2A State Meet Preview
The 2A classification races, which will be the the first races on Saturday, will get things started in a big way for day two. These races will feature four-time defending team champions Maggie Walker on both sides and defending individual champions William Miller and Jessey Ball. These two represent the only classification with both 2016 champions back to defend their titles.
In the 2A girls race it will be a tough battle between Ball and sophomore star Mary Caroline Heinen of Maggie Walker who has run a blistering 18:01 already this season. Ball has faced injury for most of the year and has only gone 19:18 this season but has had some very strong workouts in the past few weeks.
Joining these two stars will be Clara Wincheski of Bruton who has run 18:29 this season and has a proven record of stepping up big on the biggest stages. This includes being a two-time state champion in track. Also entered in the race will be last year's runner-up Madison Webster of Clarke County.
What we know going in is that Jessey Ball might have the best fitness of all three girls but has not had the best season. Clara is the veteran of the group as a senior and MC Heinen, as she is called by her teammates, looks to be one of the toughest runners we have ever seen. All three will push the pace but we do know that MC does not like to trail in a race so you can expect her to be the main girl pushing the pace the entire way.
In the team battle it looks to be all Maggie Walker with George Mason and Floyd County fighting for a likely second place finish.
Over in the boys race Maggie Walker also enters as the strong favorite. Their main competition though will be from Wilson Memorial and James River Buchanan.
Individually leading the way with his 15:34 on the season is defending champion William Miller. Fellow junior, Oliver Wilson-Cook (R.E.L.) enters as a strong rival to Miller and his hopes of repeating. Wilson-Cook has run 15:44 already this season and has a lot of motivation to improve on his third place finish from a year ago.
Chasing them will be the Maggie Walker duo of Adam Sachs and Jack Jeffrey as well as Clint Gault (Poquoson) and John Easton (Lebanon) who all have run between 16:04 and 16:20 this season. With cold weather expected you can certainly expect a close race.
The 2A races will be run at 10:30am and 11:15am Saturday.