Great American Cross Country Festival
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Midlothian boys...3rd in Nike ROC
Midlothian boys...2nd in Nike ROC
Link to Great American Meet Summary
William & Mary Invitational
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Fork Union faced a light test at the William & Mary Invitational against two solid Virginia teams in Jamestown and John Handley. Handley had been coming off two consecutive wins over SE #3 preseason ranked Clarke County, while Jamestown was finally racing at full strength. Coach Winston Brown\'s squad at FUMA were big winners on the 3.05 mile Eastern State Hospital course in Williamsburg, Virginia as they were 61 point winners in one of the state\'s largest invitationals. Fork Union had five runners under 17 minutes on the day as they were led by 3:53 1500 meter runner Axel Mostrag, finishing third overall in a time of 15:48. Rounding out Fork Union\'s top five were Szymon Rola (14th, 16:20), Jeremy Haney (20th, 16:33), David Johnson (21st, 16:35), and Jamie Reichlen (31st, 16:49) as the team had roughly a minute gap between their top five. The SE #4 Fork Union boys will get their first big test and maybe only one with NTN implications next weekend at the Maymont Cross Country Festival as they will face off with a higher ranked squad in SE #3 Thomas Jefferson as well as #6 Chapel Hill of North Carolina and SE #9 Hermitage.
John Handley is a much better team as shown as their usual #5 runner Austin Cote had an off day finishing in 105th place. With Cote having a par race, the gap between Fork Union and John Handley is significantly smaller. The Judges had a solid run from Daniel Carlton, finishing 12th in 16:15 as he had been running as the team\'s #4 runner. The team\'s #1 runner Clint Schiavone also had an off day running #3 for the team in 26th place (16:42).
Jamestown had four runners under 17 minutes with Andrew Colley (10th, 16:12), Andrew Mearns (19th, 16:32), Colin Mearns (30th, 16:47), and Russell Hornsby (37th, 16:56). Jamestown will also be competing next week against NTN ranked teams at Maymont.
Cox senior Eddie Judge picked up a big individual win in winning the \"A\" race at Eastern State in a time of 15:40 as Nick Bax of St. Albans (DC) took runner-up to the Eastern Region favorite in 15:46. A total of six runners dipped under 16 minutes in the \"A\" race with Judge, Bax, Mostrag, James River\'s Charlie Schmitt (4th, 15:53), Turner Ashby\'s Alex Ott (5th, 15:56), and James Robinson\'s Dan McHale (6th, 15:57).
Brad Kenimer of T.C. Williams continued what has been a breakthrough fall of racing to finish third in the \"B\" race with a time of 15:51. The \"B\" race turned out to have the fastest time of the day as Bryan Beegle of Gettsyburg (PA) bested \"A\" race winner Judge by one second with his first place time of 15:39 in the \"B\" race. With 111 points, Mills Godwin won the \"B\" division.
Covenant\'s Austin Ellis took the \"C\" race in 16:14 as he led his team to a victory in the division as well with 93 points.
James River junior Kristen Wolfe successfully won her second William & Mary Invitational as pulled away early for a 18:35 win as their was a nearly duplicate top three finish from the 2005 race. Great Bridge senior and defending AAA 1600 meter state champion Kristy Tobin finished second to Wolfe at Eastern State for the second year in a row with a time of 18:50 as she barely held of Colonial Forge\'s Kaylan Comer, who improved one place from last year in finishing third in an identical time to Tobin at 18:50.
Comer was the top finisher for the \"A\" race champion Colonial Forge girls with 115 points as they were challenged by Western Branch in second place with 120 points. Molly Hawkins (19:42), Kathleen Wade (19:56), Jordan Zarone (20:20), Laura Bryant, and Kelly Doescher (20:33) were all under the equivalent to a sub 21 5K on the 3.05 mile course.
Western Branch had a solid front two in Callen Powers (19:24) and Kayleigh Lewellyn (19:25) finishing right together. Nicole Augins (20:10), Casey Gresham (20:13), and Katie De La Rosa (20:22) rounded out the top five for the current favorites to win the Eastern Region title.
Lee-Davis has one of the top freshmen distance runners in the state in Amanda Lineberry as only Wolfe ran a faster time on the day as Lineberry won the \"B\" race in a time of 18:48. It was Lineberry\'s second consecutive major invite win as she won the Lee-Davis Invite last weekend at Pole Green Park.
The Central Region swept the individual titles among the girls as Cosby\'s Jenna Moye won the \"C\" race by 47 seconds with a time of 19:23.
Spiked Shoe Invitational
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Teams from West Potomac and Manchester ventured north to compete against some solid competition at the Spiked Shoe Invitational held at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania. The performances by Virginians were highlighted by the individual runs by West Potomac junior Elizabeth Heath and Manchester senior Andrew Duty.
Duty finished fifth in the boys\' race with a time of 16:25.20. The race was won by one of the top returning distance runners in the nation in Colts Neck (NJ) senior Craig Forys in 15:20.55. Duty has had a solid start to his cross country season including a runner-up finish at the Fork Union Invitational two weekends ago to one of the top returning middle distance runners in the national in Fork Union senior Axel Mostrag. Duty helped lead the Lancers to a fourth place team finish overall with 188 points as they had three runners behind Duty under 18 minutes in Jason Thorpe (34th, 17:33.05), Justin Dibernardo (38th, 17:37.25), and Bobby Smith (41st, 17:37.70).
The West Potomac boys finished sixth as a team and 14 points behind Manchester as they were led by Kelly Carmichael in 17th place with a time of 17:16.55, while Paul Devar (23rd, 17:23.7), Christopher Derose (36th, 17:35.60), Ben Hammond (54th, 17:52.30), and Thom Hammond (74th, 18:08.65) rounded out the Wolverines\' top five.
West Potomac coach Don Beeby\'s girls fared one place better than the boys finishing fifth with 184 points as they were led by junior Elizabeth Heath\'s 7th place run of 18:54.45 as she was able to finish ahead of number three runner from the famed Saratoga Springs program of New York.
Kelly Jemison (19th, 19:53.60) also had a solid run for West Potomac to finish in the top 20 individually, while Julianna Bigler (35th, 20:32.25), Amelia Cooksey (49th, 21:02.50), and Brooke Regensburg (5th, 21:38.90) rounded out the team scoring.
The Manchester girls were further back in 19th place (501 pts) as Amanda Rush (60th, 21:17.95) was the team\'s top finisher.
Iolani Invitational
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Virginia dominated the Iolani Invitational in Hawaii as teams from Westfield and Oakton decided to take mid-season vacations to paradise. Westfield and Oakton girls figured to have close team battles in the Northern Region this season and the small points margin between the two teams was no different many time zones away at the Kuhuola Ranch in Hawaii. Westfield won the championship race at the Iolani Invite with 54 points as Oakton finished a close second with 60 points.
Westfield was tough up front with three finishers in before Oakton\'s top finisher Hallie Eilerts (11th, 20:44.76) in junior Tasia Potasinski (5th, 19:50.40), Brittany Sevachko (8th, 20:33.28), and Laura Pramstaller (10th, 20:39.03) on the challenging three mile course.
However, Oakton was better packed to keep it close as only 17 seconds separated their top five behind Eilerts in sophomore Jenna Cahill (14th, 20:56.53), senior Meredith Tighe (16th, 20:57.28), sophomore Becca Kassabian (19th, 21:02.59), and junior Nora Meehan (21st, 21:03.61).
The Oakton boys did not travel with their female counterparts to Hawaii, but the Westfield boys did to finish a solid third place with 132 points as they were led by a top ten finish from sophomore Jack Canatsey (10th, 17:35.82).
Embry-Riddle/Smoothie King Invitational
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Must have been a good weekend to travel as teams from Virginia made trips to Alabama, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and Florida as Coach Dave Davis took his Mountain View boys and girls\' cross country teams to Daytona Beach for the Embry-Riddle/Smoothie King Invitational. Hopefully, the team took a trip to Smoothie King afterwards as conditions were awful and humid in Hoover and had to have been just as bad further south in Daytona.
The Mountain View boys were victorious over a solid field of teams from Florida as they scored a low team score of 34 points. The team was led by race champion and sophomore Thomas Porter, who was the only runner to dip under 17 minutes in a winning time of 16:47.73. Mountain View had a total of six runners in the top 15 with Porter, Max Desens (5th, 17:36.99), Andrew Storey (7th, 17:55.42), Chris Brown (10th, 18:03.89), Alxe Brown 911th, 18:05.98), and Ryan Yingling (14th, 18:21.21).
Second and third place finishes from Heather Lambert (2nd, 20:27.25) and Emma Bohman (3rd, 20:28.34) led the Mountain Views to third place team finish with 122 points.
Penn State Altoona Lion Invitational
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West Potomac and Manchester were not the only teams to take a hike up to the state of Pennsylvania this weekend as Sherando competed at the Penn State Altoona Lion Invitational at the Fort Roberdeau Historic Site 5K course. The Sherando boys won a close two point team battle over Baldwin of Pennsylvania (56 pts) with a team score of 54 points. The Warriors were led by a fifth place finish from defending AA state 1600 meter champion Ryan Witt in 17:25 on the challenging 5K course layout. Sherando had three more finishers in the top 15 in Colby Witt (11th, 17:42.9), Danny Stiefvater (12th, 17:43.4), and Sean Whitson (13th, 17:44.2).
Hilltopper Invitational
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The first ever Hilltopper Invitational was held at Presbyterian Home 5K course in Lynchburg as E.C. Glass High School hosted the meet. Maggie Walker won both the boys and girls team titles as the boys (46 pts) were a narrow seven point winner over Stafford (53 pts), while the girls won by a large margin of 50 points with a low team score of 20 points. Coach Jim Holdren\'s girls had six of the top seven finishers in the race in Natalie Davis (2nd, 20:30), Susannah Piersol (3rd, 20:38), Clarissa Schick (4th, 21:19), Rena Hamzey (5th, 21:30), and Abbey Thibeault (6th, 22:06). Heritage junior Laura Rapp broke up a top six sweep for Maggie Walker as she won in a course record time of 19:22 to break the 1992 mark of 19:30 held by Leigh Burnette of E.C. Glass. Northside senior Matt Crofton won the boys\' race in a time of 17:01 with the next two finishers from the host school Glass in Nathan Richards (2nd, 17:25) and Alex Tatom (3rd, 17:41).