way back to NOVA.
- The Oakton boys were runners-up in the open division at Wendy's by only 8 points to Pinecrest of North Carolina as the Cougars were led by a personal best 5K race of 15:32 for Jack Stoney, who placed 5th individually.
- Caroline Alcorta won at Hagan Stone Park with a swift time of 17:41 on a sweltering hot day to slow down times across the board everywhere. Alcorta and teammate Katie Kennedy (18:36) went 1-2 in the race to help the West Springfield girls to the team title with a low secore of 36 points
- The West Springfield boys made it a clean sweep of team titles as their tally of 81 points put them 18 points better than the Cedar Ridge squad (99 pts) from North Carolina.