VHSL Group 3
The next set of races to be run will be the Group 3 championship races. These races will undoubtedly be headlined by the dualistic chase to repeat history and race to right the wrongs of last year.
What we mean by that is that the biggest headlines in Group 3 will be between Hidden Valley, Western Albemarle, and the individuals looking for that first state title.
The first race on the course will be the race that Hidden Valley has been waiting over 360 days for. This race, the girls championship race, will be their chance to win their school's first team title in eight years and third overall. It would be just that much more sweet to win this year after their one point defeat a year ago to Western Albemarle.
This year's Western team though has a lot of new faces and looks like the runner-up team this time around. Hidden Valley has used their loss to fuel them all summer and it looks to have worked as they are strong favorites heading into the meet.
The individual race on the girls side will likely be a five girl race until very late in the competition. The five girls seriously fighting for this title are: Emma Rogers (Hidden Valley), Kasandra Aulenbach (Tabb), Elle Anderson (Hidden Valley), Jacqueline Clardy-Joseph (New Kent), and Jessica Cantrell (Broadway).
All five of these girls has a serious shot at winning and also ran well a year ago in the same race. On paper is a near dead-heat between Rogers and Aulenbach who have both performed very well recently and all season long. Their battle will come down to the final mile and could be a battle with all five girls right there.
The guys individual race follows the same storyline as the girls team battle does. Last year it was Joe Hawkes (Western Albmarle) finishing in a close second individually to make him stronger than ever this year. He enters, joined by his teammate Jack Eliason, as one of the strongest 3A runners in recent history. Both runners will almost certainly be the first and second finisher this weekend.
Behind them though are some seriously good runners who will be fighting for a likely 3-4-5 finish. Those runners are Cave Spring's Austin Hayden, Christiansburg's Ethan Mills, and James Monroe's Mitch Dolby.
Expect the pace to be strong throughout with a very strong pace in the second mile. That mile will be the deciding mile Friday.
Team wise Western Albemarle leads in a very big way with Christiansburg as an almost certain second place. Cave Spring looks just as certain to be the third place team. Of course though, you have to run the race to get the results.