Glory Days Grill Invitational Preview

Welcome to all competitors, coaches, parents and all other followers of cross country to the 10th Anniversary edition of the Glory Days Grill XC Invitational. After a one year hiatus as a result of the unfortunate sniper situation of last fall, the Glory Days Grill cross country meet is back in the saddle again and looks this year to have the promise of being the largest and best ever.

The races which will be held at Bull Run Regional Park today offer some of the best sight views of a meet to be held anywhere in the area. The fan friendly course offers up close vantage points in at least a half dozen spots, with minimal walking necessary.

Not sure where to go. Just try and follow the general crowd or some people who look like they are in the know, and you should have a good chance to be at the right spot to root on the runners.

This meet, formerly known as the Bull Run Invitational, is glad once again to have Glory Days Grill as their sponsors. Glory Days has been directly involved for the last five years in keeping the meet at its high level and it is just one of the myriad of sponsoring and sports community involvement which the Glory Days Grill front office headed by Jeff Newman, Rich Danker and Bob Garner partake.

The Glory Days staff would like to thank in advance today all of the parental volunteers involved in concessions, scoring and other forms of meet management in addition to meet director Matt Murray along with meet coordinators Mike Dobson, Mike Kiernan, Scott Raczko and Matt Gilchrist, and especiallly the competitive athletes in all levels of today's races who make this annual meet a very worthwhile venture.

This year's slate of events is expected to draw over 50 schools representing most of the Northern Virginia area and also includes a number of schools from Maryland, the District of Columbia and also welcomes Cathedral from Massachusetts.

The course is set for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) and with rain fed remnants from Hurrican Isabel still possibly lurking on the course, the course may be slightly altered in what may be a race day decision. If that is done, meet management will still due its utmost to have the course be as close to 5k as possible and will remark the one mile and two mile checkpoints to accommodate everyone.

The moderately hilly course with a very challenging long uphill close to the end of the course followed by the exciting downhill finish should have the Varsity Seeded Boys and Girls Divisions having top notch competition.

With the district championships less than two weeks away for everyone, and almost all schools missing competition the last two weeks in September, virtually all teams will have to be ready to line up and be prepared to show that they are close to prime form.

The junior varsity races will once again have a huge number of participants in this competitor friendly meet and the Varsity "B" races should also provide stiff competition for those squads which are generally from the smaller populated schools sprinkled with the numbers eight through fourteen runners of the large populated schools.

The Varsity seeded girls race has a number of the top schools from throughout the state entered with Prince William County's Forest Park High from the Northwest Region and Herndon from the Northern Region exhibiting the most promise in the early season among those teams scheduled to compete.

Forest Park won last week's Octoberfest Invitational "A" race held at the Great Meadow course in Fauquier County and also had the individual winner in junior Beth Fahey. Forest Park's chances are also greatly aided by sophomore Stefanie Slekis, who is running as a solid number two runner for the Bruins behind Fahey.

Herndon won the season opening Monroe Parker Invitational held at Burke Lake Park and a week later captured the Great Meadow Invite. Last weekend the Hornets were the top squad from the Northern Region at the William and Mary Invitational in Williamsburg with the their fourth place finish and are led by a tough running front trio of Kristin Hart, Heather Fisher and Jessie Erickson.

Other top teams include Oakton, the Octoberfest runnerup with a strong trio of their own in Kayley Byrne, Allegra Smith and Danielle Light; Lake Braddock with Kelsey Snowden their top runner and Hayfield with junior Melissa Dewey, who won the individual title at Monroe Parker and was the top Northern Region finisher at both the Great Meadow and William and Mary Invites.

Other top individuals to watch include Westfield's Ashley Johnson; the Yorktown duo of Katie Read and Becca Shinners; Stephanie Garcia of Broad Run.

The boys Varsity Seeded race has defending AAA state champion Jefferson as the team to beat. The Colonials captured the Monroe Parker meet and were runnersup at last week's Octoberfest. Jefferson is led by senior Christo Landry, one of the state's top cross country runners for the last three years with senior Chris Mocko very solid in the number two slot and senior David Price continuing to improve.

Westfield ran a strong second to Jefferson at the Monroe Parker meet with senior James Scheiner the individual winner and his senior teammate David Groff the runnerup. This will be the first matchup in over a month involving Concorde District counterparts Jefferson and Westfield as they get their final chance before the championship season begins to assess their relative strengths.

Lake Braddock should also be a factor and will be looking for at least a top three team finish led by Brad Clark and Danny Howick.

Top individuals to watch include Forest Park's Bryce Iverson, the Octoberest "A" division winner; Hayfield's Brian Fussell and Sean Riley; senior Shane Young of Herndon; Madison's Andrew Waring, W.T. Woodson's Jes Barron and Lee's Dawit Legesse from the Liberty District; Brandon Dick of Massaponax; Mount Vernon's Ermias Regassa; senior Sam Rhodes of Robinson and West Springfield senior Steve Tobin, the individual winner last Saturday at the Salesianum (Delaware) Invitational.

In keeping with the competitor and spectator friendly atmosphere, the presentation of numerous individual and team awards will be held approximately 15 minutes following the final race in the pavilion area. Good luck to all and don't forget to have a safe drive home.