Annandale senior Ahmed Bile and Colonial Forge sophomore Frances Morales were the race winners in the high school miles run on Friday evening at the Colonial Relays in Williamsburg. Bile (pictured right by Dave Watt) was looking for a fast time potentially a 4:10 performance or faster to secure his place in the Penn Relays mile, but when his top competition among the entrants in Ned Willig of Great Valley (4:11 1600/1:51 800 runner from Pennsylvania) was a no-show, the race setup was not in the cards for such a time with the returning Group AAA 1600 meter outdoor champion Bile winning in a state best time of 4:14.84. Skyline's Thomas Madden made a nice challenge late in the race to garner himself a big PR of 4:16.51 for third place, while Princess Anne's Matthew Schwartzer was able to nip him for runner-up honors in a PR as well at 4:16.32.
Top girls' entrant Kimberley Ficenec of Mountain View was scratched from the race after waking up with illness on Friday, so that opened the door for others to compete for first place. It ended up being a two-person race between Monacan's Kaila Blackburn and Colonial Forge's Frances Morales. Running with a new cast on her hand, Blackburn did much of the pacework before Morales made her pass late to secure the win in 5:02.19 with Blackburn close behind at 5:03.44. In the girls' distance medley relay held on Friday, the Kellam girls won posted an impressive time of 12:34.27 to distance themselves from the second place relay by 20 seconds.
Colonial Relays Race Videos: Girls Mile - Boys Mile - Girls DMR - Boys DMR
Colonial Relays Video Interviews: Ahmed Bile - Frances Morales
Colonial Relays HS Results: Girls Mile - Boys Mile - Girls DMR - Boys DMR