MANASSAS, VA -- Meet management is once again pleased to welcome all the competitors, along with the coaches, parents and other relatives of the participating runners as well as all other interested followers of cross country, to the 14th Annual Glory Days Grill Invitational at Bull Run Regional Park.
Everyone concerned with the meet will again look forward to an exciting afternoon of racing with approximately 1,500 runners representing almost 60 schools scheduled to compete in one of the nine races on Bull Run\'s 5,000 meter (3.1 mile) layout.
For those of you who have been to the meet in previous years, you will notice that the course had to be altered somewhat last year, due to construction in certain areas which were once part of the course and also slightly tweaked this year.
Meet management has made as little change as possible to the original design of the course, but any alterations were to maintain the length of 5,000 meters for the course and to also keep the venue as much, or even more spectator friendly than it has been in prior years.
For those first time fans to the course, positioning yourself somewhere between the start and finish line area for the beginning of the races and then following the general flow of the crowd during the races should allow at least a half dozen times to be close to and encouraging, but please not impeding, any or all of the athletes competing.
The meet will once again try to fulfill high school runners and coaches needs with a variety of races scheduled to accommodate various levels of participation. At each level, the boys race will precede the girls race and we will start with the freshmen boys race at 11:30 a.m. followed by the freshmen girls race at 12:00 noon, with these races for ninth graders being very important to many as the freshmen get to compete solely against their other first year peers.
The junior varsity races beginning at 12:30 p.m. greatly benefit the large number of hardworking youngsters who are very involved in their school\'s distance running programs and like the freshmen races, can have an unlimited number of competitors for each school. The boys junior varsity numbers are such that there will be two races with a random split as to which schools are in which race.
For many of the girls and boys J.V. runners, it is probably their last chance and possibly their first chance of the season, to compete in such a large meet.
The Varsity B races beginning at 2:30 p.m. will pit many of the schools with smaller enrollments against the second tier of the larger schools in the area and the Varsity Seeded races starting at 3:35 p.m. will highlight the day\'s activities with many of the top individuals and teams from the greater metropolitan area squaring off against each other.
This meet began in 1992 mostly from the mindset of former Northern Region coach and activities director Mike Dobson and was originally known as the Bull Run Invitational, but it has since become the Glory Days Grill Invitational due to the sponsorship of Glory Days Grill restaurants.
\"Glory Days\" is now in its eighth 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 which is needed to pull off an event like this which has such a large number of people involved.
Jeff, Rich and Bob, along with the rest of the Glory Days staff led by Tracy Atwell, would like to thank in advance all of the volunteers involved in concessions, parking, results compilation and all other necessary forms of meet management and would especially like to thank Mike Dobson, Mike Kiernan, Matt Gilchrist, Matt Murray and Scott Raczko for all of their extra time and help in putting on this meet each and every year.
Varsity Seeded Previews: Boys
Thomas Jefferson is the defending boys team champion and the Colonials are having another fine season as they have found themselves throughout the campaign being rated among the top ten teams in the Southeast Region, according to the Nike Team Nationals (NTN) rankings.
Coach Matt Ryan\'s group has been led all season long by senior Paul Norland as their top runner and with Richard Prevost running solid in the second slot but with a lot of mixing and matching in the following spots, which has led to a little bit less consistency than the coaching staff may have been looking for.
However, Jefferson is always a team to be expected near the top and most recently finished a strong second at the Octoberfest Invitational in The Plains last Saturday.
The team to defeat Jefferson last weekend at Octoberfest is also on hand at Glory Days as Quince Orchard (MD) makes another venture into the Commonwealth looking to possibly dispatch some of Virginia\'s best again.
Quince Orchard won the boys team title by 19 points last week at 142-161 over Jefferson led by their top two runners David Laratta and Reagan Lynch and displaying excellent depth with only 34 seconds separating their number one thru number five runner.
West Springfield held out their top four runners this past weekend after having a very strong race two weeks ago at the Maymont Festival in Richmond but should be ready to go this weekend led by Mike Spooner.
The Spartans senior had an excellent race at Maymont with a victory in the top seeded race over junior Griff Graves of Abingdon in what was considered a matchup of the state\'s top two runners. Spooner is the defending champion at Glory Days and is looking to make it two years in a row.
Other top runners to watch are T.C. Williams junior Brad Kenimer, winner of the Oatlands Invitational in Leesburg two weeks ago and runnerup to Spooner at the season opening Monroe Parker Invitational; Washington-Lee senior Chris Tyson, third at Octoberfest and Monroe Parker; Chris Barnard of Sherwood (MD), Robert E. Lee\'s Josef Tessema, Loyala-Blakefield\'s Ryan Stasiowski, Dan McHale of Robinson, Georgetown Prep\'s Matt Abernethy, Nick Bax from St. Alban\'s, John Ross of Potomac and Herndon\'s Ermin Mujezinovic.
Girls:
Oakton is the defending girls team champion and is certainly running well at this juncture of the season again. The Cougars travelled down to Hagan Stone Park in Greensboro, NC last weekend and came away with an easy victory as they recorded just an eleven second spread among their top five runners led by their trio at the top of junior Nora Meehan, senior Meredith Tighe and junior Hallie Eilerts.
Oakton\'s road could prove rough with Lake Braddock also running very well. The Bruins, ranked number five in the Southeast Region, were winners of the Oatlands Invite two weeks ago and were second to one of the top teams from the Midwest Region at the Jesse Owens Invite in Oakville, AL last weekend with Lake Braddock senior Shelley Presley leading their pack.
Robinson made a fairly strong statement last weekend with their win in the top seeded division at Octoberfest with Stephanie Bray as their number one runner once again and Langley was the runnerup last week to Robinson with Lauren Shaw and Carolyn Shaw leading the way for the Saxons.
Top runners to watch include Potomac School\'s Michaeline Nelson, the defending Varsity Seeded champion but who appears to be entered with her team in the Varsity \"B\" race; Good Counsel senior Nora McCall, who was fifth here last year; W.T. Woodson senior Sarah Hadiji, who was third at the Maymont Festival and winner at Monroe Parker but who was entered and did not compete at Octoberfest; West Potomac junior Elizabeth Heath, Chantilly sophomore Lia DiValentin, senior Sarah Weber of Washington-Lee and Frances Dowd from Fairfax.
FURTHER REMINDERS:
Concessions will be sold throughout the meet behind the press box area. There will also be a tent set up by the concession area for sales of tee shirts and hats. We appreciate the help and sponsorship of Nike in swooshing down to Manassas to help in that endeavor and also the committment throughout the years of Metro Run and Walk for their continual support of cross country and track and field.
The team and individual awards ceremony will be at the pavillion situated down the hill and to the left of the press box approximately fifteen minutes after the conclusion of the final race (Varsity Girls Seeded).
Please do not impede the progress of any of the runners during the race by being to close to the course\'s race line. This is important at all times and especially near the finish line area where some of the spectators invariably display a slight bit of overexuberance.
Team and individual results will be posted during the meet as soon as we have them. Complete results of all races will be sent to www.milestat.com immediately following the conclusion of the meet.
We are certain that Brandon Miles will display his usual diligence in posting them on the net as soon as possible; if not by Saturday night, then at least by Sunday morning.
Finally, please do not leave any trash discarded on the grounds of the park at any time during the meet. Mike Dobson has been working way too hard these past couple of days to also have to be picking up other people\'s garbage as nightfall rapidly approaches.
Thanks in advance and good luck to all participants.