Concorde District:
The Herndon girls and Jefferson boys rolled to impressive victories at the Concorde District Championships held at Burke Lake Park on Thursday, October 23 and earmarked themselves as the favorites for the upcoming Northern Region Championships to be held at Burke Lake on Thursday, October 30 (Girls at 3:30 p.m. Boys to follow at 4:15 p.m.).
The Herndon girls, led by the one-two finish of seniors Kristin Hart and Heather Fisher, placed all five of their scorers under 19 minutes and also in the top ten to secure the victory with 25 points on Burke's 2.98 mile course.
Hart, Fisher and Westfield freshman Catherine Lynn dueled for the lead for most of the race. The trio passed the two mile mark in 11:57 and ran within a couple of strides of each other for the remainder of the race before Hart edged to the lead in the final 50 meters to win in 17:59 with Fisher the runnerup at 18:01 and Lynn also running 18:01 for third.
The Hornets' all senior scoring lineup then followed Hart and Fisher to the line with Jessie Erickson in fifth (18:21), Jenny Miller placing seventh at 18:36 and Carleigh Gregory rounding out the scoring in tenth place at 18:57 as Herndon now gets set to defend their 2002 regional title.
Westfield finished second with 49 points in one of the state's toughest districts led by freshman Lynn and senior Ashley Johnson (8th; 18:42). Westfield certified themselves as potentially a strong qualifier out of the region as their numbers three through six runners were all at 19:15 or better with juniors Jessie Deegan (11th; 19:08), Christina Larssen (12th; 19:09), freshman Alexis Deegan (15th; 19:13) and senior Jackie Chapman (16th; 19:15) following Lynn and Johnson.
Oakton finished third with 72 points behind the strong performances of sophomore Kayley Byrne (4th; 18:21) and junior Danielle Light (6th; 18:33) but were hurt in their chances for a lower score due to the absence of junior Allegra Smith, who is out with an injury.
Defending district champ Jefferson claimed the final regional qualifying spot with their fourth place point total of 91 points and had all district performances from senior Jen Dolson (9th; 18:45) and sophomore Katie Gambale (13th; 19:11) while Chantilly (5th; 133 points) had an individual region qualifier with freshman Lauren Howard (14th; 19:12).
The Jefferson boys squad, still smarting from two straight second place finishes in their final invitational meets, the most recent to Concorde counterpart Oakton by one point in the Glory Days Grill Invite on October 11, reversed the score on the Cougars at the district meet in beating Oakton at all five spots enroute to a winning total of 37 points.
Jefferson also had the individual district champion in Christo Landry as the Colonials senior made a concerted move at the two mile mark (10:02) and looked very strong for the final mile. Landry's winning time of 14:56 over the course which has been used for 30 years for district and regional competition, now puts him among the top twenty all time performers at Burke Lake.
The Colonials also got another solid effort from senior Chris Mocko as he considerably lowered his personal best at Burke Lake with his third place finish at 15:08. Jefferson also received strong runs from their numbers three through five in junior Kyle Smith (8th; 15:39) and seniors David Price (12th; 15:51) and John McConnell (13th; 15:53).
Runnerup Oakton also had a strong race in putting four runners under 16 minutes to finish second with 52 points. The Cougars had seniors Karl Lang (6th) and Stephen Best (7th) come in together at 15:36, received a huge race from sophomore James Phillips (9th; 15:40) and senior Kriz Cruz continued his comeback from an early season injury in 14th place (15:58).
Third place Westfield scored 63 points with their senior duo of James Scheiner and David Groff recording big Burke Lake bests. Scheiner, part of the five runner group at 10:02 for two miles along with Landry, Mocko, Groff and Herndon's Shane Young, finished well for second place at 15:05 while Groff placed fourth in 15:11. Westfield's next three runners were clumped together between 16:18-16:21 and if that group can close the gap to under a minute from their top two runners, the Bulldogs will have a strong chance in making it out of the region.
Herndon took the fourth team spot with 104 points led by senior Shane Young, who ran the fifth fastest time among all four districts but that was only able to net him fifth place overall in the highly competitive Concorde District at 15:20. Herndon also had junior Danny Gordon claim all district honors (11th; 15:48) while fifth place Chantilly (130 points) notched an individual region qualifier with sophomore Brad Siragusa (10th; 15:47).
Liberty District:
In Liberty competition, both Dawit Legesse of Lee and Nicole Pederson from South Lakes made strong moves after reaching the two mile mark to handily win the individual titles while teamwise W.T. Woodson won their first ever boys title and Langley added to their large collection of girls team titles.
The boys race had pre-meet favorites Legesse of Lee along with seniors Andrew Waring of Madison and Woodson's Jes Barron setting the early pace. Legesse, a junior, and Waring were still together at two miles (10:24) with Barron a couple of seconds behind before Legesse picked the pace up on the long incline towards the 2.25 mile marker. Legesse had lengthened his lead over Waring to about 30 meters by 2.5 miles and the Lancers junior came home the victor in 15:37.
Waring stayed solid in second place to finish at 15:45 and Madison's squad was also second in the team scoring with 49 points as the Warhawks put all five of their scorers among the top fifteen with Waring followed by Christopher Werner (8th; 16:29), Robert Zuehkle (12th; 16:43), Matt Williamson (13th; 16:45) and Andrew Cooper (14th; 16:50).
Woodson edged Madison for the title by five points as the Cavaliers placed four runners in the top ten in finishing with 44 points. Senior Jes Barron led the way once again (3rd; 16:04) with other big contributions from David Fink (5th; 16:20), Joel Censer (9th; 16:35) and Christopher Hain (10th; 16:41).
Langley was third with 91 points as Alex Gilman closed well for fourth place (16:07) and with James Evangolisti all district in 15th (16:52) while McLean took the fourth qualifying slot with 103 points led by Todd Arnts (7th; 16:25).
Lee was fifth with 112 points and will have Keith Rizza (11th; 16:42) joining Legesse as an individual regional qualifier while sixth place Fairfax (131 points) qualified Mitch Milkov (6th; 16:20).
The girls individual race saw Nicole Pederson of South Lakes pull away from a five runner group at two miles (12:32) to record a very controlled ten second victory at 18:29.
The team race had Langley put their top four runners among the first fifteen finishers with a spread of just over one minute in winning with 61 points. The Saxons had their top two runners together most of the way with Laura Lyons (4th; 19:02) and Anna Schafer (5th; 19:03) followed by Jill Zimmerman (11th; 19:55) and Lauren Cozzens (15th; 20:04).
W.T. Woodson was a close second with 66 points as their top five were all grouped less than a minute apart led by Molly Galloway (6th; 19:36), Joy Bonner (12th; 20:01) and Talia Katz (14th; 20:04).
R.E. Lee pulled into third place at 80 points with Kimberly Vowell having a very good race as the runnerup (18:39) and the Lancers also had Rachael Medler in ninth (19:45) while McLean scored 85 points for fourth and earned all district individual honors with Alanna White (10th; 1951) and Suzanne Gabriel (13th; 20:03).
South Lakes was fifth (92 points) and had Maeve O'Doherty (8th; 19:40) qualify for regionals along with her winning teammate Pederson while Madison was sixth with 146 points and had one of the top individual performances of the meet from Megan Ginley (3rd; 18:41).