Thankfully for Albemarle's Liz Barclay, the road to a Group AAA state cross country title does not run through the Woodberry Forest course or Trinity junior Barbara Strehler (pictured left by David Fleenor). As this past Saturday showed at the Woodberry Forest Invite, both are formidable obstacles as the top ranked private school runner (#15 in Virginia) in Strehler defeated the top ranked AAA ranked runner (#2 in Virginia) in Barclay by a sizeable 35 second margin. Strehler clocked in at 19:11, while Barclay finished a distant second in 19:35 as Trinity also beat out Albemarle for second place as a team with 96 points. The Chancellor girls took home first place hardward quite easily with five runners among the top 15 finishers as their top finishers were Elisa Zappas (5th, 20:53), Sam Huffman (6th, 20:56), Leah Schubel (9th, 21:23), Peyton Lowe (11th, 21:34), and Theresa Basilica (15th, 22:09). The Albemarle boys (43 pts) were on the other end of surprises as they used a 49 second spread among their top five to upset of Virginia's #7 ranked squad in Fork Union (2nd, 56 pts) with Luke Noble as Coach Buz Male's top finisher in third at 17:01. Coach Male appears to know how to have his troops ready to compete at Woodberry Forest as while coaching at Miller School last fall, his team finished second on a sixth man tiebreaker for the Division II title. Fork Union was led by race champion Jeremy Haney, who clocked in at 16:47 on the Woodberry Forest 5K course.
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Private school\'s best Strehler upsets AAA\'s best Barclay at Woodberry Forest
Sep 15, 2007