5A North Coverage:
The George Marshall boys and girls swept the 5A North Regional cross country team titles on Wednesday at Burke Lake Park. A program that struggled to field a team to make it to the state meet in the old 3 classification system, the program is thriving in the 6 classification at the 5A level as shown this week with their boys and girls claiming regional titles at Burke Lake.
Heather Holt led the girls squad winning her third straight regional cross country title with a 17:06 clocking. The George C. Marshall girls defeated the defending 5A state champions in Tuscarora and certainly have momentum on their side to shoot for the 5A state title next Saturday at Great Meadow.
The boys squeaked out a very close team win by 3 points over last year's 5A state champions from Thomas Jefferson. Patrick Lynch was the top individual finisher for the George Marshall boys in third place with a time of 15:24, while the remaining top 5 averaged 16:21 as a group. The state meet will be very a close team race especially when factoring in the top teams advancing from 5A South including Deep Run, but George Marshall boys really shook up the pecking order with their upset win on Saturday.
The recent University of Virginia commit Saurav Velleleth was able to comfortably pull away from his challengers after hitting the two mile mark in 10:12. Velleleth was just two seconds off his conference performance a week ago in cooler temperatures with a 15:13 clocking. Velleleth, a state indoor champion last year in 3200, will be one of Waleed Suliman's top challengers in the 5A state race next weekend.