Complete results and highlights from the Liberty Christmas High School Invitational held on Saturday, December 7th in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Liberty Christmas Invitational Meet Results:
Boys Highlights:
- While their Blacksburg girl teammates were competing out in Oregon at Nike Cross Nationals, the Blacksburg boys distance crew were doing work in their first indoor races of the season at Liberty University. Kenneth Hagen was the team's top performer on Saturday as he finished as a close runner-up to Albemarle senior Ryan Thomas (4:25.36) in the 1600 meter run with a time of 4:26.38 and then came back to win the 1000 meter run in in a new PR and state leading time of 2:33.27. Blacksburg went 1-2-3 in the 1000 meter run with Hagen, Jacob McCoy (2nd, 2:38.16) and Michael Carter (3rd, 2:39.26).
- Oakton's John Stoney did not end his season with a Foot Locker Nationals berth, but instead a 5K PR in Charlotte last weekend. He also took care of business of state auto qualifying time in the 3200 meter run this weekend using his cross country fitness and momentum from winning the 6A state title this fall with a 9:36.83 victory at LU. He was trailed in second place by another state champion this fall in private school state XC champ (Div 2) Miles Clikeman of Veritas School in a personal best time of 9:45.10.
- William Byrd's Marcellus Fletcher and Louisa County's Raeshawn Bishop had a great battle in the triple jump competition as both figure to contend to state titles in their respective classifications of 3A for Fletcher and 4A for Bishop after competing against each last year in Group AA. Fletcher, last spring's Group AA state outdoor triple jump started his season with a winning mark of 46'0.75" at Liberty while Bishop was a couple inches behind as the event runner-up at 45'8.25".
- Liberty Christian Academy's Cameron Holdren found himself in a great high jump duel with Isaiah Moore from Cummings High School in North Carolina, who also won the long jump on Saturday. Holdren, the private school state runner-up in the high jump and state champ in the long jump, was able to win on a tiebreaker of earlier misses by Moore with both clearing a height of 6'6".
Girls Highlights:
- Battlefield senior Ellison Grove never broke 3 minutes last winter in the 1000 meter run after being expected to run that time following a 2:10 800 meter time as a sophomore two springs ago. Coming off winning her first state title last spring in the 800, Grove did not wait to join the sub 3 minute club in the 1000 with an early national and state leading time of 2:58.72.
- An incredibly deep girls 3200 field was assembled Saturday at the Tolsma Track Center in Liberty University which could be seen in the results with a 1-2 finish from Oakton's front runners Allie Klimkiewicz (1st, 10:53) and Hailey Dougherty (2nd, 11:05) followed by Jefferson Forest's Erin Saunders (3rd, 11:05) and Veritas School's Morgan Lewis (4th, 11:15) making for easily the top four fastest 3200 times in the state at this point of the season.
Below are the performances entered for the meet that met the national silver standard.
34 National Elites.