This year's meet once again holds the promise of an excellent morning and afternoon of action with more than 1,500 high school runners representing almost 60 schools ready to compete in one of the nine races scheduled on Bull Run Park's 5,000 meter (3.1 miles) layout.
The moderately hilly course offers some of the most spectator-friendly viewing of cross country races to be found anywhere in the area, as many veteran viewers will tell you.
For those first time fans to the course: positioning yourself between the starting line area and the finish line straightaway for the beginning of the races and by then following the general flow of the crowd during the race, it should allow you about a half dozen times to encourage any or all of the athletes competing.
The meet once again will be trying to fulfill high school runners and coaches needs with a variety of races scheduled, including freshman only races where the ninth graders are able to compete against their first year peers; junior varsity races for many of the runners who have put in plenty of practice time since the summer; Varsity B races scheduled with many of the smaller enrollment schools competing against the second tier of the larger schools; and then capped off by the Varsity Seeded races containing many of the top girls and boys runners from the mid Atlantic area.
This meet, formerly known as the Bull Run Invitational at its inception and for a few years beyond that, has since become the Glory Days Grill Invitational due to the sponsorship by Glory Days Grill.
"Glory Days" is now in its sixth year of sponsoring the meet and restaurant co-founders Jeff Newman, Rich Danker and Bob Garner are once again pleased to be involved in the myriad of action and cooperation needed to pull off an event which has such a large number of people in attendance.
Just as this meet seems to increase in size every year, so does Glory Days Grill with seventeen restaurants now in operation, including eight in Northern Virginia and four in suburban Maryland.
Jeff, Rich and Bob along with the rest of the Glory Days staff would like to thank in advance all of the parental volunteers involved in concessions, individual and team scoring results and other necessary forms of meet management and would especially like to thank Mike Dobson, Matt Murray, Mike Kiernan, Scott Raczko and Matt Gilchrist for all of their extra time and help in putting on this meet each and every year.
Varsity Seeded Preview: Boys
In what would seem a surprise to many, Jefferson has never won the team title although the Colonials have continually had one of the top teams in the area for the last few years and are the defending Virginia AAA champs. Last year Jefferson was the runnerup to Oakton by one point as the Cougars eked out an 82-83 win.
Jefferson had huge gaps to fill due to graduation, most notably Christo Landry and Chris Mocko. However, T.J. has recovered very well, thank you, as evidenced by their convincing win at the season opening Monroe Parker Invitational at Burke Lake and most recently at the Octoberfest Invitational at Great Meadow last weekend.
Jefferson is led by seniors Chris Katilie and Kyle Smith, with Hersh Singh running well in the number three slot and a talented group of sophomores led by Paul Norland adding plenty of depth.
Herndon, one of T.J.'s Concorde District counterparts, is coming off a strong showing at the Maymont Invitational in Richmond from last weekend and is very strong through their top three runners with Danny Gordon, Ermin Mujezinovic and Abe Daganchew all finishing among the top ten at Maymont, with just an eighteen second split separating the trio.
Lake Braddock, with their Patriot District championship meet less than three weeks away, have senior Brad Clark showing the way and will be looking to stay ahead of district rivals West Springfield, which had sophomore Mike Spooner with a solid effort at the William and Mary Invite where he finished ninth in the "A" race; Hayfield, with senior Brian Fussell one spot ahead of Spooner at William and Mary in eighth; West Potomac, which has looked good early with the emergence of Nick Jachowski and Frank Devar and an always dangerous Robinson squad.
Gaithersburg (MD) fields a very competitive team and is fresh from a runnerup showing in the A race at William and Mary where they scored 143 points with Colonial Forge from the AAA Northwest Region the winner with 115 points. Gaithersburg has two runners who should be near the front of the pack in Ryan James, who was fourth at William and Mary, and Zach Martinez.
Other top individuals and teams to watch begin with Chantilly junior Brad Siragusa, who already has notched three individual titles at invitationals this year at Monroe Parker, Lake Fairfax and Octoberfest. Siragusa is looking to continue his strong showing this season and possibly have a shot at joining former Chantilly standouts Eric Post and Billy Moore on the meet's all time performance list.
Brentsville comes into the meet as one of the top ranked schools in Virginia AA and finished 14th in the seeded section of the Meet of Champions held in Cary, NC last weekend with senior Pat Eggleston and junior Nick Gehlsen their top performers.
Good Counsel (MD) won back to back team titles in 2000-01 and always fields one of the best private school squads in the area with junior Drew Abernathy their top runner. Northwest (MD) has the top returning finisher from last year in senior Matt Logie (7th; 16:15) while Stone Bridge finished third in team scoring in the "B" race at the William and Mary Invitational with Kyle Kinnally coming in third in the individual scoring.
Defending champion Oakton has James Phillips running in the number one slot; Mount Vernon's Ermias Regassa won the "B" section of Octoberfest last week; Westfield is looking to plug some huge graduation gaps with Jon Buckland as their number one and O'Connell has Mark Dewine as their top runner.
Girls:
Just as Jefferson has been dominant within the Virginia AAA Northern Region boys, the same can be said on the Northern Region girls side for Lake Braddock. Already this season, the Bruins have rolled to an impressive victory at Monroe Parker, traveled to Hawaii and ran very well there and came back stateside last weekend to easily win the seeded division at Octoberfest.
Lake Braddock's victory at Octoberfest was especially outstanding considering that their top five scoring runners of Erin Klein, Kelsey Snowden, Kelly Sherrard, Michelle Presley and Becca Hoogland all finished within 25 seconds of each other on a fairly demanding course.
Lake Braddock has the the most team victories on the girls side with five but will be looking for their first victory since a three year streak was ended after 1999.
Looking to continue a streak on the individual side will be Hayfield senior Melissa Dewey. Thus far this season, Dewey has claimed the Monroe Parker title by over a minute, in which she became the number eleven performer all time on the Burke Lake 2.98 mile course with her 17:11.
Dewey then followed that up with an almost two minute victory at Lake Fairfax the following week and last week at the William and Mary Invitational she pulled away from the front running pack after the halfway point of the 2.85 mile course to win by 19 seconds over the highly regarded duo of Amanda Patterson of Midlothian and Western Albemarle's Tasmin Fanning.
Dewey is the Glory Days girls defending champion with her winning time last year of 18:35 moving her to number eleven on the meet's all time performer list. She certainly looks capable of improving on that time this year, and may have to, with a number of top runners in the field including senior Sarah Bowman of Fauquier.
Bowman is one of the top cross country runners in the state and also one of the top middle distance track performers ever from Virginia with wins in outdoor track last year including the high school mile run at the prestigious Penn Relays and the 800 meter run at the National Scholastic Outdoor championships.
Others to watch in the Varsity Seeded section include Oakton, which finished a very fine fourth place in the Race of Champions section at the Meet of Champions in Cary, NC last week with their top three of junior Kayley Byrne along with seniors Allegra Smith and Danielle Light all top ten finishers at Glory Days last year.
Good Counsel has the next highest returning finisher from last year's meet behind the Oakton trio, Dewey of Hayfield and Lake Braddock's Snowden (5th) in Rachel Bentley, who was 13th last year, while Brentsville's Becky Stewart finished fifth in the "Red" Division at the Meet of Champions last week.
Potomac Falls is fresh off a team victory at the Don Stoner Invite in Smithsburg, MD with their junior Kiersten Peterson claiming the individual crown while C. Milton Wright (MD) claimed the team title at the Harford (MD) Invitational last week with Alison Barnes the individual winner by 20 seconds.
Others to watch near the front include W.T. Woodson's Sarah Scott; Westfield's group of Alexis Deegan, Christine Mowatt-Larssen and Catherine Lynn; Octoberfest runnerup Stephanie Garcia of Broad Run; West Potomac's Laura Regensburg; the Robinson duo of Susan Brooks and Jennifer Hovland; Fairfax sophomore Jessica Trapeni and O'Connell's Christine Walls.
Further Reminders:
Concessions will be sold throughout the meet at the tables behind the press box area and there will also be a tent set up for sales of tee shirts and hats.
Port-a-johns can be found beyond the press box near the end of the gravel area.
Team and individual awards ceremony will be at the pavilion down the hill and to the left of the press box area approximately fifteen minutes after the conclusion of the final race (Girls Varsity Seeded).
Please do not crowd the finish line straightaway and impede any of the runners who are valiantly trying to complete the 3.1 mile course as quickly as possible.
Results will be posted during the meet and Complete Results will be sent to www.milestat.com immediately following the conclusion of the meet. Brandon Miles should have them posted for all to see via the Internet by tomorrow morning, and possibly by as soon as this evening.
Please do not leave any trash discarded on the grounds of the park when leaving the meet. Mike Dobson has been working hard enough these last two days to also have to be picking up other people's garbage as nightfall approaches.
Thanks in advance and good luck to all participants.