=PR= Kick Off Invitational Preview

Preview for today's =PR= Kick Off Invitational to be held at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville, Virginia. An opening meet for dozen Northern Virginia schools as they run a series of 2 mile races separated by grade levels (freshmen, sophomore, and junior/senior races), which will likely spread out several team's varsity seven that might include underclassmen. Lake Braddock has the highest ranked squad on both sides for boys and girls, but neither will be at full strength as the Bruins will hold out some of their top runners including state track champions Hannah Christen (3200) and Katie Roche (1000). Nonetheless, Lake Braddock should field competitive teams in many of the races and has two of the top individuals in Katy Kunc for the girls and Alex Corbett for the boys. The Thomas Edison boys and South Lakes girls appear to be the next strongest teams in the field with the majority of their projected top 7's for this fall entered to race on Thursday.

The junior/senior boys' race will be the most anticipated in an early matchup between VA #1 pre-season ranked Louis Colson of Thomas Edison and VA #2 ranked Mackenzie Haight of George C. Marshall. Haight defeated the 2012 Group AAA state 3200 indoor champ Colson in their last race in the New Balance Outdoor Nationals 5K with a big PR time of 15:11. Colson won last year's Kick Off Invite by a second over Lake Braddock's Nick Tuck in a time of 9:51. Rain over the past few days may slow down the times on the course this fall, but it will be interesting to see how fit both Colson and Haight coming into the season are if they can both break 10 minutes still on a potentially muddy course.