WOODBERRY FOREST, VA -- As a first time visitor to the Woodberry Forest 5K course and the Virginia Independent Schools State Championships, I\'m hooked. I cannot wait for next year\'s VIS State Meet to be held at Woodberry! A challenging and true cross country course with great competition that is cemented with genuine sportsmanship between the rival teams, athletes, and coaches, it is a breath of fresh air from some of the uglier aspects of the sport I\'ve been witnessing elsewhere. Plenty of great stories in the day that was the 2006 Virginia Independent Schools Cross Country State Championships.
First, there was the headline story coming in and the team that has been garnering all the attention and press ink all season with the Fork Union boys. Coming into the meet, Fork Union appeared to have a squad that could make a run at the meet scoring record since its been held at Woodberry Forest of 29 points set in 1993 by a strong Paul VI team. Despite a stronge challenge from one of Coach Ben Hale\'s better Woodberry Forest teams, Fork Union was able to claim its second straight VIS state title and tally a team score just under the 1993 benchmark with 28 points. Coach Winston Brown\'s Blue Devils achieved the feat by putting six runners in the top 12 including race champion Axel Mostrag at 16:30. Behind Mostrag were teammates Jeremy Haney (3rd, 17:03), David Johnson (6th, 17:20), Szymon Rola (7th, 17:27), Patrick Hayes (11th, 17:45), and Jamie Reichlen (12th, 17:45) to give Fork Union a 15 point win over Woodberry Forest.
Fork Union averaged 17:13 on the challenging Woodberry Forest 5K course as unseasonably warm temperatures and a touch of humidity caught many runners on the day off guard after having just acclimated to the colder late fall weather. In comparison to the 2005 Fork Union state champion team, Fork Union averaged 1 second slower as a team at 17:13 and won by 2 points more over Woodberry Forest (17 pt margin win in 2005). It would appear based on those stats alone Fork Union is pretty identical to last year\'s group, but hold your horses on that assumption.
Not only should the warmer temperatures and a stronger Woodberry Forest team than in 2005 be taken into consideration, but Fork Union is clearly a deeper team this year with a sixth runner at 17:45 in Woodberry Forest and finishing in the top 12 when Fork Union\'s fifth in the 2005 VIS State Championships did not even break into the top 40 individually and barely dipped uner 18:30. Lets go back to the beginning with FUMA\'s team score of 28 points. Probably the most telling stat of the meet in how much stronger Fork Union is as a team as this year\'s point total is 39 points lower than last year.
The top three teams in the Division I boys race were in a class of their own from the rest in the championship field with Fork Union, Woodberry Forest (2nd, 43 pts), and Collegiate (3rd, 67 pts) all have a dominant showing with handfuls of runners each in the top half of the field. Collegiate\'s ace in senior Matthew Richardson gave defending Division I champ Mostrag all he could handle during the race. The two runners locked up early on in the race and ended up breaking away from the field as they raced with each other for two miles. In the final mile, Mostrag was able to make a move to distance himself from Richardson and thought he could coast in on a pretty sharp and blindspot final turn into the finish. If no one were to warn Mostrag that Richardson was coming the defending VISAA 3200 meter outdoor state champion might have stolen the race from Mostrag. However, Richardson ended up a very close second in a final time of 16:31 as he finished less than a second behind and right on the heels of the two-time state champ Mostrag.
Covenant junior Austin Ellis may not have had the opportunity to race Mostrag head to head, but certainly was going to try and follow up Mostrag\'s time in the Division II championship race. The defending Division II state champ was given a great push to run a decent time from Potomac School junior Johns Ross as Ross ran with Ellis for the first two miles of the race. However, Ellis was able to make a strong move and really distance himself in the final mile and put nearly 30 seconds on Ellis to close strong in 16:38. Immediately as Ellis crossed the line he turned back to ask the meet timers for his unofficial time only to find he was eight seconds off the fastest time of the day held by Mostrag at 16:30. Ellis clearly had a lot of the tank to finish with a prompt question ready to fire away. However, so did Mostrag in his Division I championship as he was cruising it in a little too easy for comfort.
Ellis had no trouble finding a close finish in the team scoring as his team Covenant and Miller School had a classic team battle that will be remember for years to come. On rare occassions, teams share the same point totals after scoring through five runners to force a tiebreaker to award the team with the highest finishing sixth runner. On even more rare occassions, the sixth man tiebreaker is used to decide a state championship between two teams as was the case on Friday at Woodberry in the Division II boys race with both VIC teams Miller School and Covenant tallying 93 points after five and Miller School\'s sixth man giving Coach Buz Male a state championship cross country team.
After coaching state champion teams and individuals previously at Episcopal School and Langley High School as well as All-Americans at University of Virginia, Buz got his first state championship under the helm at Miller School in probably his most fulfilling and finest coaching job done in his career getting by with a team of less bodies and talent than at his previous schools. But he made his kids believe in him and the sport and that is reason why Miller School has its first cross country state championship thanks in large part to a great coach and more importantly great person in Buz Male.
The impressive truth of Miller School\'s win is they did it as a team without any true front runners as six of the top seven teams in the Division II race had a finisher before Miller School\'s first in Max Hensley (10th, 17:39) including three teams in Potomac School (3rd, 130 pts), Roanoke Catholic (5th, 158 pts), and Eastern Mennonite (7th, 218 pts) having two runners finish before Hensley. However, many times the best packed team wins as the 1:05 time spread for Miller School\'s top five was far superior to any other team in the race with Hensley, Hunter Johnson (17th, 18:01), Jesse Shannon (20th, 18:13), Peyton Bertwell (29th, 18:44), and D\'Andre Corbin (30th, 18:44).
Covenant\'s team performance should be recognized as well though as it was not just a win from Ellis that nearly gave them a state championship as Joe Souter (18th, 18:02), Matthew Hill (22nd, 18:15), Low Hendley (31st, 18:49), and Bryce Johnson (33rd, 19:00) made up their state runner-up top five.
Last year\'s state championship was a cakewalk for Paul VI as they won by a 45 point margin. Another state championship would be much tougher for Coach Kiernan\'s girls in 2006 as they were not even ranked #1 coming into the meet as they had been defeated by WCAC rival Bishop O\'Connell already on two occassions this season. O\'Connell was expected to very tough up front on Friday with Megan Fitzpatrick and Katie Walls, but it was the team\'s improved depth behind them that had elevated O\'Connell over the defending champs Paul VI as of late.
Fitzpatrick and Walls did not disappoint at Woodberry Forest as Fitzpatrick had a strong state runner-up performance at 20:04, while Walls garnered a fourth place run of 20:44 to make coach and mom Cindy Walls proud. However, Paul VI\'s depth was too much to overcome as well as top six performances from Michelle Kew (3rd, 20:35) and Kelsey Budd (6th, 20:49) helped minimalize the impact of the O\'Connell front two. With 73 points, Paul VI defeated O\'Connell (88 pts) by a 15 point margin due greatly as a result to the races from their three through five runners in Lee Shine (16th, 21:59), Nichole Kauffman (25th, 22:35), and Mackenzie Singh (26th, 22:37).
There was a point of the race in which O\'Connell looked to be in position for the win but one of their top five runners had to stop due to asthma problems as Friday\'s unseasonably warm and humid temperatures and Woodberry Forest\'s hills certainly did not help to control the issue. Run this race one week later in cooler temperatures and the team finishes could be reversed, but the best team on this day came out on top in Paul VI.
There was no showdown between the top two private school individual girls this fall in Trinity sophomore Barbara Strehler and North Cross junior Jane Gay. The size of Gay\'s school relegated her to the small school race in Division II with Strehler competing in Division I. However, both were pushed by two tough individuals in their race and had company for the majority of their races.
In the Division I championship race, Strehler battled with Bishop O\'Connell\'s top runner Fitzpatrick until late in the race in the final mile as she pulled away in an impressive 19:52 win to finish 12 seconds ahead of the O\'Connell runner. For Strehler, it was her first state championship as well as the first one in Trinity Episcopal School history for the Richmond private school. She hopes to add two more for herself and Trinity with two more years of high school still remaining for this promising young runner.
Gay had a bit of an advantage in getting a chance to see the time Strehler put up to see how hard she needed to run to better it in the later Division II championship race. Potomac School senior Michaeline Nelson definitely helped pace Gay to a faster time as Nelson raced fearless in the first mile by going out fast and making Gay chase her. The hot early pace caught to Nelson as Gay seized the lead from her midway through and continued to pour it on in the last half to a swift 19:22 win. Defending AAA state champion Rachel Rose of Albemarle had ran only three seconds faster earlier in the season on the same course to win the Woodberry Forest Invitational in September. Gay\'s time was the fastest of the day by 30 seconds over Strehler, but still would have been exciting to see the two race each other for the first time this season head to head. Maybe Foot Locker? Gay is headed down to Charlotte to compete in the seeded race to represent Virginia and the private school ranks. Hopefully Strehler can make the trip to McAlpine \"Speedway\" as well to get the race we all had been hoping to see on Friday at Woodberry Forest.
While Nelson ended up finishing second to Gay by 56 seconds with a final time of 20:18, it was by far her best race of the season and best at Woodberry as she also helped to lead The Potomac School girls (57 pts) to a five point victory over Peninsula Catholic (62 pts). Potomac School had four runners in the top 20 places with Nelson, Shivani Kocchar (5th, 21:14), Lucy Green (13th, 21:51), and Louisa Wall (20th, 22:14).
The door was still open for Peninsula Catholic though after the fourth finisher came in for Potomac School as the Newport News private school team had their six runner Blythe Fiscella (22nd, 22:15) cross the line right after Potomac\'s fourth Wall. However, Potomac School\'s fifth finally came across the line to shut the door closed firmly for state championship with Nina Castelli taking 28th place (22:49).
The Peninsula Catholic girls nearly pulled off a state championship in a similar fashion to the Miller School boys with the power of a pack as while Amanda Panholzer (6th, 21:29) was solid up front for PC, it was a 16 second spread between their second and sixth runners in Colleen Thom (14th, 21:59), Kylie Regan (17th, 22:07), Katie Mlynczak (18th, 22:10), and Kimmy Fiscella (19th, 22:12) that made things interesting fast in the team scoring department between them and Potomac School.
In getting my hands on a very informative meet program which includes a history of the VIS Championships since the first meet held in 1965 at Randolph-Macon College\'s. 2.2 mile course as well as the first girls\' race in 1979 at the 2.1 mile course found at Roslyn Park in Richmond, I came across some very interesting facts.
MileStat.com photographer David Fleenor and contributor of photos for the 2006 VIS Championships was the 1987 VIS State Champion in a time of 16:07 after finishing second (16:15) in 1986 and third in 1985 (17:03). Mostrag could only have dreamed to have been able to hang with the young Fleenor.
If you get a Keino at your school, you are guaranteed to have at least two VIS individual state titles from them as the older Martin Keino won in 17:24 in 1988 and posted a 16:00 in a first place finish in 1989, while the youngest Kippy Keino was a two-time champion in 2001 (16:27) and 2002 (16:05).
While Fork Union\'s 28 points on Friday sets the meet team low scoring record in VIS Championship meets held at Woodberry Forest, it still does not hold up to the 1967 Hargrave Military Academy squad that swept the top three individual places onto a 19 point winning score.
There is no asterik though with Fork Union moving ahead as now the lone team on the leaderboard for most team championships as their 2006 VIS victory broke a three team tie of six state titles between Fork Union, Paul VI, and Woodberry Forest with Coach Brown\'s boys claiming the seventh state team championship in the school\'s history. Bishop O\'Connell and St. Christopher\'s have the next highest totals as both share five state championships.
In the meet\'s 41 year history, it has been hosted at Woodberry Forest on 31 occassions at different distances of 2.5 miles (1968, 1970), 3 miles (1974, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982), and has stayed at the 5K distance and as a permanent site of the meet since 1982.
St. Catherine\'s girls better get it together next year as two state championships in a row for Paul VI has now created a tie among the schools with the most team state championships as both have won eight each.
Too bad MileStat.com did not exist in 1993 to capture the first of eventual six VIS state championships by Miss Livick of St. Catherine\'s. If any future girls are looking to break her mark, they better be ready to win the state meet as sixth graders because Livick claimed her first title as a seventh grader.