Despite many of the schools originally entered unable to attend due to travel restrictions from Tropical Storm Hanna traveling through Virginia on Saturday, the Fork Union Invitational still happened with over a dozen schools willing to brave the weather and travel to compete at the Hardy National 3 mile course.
Herndon was making a rare appearance of a Northern Region school to compete at Fork Union and the Hornets made the best of the conditions with first place team finishes for both boys and girls. Herndon and Spotswood had a very close race for the boys' team title as Herndon knocked off the #9 ranked team in Virginia by four points with a team score of 47 points.
Photo by Tom Hoerner
Spotswood's Matt Hoerner won his first major invitational race in a time of 16:31, while Herndon had the next two finishers in Todd Van Luling (2nd, 16:37) and Jack Jasper (3rd, 16:39). The scoring difference was very narrow between the two teams as only a point or two separated them through #1 through #5 runners. With their victory at FUMA, the Herndon boys should start gaining more consideration as a team to contend for a state meet spot from the Northern Region.
Photo by Tom Hoerner
Hiruni Wijayaratne and the Herndon girls were runaway winners in the girls' race with nearly a full minute separating Wijayaratne from second place finisher Janel Reeves (2nd, 19:56) of Brookville in her 18:59 victory. Four of the next six finishers were teammates of race winner Wijayaratne with Jessica Wilds (3rd, 20:03), Carly Kulik (4th, 20:23), Laura Ortel (6th, 20:41), and Carolyn Hennessey (7th, 20:55). With course running close to a minute slower given Saturday's weather conditions, the Herndon girls could have seen five easily under 20 minutes on the 3 mile course on a more ideal day. The Lady Hornets compiled an extremely low score of 21 points to put them well ahead of Brookville with 101 points and Fluvanna County, which was close behind in third with 106 points.
With the Great Meadow Invitational canceled, Hortonville High School from Wisconsin was stuck in Virginia without a cross country meet to compete. However, Fork Union coach Winston Brown was willing to accomodate and allow a last second entry for the out-of-state team. Horntonville is coached by former Manchester cross country coach Kevin Sours, who led the Lancers to a state championships in the late 1990s with both boys and girls teams. This was certainly the first time that any of the Wisconsin runners can say that they ran in a tropical storm as tropical storms or hurricanes are geographically impossible of occuring in their homestate. Hortonville girls and boys both placed fourth in the team standings.
Fork Union Invitational Results: Boys - Girls - Middle School