THE PLAINS, VA -- An unseasonably warm November day with a high level of humidity, a damp course from rainfall during the week, 15 mph winds, and tall thick grass at Great Meadows, tested many of the state\'s best runners at Saturday\'s VHSL State Cross Country Championships held at Great Meadows in The Plains, Virginia. After 2005\'s ideal racing conditions and modified course allowed for a flood of fast times, the 2006 version of the Virginia state meet was drastically different as the carts stayed busy throughout the day carrying off distressed runners on the course and few were finding themselves running close to their personal bests. However, the state championship is never about times. It is all about place and who you beat. There were definitely plenty of great stories on the day, which had nothing to do with slower state times.
One of the biggest stories in the meet was Albemarle senior Rachel Rose overcoming great odds to win the AAA girls state championship for the second year in a row. Wait? She\'s the defending state champion. How could she have been not considered as one of the favorites coming in? Well when somehow is diagnosed with two stress fractures in late September and has to take a month off from running, it is fairly tough for any runner to make up ground on the significant time loss.
However, toughness is the definition of Rachel Rose.. She did not let up in her training after the injury as she put the same effort as she would have put into her training runs before the injury in the form of intense cross training. \"I did a lot of biking and the elyptical. I am actually ashamed to say that I let my training falter,\" said Rose.
Rose could not be ashamed with the way she ran on Saturday at Great Meadows. The race for the AAA girls was ran at the warmest part of the day and Rose made sure the field suffer in it by setting a brisk early pace for all to attempt to follow.
In a field with three stronger pre-race favorites having all ran impressive times in their regional meets with James River junior Kristen Wolfe (17:57 5K), Great Bridge senior Kristy Tobin (18:12 5K), and Sarrah Hadiji (17:34 2.98mi), Rose was the first to cross the line in the fastes time of the day at 18:53. Hadiji dropped out around 2 miles after turning her ankle, Tobin fell off the lead pack and ended up fifth in 19:16, and Wolfe collapsed due to dehydration 100 meters before the finish going for the win in a four runner pack that included Rose. After a handful of failed attempts to get back on her feet, Wolfe finally was able to cross the line in 40th place at 20:25. A day that all three race favorites would definitely like to forget.
However, Rose will relish in this day for a good while. While her first championship last November was a big moment for her, her win this year meant a lot more to her. \"Well last year was more surreal, but this year was more satisfying because there were times when I questioned my ability and the quality of competition was incredible.\"
The competition was indeed incredible as while the times did not show it, the number of quality runners not making it into the top 15 was countless. One of the reasons why it was tough for top runners to break into the 15 for All-State honors was the Midlothian girls were gobbling up all the spots as they had four finishers in the top 15. Only the Clarke County boys in the Group A race had more All-State runners with six, but is significantly harder to do the same in the more competitive Group AAA race.
The Nike Team Nationals bound and US #2 ranked Midlothian girls came into as a heavy favorite with their only two options were to win big or otherwise it would be a letdown race for them. The chose the former as they put up the lowest team score of 47 points as the AAA champion since the 1988 Lake Braddock squad put up 44 points against Woodbridge\'s 71 points. Ironically, the team which finished second to Midlothian was Lake Braddock with 88 points as Coach Mike Mangan\'s girls returned to the state meet podium after failing to qualify for last year\'s state championships for the first time in over two decades.
However, the race was not even close between Midlothian and Lake Braddock at any point in the race as the Southeast\'s #1 ranked team proved just why they have the top ranking by decisively defeating the SE #6 team in Lake Braddock with a team average 32 seconds faster and putting seven runners in before Lake Braddock\'s fourth finisher. With just over two miles into the race, Midlothian had four runners ahead of Lake Braddock\'s top finisher in senior Michelle Presley, but Presley had a strong finish to move up ahead of two Midlothian runners to garner her third All-State cross country honor in seventh place at 19:19.
Coach Stan Morgan\'s girls were led once again as they have been all season long by freshmen Kathleen Lautzenheiser who nearly had her first state title in sight as she was in the pack of four, which included Rose and Wolfe with just 100 meters remaining in the race. Lautzenzheiser would end up finishing third in a time of 18:59 as the fastest freshmen and third fastest overall runner of the day. Joining Lautzenheiser on the All-State team were teammates M.C. Miller (6th, 19:18), Samantha Dow (8th, 19:20), and Paige Johnston (13th, 19:32).
One of the seven Midlothian girls was bound to be affected by Saturday\'s weather and course conditions as the odds seemed to be almost a 50/50 chance that you would blow up and Kathleen Lautzenheiser\'s twin sister, Leia really hit the wall on the last half mile of the race after being in top 15 position and struggled in as Midlothian\'s sixth finisher in 33rd place at 20:15. Teammates Christine Selander (32nd, 20:09) and Amy Witt (34th, 20:15) helped bring her in as Midlothian\'s fifth and seventh finishers.
While their state meet performance was quite dominating just as their win at Manhattan was over a national caliber field, the Midlothian girls still feel they have yet to show everyone their \"A\" game as junior Sammy Dow stated, \"I personally don\'t think we have run to our full potential because in every race we\'ve had at least one girl not at her best race. We haven\'t all had a good race on the same day yet.\"
Asked how she the team was feeling after successful completing their VHSL season with a state championship, Dow said, \"We feel awesome and we are ready to take on the Yankton (South Dakota) and all the other teams at NTN.\"
The Lake Braddock girls would be state champions any other year in AAA, but 2006 just happened to be the year that Virginia has a US #2 ranked caliber team in Midlothian. The Bruins were comfortably in second place as they were 69 points ahead of third place Douglas Freeman (147 pts) and averaged 27 seconds faster as a team. Behind all-stater Presley to round out Lake Braddock\'s top five were Christine Moore (24th, 19:59), Anna Corrigan (30th, 20:06), Erin Landy (37th, 20:21), and Hayley Sullivan (42nd, 20:28).
The Central Region had two of the top three teams with Midlothian and Douglas Freeman as Coach Mark Harvey\'s Lady Rebels had no All-State performers had a pair of top 25 finishers in junior Casey Fowler (22nd, 19:57) and sophomore Jamie Machich (25th, 19:59).
While Rose\'s comeback victory took a lot of the attention away from other great individual runs in the AAA girls race, a close second in place as well as top stories is Deep Run senior Courtlin LaReau competing in her first season of cross country after splitting time with volleyball this fall to become the AAA state runner-up in a time of 18:56 with the second fastest time of the day. She was only a modest track runner last spring with a 2:21 800 meter best, but expect big things for her this track season after her breakthrough cross country season and state meet finish.
The Midlothian boys had to deal with the same high expectations as their female counterparts as not only the top ranked team in the state, but as well as the Southeast region\'s #1 ranked squad. They knew that an impressive state meet victory would all but lock up a Nike Team Nationals berth for them, but a win would not be easy in the AAA race with a total of five teams in the race either ranked or having been previously ranked in the Southeast region with Oakton, Thomas Jefferson, Hermitage, and West Springfield. Oakton was the hot team coming in and appeared to be Midlothian\' strongest challenger after winning the Northern Region Meet over Thomas Jefferson and West Springfield. Oakton also was the defending state champions and were not looking to give up their title easily.
The team pulled a sly one on the field trading in their brand new and high quality Nike singlets for their old school Midlothian gold jerseys. The team was inspired to wear the old gold as part of a tradition of great state championship memories having worn those same singlets as the jerseys were worn by Midlothian\'s 2003 4x800 meter relay, which set a AAA State Meet record of 7:42. The move definitely caught several teams off guard in a little bit of a mind game with their competition.
Midlothian knew not only were teams throughout the region watching to see how they would perform at their state meet as the #1 ranked team, but teams in Saturday\'s races at Great Meadows were also gunning for them as well and could not take them lightly. Midlothian senior Jonathan Mellis expressed this awareness shared by the members on the team. \"We knew there was a lot pressure on us coming in seeing as Brentsville was the favorite to win AA and if they won, we absolutely had to win. There was no other option. I don\'t know about my other teammates, but I was definitely really nervous seeing Oakton as a strong threat.\"
Midlothian did not play around with competition early on as top runner Jason Witt stuck on race favorite and eventual race champion Mike Spooner, while Midlothian\'s top five put itself in the top one-third of the field early on in the race and continued to move up as the race went on.
Witt would give Spooner a stronger challenge than most had expected coming into the state meet as Spooner is a strong favorite to qualify out of the Foot Locker South onto Foot Locker Nationals as one of the region\'s top ten finishers later this month. Spooner was able to shake Witt on the final straightaway after Witt drafted off of him the entire race to win by six seconds in the day\'s fastest time at 15:53. Spooner was second in the AAA race last year on the same course in 15:25 to demonstrate how slow the course ran and the West Springfield senior is clearly faster and stronger from last fall. Some have argued the course ran 30 seconds slower than last year, looking at Spooner\'s time as well as many others, one might be able to argue the 30 second adjustment is an underestimation. Spooner attested, \"Its a tough course. This is really the ultimate test of cross country. If could give you one course to define cross country this would be it.\"
Spooner very relieved to get the monkey off his back in winning his first cross country state championship after being outkicked last year by eventual Foot Locker finalist Brad Siragusa. It seemed like almost a flashback to last year\'s race with Spooner the race leader throughout and another runner on his shoulder coming down the final stretch, but Spooner was not to going to let history repeat itself as he was able to pull away from Witt. Spooner was more satisfied with his win not coming easy. \"I did not want my state win to be easy. I wanted it to be something I had to work hard for and bring out all the different aspects of running: emotion, hard work, and guts. Today Jason and the rest of the field brought that out in me,\" said Spooner.
Both top finishers have a great deal of respect for one another and Spooner echoed those feelings in his statements talking about Witt\'s future, keeping tabs on the winning time for Abingdon junior Griff Graves in the earlier Group AA race and how the state of Virginia can perform at Foot Locker South. \"My mentality is I want to be the leader in one of the best states in nation when it comes to distance running with guys like myself, Witt, Graves, Porter, and so many more. Not so much just in cross country, but in distance track as well. I want to be the guy that is leading the state on the national scene like a state team captain to show the guys next year I\'m going to be gone and you guys need to keep pushing it running fast times. I\'m really looking forward to the future of Virginia.\"
Witt improved one place from his third place run in the 2005 state meet (15:39) to run the third fastest time of the day behind only Spooner and AA champion Griff Graves (15:55) with a final time of 15:59. The Midlothian boys nearly matched the Midlothian girls with four All-State finishers with Tommy Reese (16th, 16:47) just finishing off of earning All-State recognition, while Jonathan Mellis (8th, 16:26) and Mark Merritt (10th, 16:36) had big races as the team\'s second and third finishers to earn All-State honors. The formula for success at Nike Team Nationals seems to have a great front runner and solid front three to slip into the top half of the field with a top ten finishes and with the state meet performances by Mellis and Merritt, Midlothian may become the first boys team ever from the Southeast region to finish in the top ten at NTN on December 2nd.
Mellis was very pleased in coming back this fall after having an injury keep him out of track last year to earn his second consecutive All-State honor in cross country after finishing 11th in 2005. \"We knew Jason Witt would be up there and he\'s been there pretty much all year long. Mark (Merritt) and I as well as a bunch of the other teammates have definitely stepped it up to close the gap because having a pack run is really what puts points on the board and ensures a really good team position.\" Midlothian\'s pack and their number two and three runners were good enough to be the Southeast region\'s best back in September at Great American, but not enough to be given serious consideration as a team to finish high at Nike Team Nationals.
Midlothian had finished third at Great American behind two Northeast teams in Collegiate and Shenedehowa of New York as they were 30 points behind now Northeast #9 Shenedehowa. \"Earlier in the season we were not looking as great, but those races are not as nearly as important except for rankings. We knew in the end that everything would come together as it should and it did,\" said Mellis. With Witt really emerging as a stronger front runner and Mellis and Merritt as well as the rest of the Midlothian gang having stepped it up considerably since Great American, the US #7 Shenedehowa squad and the rest of the US top ten ranked teams seem to be in more striking distance for the US #11 team from Midlothian than previously thought before.
Midlothian was strong through six at Great Meadows with their four runners in the top 16 as well as Thomas Cole (32nd, 17:09) and Michael Hammond (36th, 17:13) rounding out the team scoring for a total of 55 points and wrapping up a 44 point win over a SE #8 Oakton with 96 points. Midlothian averaged 16:35 on course that was averaging AT LEAST 30 seconds slow. The fastest team average in last year\'s state championships was 16:20 from the 2005 AAA state champion Oakton squad, which would be 15 second slower from a projected time for Midlothian adjusting for the course and weather conditions in 2006.
Oakton averaged 16:57 as a team and was the only team from the loaded invitational division at the Maymont Festival in September to have a faster team average at the state meet from the Nike Team Nationals Southeast region mid-season mega meet that was Maymont. SE #7 Hermitage, SE #9 Jamestown, Thomas Jefferson, West Springfield, and Western Albemarle together averaged 12 seconds slower as teams from Maymont at the state meet to give some of the NTN Southeast regional teams a better perspective of how difficult conditions were on the Great Meadows 5K course on Saturday. However, Oakton was a vastly improved squad from Maymont as their performances coming into the state meet were a great indication of the championship season surge from Coach Phil Tiller\'s boys.
Oakton gave the Midlothian the strongest challenge than any team on Saturday would have given the top ranked team as AA state champion and SE #3 Brentsville (16:59 avg) ended up averaging two seconds slower as a team than Oakton (16:59 avg) and finished 28 points behind the AAA state runner-up (153 pts) in the combined state meet scoring with 181 points for Brentsville. Midlothian was well out in front with 84 points in the combined scoring.
Oakton had a strong race from junior Joe LoRusso with All-State seventh place finish with a final time of 16:25.54. Oakton had less than a minute spread for their top five with LoRusso, Brian hendricks (21st, 16:54), Alex Nissen (26th, 17:00), Matt Saunders (29th, 17:03), and Neal Hendricks (49th, 17:21). The Cougars could have had a better performance from senior Matt Saunders, who had finished right behind LoRusso at their district and regional meet and ended up finishing close to 40 seconds behind LoRusso in the state race. However, even with Saunders up with LoRusso, Midlothian stil wins convincingly as they beat Oakton at every team position except for the non-scoring seventh man. Midlothian put four runners in before Oakton\'s second runner on Saturday.
Coach Matt Ryan\'s Thomas Jefferson boys snagged the final podium position in third place with 148 points as Hermitage for the second year in a row was just out of luck with a fourth place team finish (157 pts) at the state meet. Thomas Jefferson had two All-State performers with the senior pair of Paul Norland (11th, 16:39) and Richard Prevost (12th, 16:39) finishing in together.
Meanwhile, Hermitage was led by an All-State run from senior John Vial as the Central Region runner-up garned sixth place with a final time of 16:22. Hermitage is sending a group of runners to compete in the first annual Battle of the Potomac Maryland vs. Virginia Border War to be held this Saturday, November 18th at the Smokey Glen Farm in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Current SE #6 and Maryland 4A state champion Quince Orchard will have their top seven running in the new event as well.
The Northwest Region champs from Mountain View were able to scalp one of the heads of the five NTN ranked squads this season in West Springfield (6th, 194 pts) to break into a tough top five to get into with a team score of 184 points for fifth. Mountain View was led by sophomore Thomas Porter, who came through with his best race of the season to take third place in 16:08 with the fourth fastest time on the day.