The Lake Braddock cross country team typically takes an annual trip out-of-state and has been picking almost a new meet each year for the past several years. This year the Bruins of Burke, Virginia traveled all the way out to Gilbert, Arizona for the Desert Twilight XC Festival, which gathers many of the top teams in the Southwest Region of the country. The VA #10 ranked Lake Braddock boys and VA #4 ranked Lake Braddock girls both ran impressively to each finish 3rd in the Sweepstakes Races standings, which is the top division race in the meet on a fast 5K course on the Toka Sticks Golf Course in Gilbert, Arizona.
The Lake Braddock girls saw Hannah Christen run her best race of the fall to clock a 5K personal best time of 17:21.5 to finish runner-up and 2 seconds behind only Dani Jones of Desert Vista (Phoenix, AX), who has track bests of 2:12 in the 800 and ran 16:45 for 3 miles this fall. The Lake Braddock girls went from running on one of the slower 5K coures in the state last week at Maymont with their first 5K races of the season to a lightning fast course in Arizona this weekend as they saw four girls break 19 minutes in Christen, Katy Kunc (7th, 18:00), Katie Roche (23rd, 18:39), and Sofia Busteva (27th, 18:44). Lake Braddock compiled a team score of 109 points with fifth finisher Katie Voegtlin (56th, 19:34) as the individual race winner Jones also led her Desert Vista squad to the team title with 61 points.
The Lake Braddock boys may have really started to show their team's full potential this fall with their races in Arizona. The Bruins got back Kevin Monogue to racing a few weeks ago and then also got the racing services of Ben Fogg this weekend to bolster their lineup. Lake Braddock was led up front in a talented field with Alex Corbett posting a 5K personal best of 15:30 in 8th place and teammate Forrest Isenhour trailing 14 seconds behind and under 16 minutes for 5K for the first time in 16th place at 15:44. Rounding out Lake Braddock's top 5, which had a top 7 all under 17 minutes, were Ben Fogg (51st, 16:18), Kevin Monogue (58th, 16:22), and Cavanaugh McGaw (67th, 16:32) for a third placing team score of 181 points.
Meet results & more coverage from Desert Twilight Festival on https://az.milesplit.com
