Festival in the Fields Report
Imported talent sprint to victories at Tech
Friday, September 5th
by Brandon Miles
BLACKSBURG, VA -- Virginia Commonwealth University\'s Daniel Ndonju, from Kenya, and Virginia Tech senior Marlies Overbeeke, from the Netherlands, ran away with victories on Virginia Tech\'s home cross country course. Ndonju won the men\'s 6K race in 19:40.12, while the Virginia Tech junior duo of Justin Skaare (2nd, 19:51.85) and L.A. Snead (3rd, 19:56.17) finished behind the VCU harrier to lead the Hokies to the team title (30 pts) over Christopher Newport University (54 pts), the sole D3 school out of the four team field (Virginia Tech, CNU, VCU 66 pts, and VMI 71 pts). In the women\'s 4K race, Overbeeke destroyed the field by winning in over a 30 seconds with her finish time of 14:50.49. Hokies sophomore Moriah O\'Brien took runner-up honors to Overbeeke (15:22.77), but that was not enough for the squad to hold off the Navy girls, who defeated Virginia Tech in a sixth runner tie-breaker at 31 points.
Elon/High Point Invitational Report
Hess & Stoop win collegiate openers, Lynchburg men impress
Saturday, September 6th
by Brandon Miles
GREENSBORO, NC -- Freshmen Jemissa Hess of High Point University (2003 graduate of C.D. Hylton HS) and Mike Stoop of East Carolina University (2003 graduate of Bayside HS) both won in their first ever collegiate races as Hess won the women\'s 5K race (19:43) and Stoop took the win in the men\'s 8K race (26:45) at the Elon/High Point Invitational. The Lynchburg men were the top finishing D3 team in the field as they won the D3 school team division with 19 points as well as ahead of all the D1 competition present. The Hornets placed 5 runners in the top 12 with Brian Flynn (2nd, 27:00), Brian Tullock (3rd, 27:07), Matt McCarroll (6th, 27:22), Kevin Graves (11th, 28:10), and Joseph Tyvela (12th, 28:25).