RICHMOND, VA -- Feeling a little bit slighted by the Nike Team Nationals rankings process as they have been unable to return to the Southeast top ten after finishing seventh at the Maymont Festival on September 30th, the Fork Union boys decided to let their feet do the talking at the Prep League Championships held at Collegiate School\'s Goochland Campus 5K course in Richmond on Friday afternoon. Fork Union averaged 16:25 as a team on the course and tallied a team score of 27 points with five of the top nine finishers including individual champion Axel Mostrag at a 15:52 5K personal best.
Mostrag won by 10 seconds over defending VISAA 3200 meter state champion Matthew Richardson of College, who clocked in at a time of 16:02 for runner-up honors. Mostrag was one of three FUMA runners who posted personal bests on the course as David Johnson (6th, 16:27) and Jamie Reichlen (9th, 16:49) also ran PR\'s. Fork Union junior Jeremy Haney, a transfer over the summer from Fluvanna County, snapped out a mid-season slump to run a season best time of 16:21, which is only seven seconds off his all-time personal best that he ran in All-State performance in the AA state race last November at Great Meadows. Szymon Rola also ran solid as the team\'s fourth runner at 16:36, while Coach Winston Brown seems to have gotten another runner out of the woodworks and extra depth for their team with Patrick Hayes posting a time of 17:00 to finish 13th overally as the Blue Devils\' sixth man.
Any other year and Coach Ben Hale\'s Woodberry Forest boys would be the \"top dogs\" in the private school ranks. At the Prep League Championships, Woodberry Forest (43 pts) certainly proved themselves as a great squad finishing second to Fork Union by 16 points. Cordon Smart (3rd, 16:11) and Jonathan Lawrence (5th, 16:25) were able to break up Fork Union\'s top five, but Fork Union had too much firepower for any more Woodberry runners to finish any higher. Clayton Vaughters (10th, 16:51) and C. Taylor (11th, 16:53) finished off of FUMA\'s fifth man Reichlen, while Woodberry Forest nearly had five runners under 17 minutes in Ross Pfenning (14th, 17:01) as the final team scorer.
Host school Collegate finished third with 61 points in the six team field as they were led individually by Richardson and Graham Glass (8th, 16:43).
Turning attention back to Fork Union as team looking back to get into the NTN rankings mix. Plenty of debate centers around Hermitage. Hermitage finished eighth at Maymont behind Fork Union and six other Nike Team National hopefuls. One week later, Hermitage defeats the number two ranked team in the region at the time in Brentsville and as a result are ranked third in the Southeast region with Brentsville dropping two places to the number four spot in the region. Meanwhile, teams such as Fork Union and others at Maymont are left out of the regional rankings and left without anymore redeeming meets, which pit them head to head against Southeast region ranked opponents. The Fork Union camp has an arguement, whether it is strong or not in since they defeated Hermitage at Maymont and Hermitage beat Brentsville at Disney that Fork Unio should be ranked ahead of current SE #4 Brentsville.
Whether it is a valid point or not, Fork Union can focus on what they can control in their own running. Brentsville this week competed against a very common opponent of Fork Union\'s in Western Albemarle. The two Charlottesville area schools have went head to head on four occassions (one meet was a 4x2 mile relay) this season with Fork Union having three wins over Western Albemarle\'s one victory at Maymont. Fork Union has the most recent victory from the October 14th Albemarle Invitational at Panorama Farms in which they defeated Western Albemarle by 30 points in a 37 team field and averaged 16:47 for the day on the 5K course.
When Brentsville faced Western Albemarle this week at the Region II Meet, it was held on the same Panorama Farms 5K course. Brentsville won by 22 points over Western Albemarle in a 16 team field with a team average of 16:23. Their team average is 24 seconds faster than Fork Union\'s average on the same course three weeks earlier, but Western Albemarle showed over the same three week span that at least a 22 second drop is possible as the Warriors averaged 17:00 as a team at the Albemarle Invite against FUMA and 16:38 as a team at the Region II Meet against Brentsville.
If one could assume that Fork Union could make the same drop in team average then that would place the Blue Devils at 16:25 and merely two seconds slower than Brentsville\'s actual average. However, the big question is how much could have Fork Union improved? Could they have matched Western\'s drop? Could they have dropped their times down more or less? Its impossible to make a firm statement with full confidence on either end, but a strong follow up performance by Fork Union at the Virginia Independent Schools State Cross Country Championships this Friday at Woodberry Forest could certainly help their case. The team that finishes the strongest in the sport is usually the team that is rewarded the best.
However, all should keep in perspective that almost everyone is getting faster as we enter the final stages of championship season. There are plenty of great coaches across the state that are masters at having their athletes perform at their optimal level at season\'s end. The teams we saw in September were not the same in October and the same holds true as we are in the beginning of the month of November. There are several teams that are \"hot\" right now.
Oakton boys have been tearing it up at Burke Lake the past two weeks at Burke Lake in comparision to their Northern Region rivals in Thomas Jefferson S&T and West Springfield. They have gone from a team that was strictly a team of depth improved themselves with two of their runners in Joe LoRusso and Matt Saunders starting to step up as the front runners they have needed against teams like Midlothian and Brentsville.
It also does not take a rocket scientist to see that Coach Stan Morgan at Midlothian not only has girls running a whole lot better from their September meet performances such as Great American, but his Southeast #1 ranked boys showed no effects of race rust from their four week layoff from racing putting up times of 15:46, 16:33, 16:34, 16:36, 16:37, and 16:43 on a pretty fair 5K course at Pocahontas State Park.
Then there is Brentsville who seem to have gotten a wake up call from the defeat at Disney from Hermitage and have responded well with back-to-back strong team performances at districts and regions.
There could very likely be a scenario that plays out next weekend that we have three teams with dominating state championship performances in Midlothian in AAA, Brentsville in AA, and Fork Union in Private. With a strong possibility to happen, it will be no easy task to sort through.
And let\'s not forget. The world nor does the Southeast region revolve around Virginia. There are a few teams in the region that believe they can earn a Nike Team Nationals berth and strong state meet finishes make their cases more compelling.
Chapel Hill never got a chance to meet Virginia\'s top two ranked squads in Midlothian and Brentsville, but they certainly did what they needed to do against the rest of the best in Virginia at Maymont winning against a field that many would argue was deeper on the Southeast regional level than Great American. The Chapel Hill gang has also been there and done that with the Nike Team Nationals experience. They have several members from the 2005 team who have the valuable experience of the trip to Oregon and the race itself under their belt.
Then there is Quince Orchard from Maryland. No Maryland teams were really on the regional radar to start off the season, but Quince Orchard made a mid-season splash as they made a Virginia invasion on two consecutive weekends to end up beating several strong Virginia teams such as Oakton, Thomas Jefferson, and West Springfield. Like Chapel Hill, Quince Orchard also has gone undefeated thus far this season.
Then there are two very talented teams further south from Virginia in Parkview from Georgia and Fort Mill from South Carolina. Both teams have struggled with running at full strength in key head to head encounters this year on a consistent basis, but have shown flashes of greatness when they have had all of their guys ready to roll.
The bottom line is no one is being written off just yet and no team should think they are sitting comfortable with a high ranking heading into the final weekend of racing. If you cannot perform at a high level on the most important weekend in your state\'s cross country season, how can you be counted on to represent the Southeast region at Nike Team Nationals with the increased pressure and competition?