Dewey, the winner of the Monroe Parker Invitational in early September and the top Northern Region finisher in her races at the Great Meadow and William and Mary Invitationals, continued her regional dominance with her victory in 18 minutes, 35 seconds over the moderately inclined 5,000 meter (3.1 miles) course. Dewey went through the first mile in about 5:45 and covered two miles in just under 12:00 with Yorktown senior Katie Read the sole competitor able to stay within a few strides of Dewey through those first two miles.
From the two mile mark to the 2.5 mile mark, which is mostly flat, Dewey was able to gradually lengthen her lead and the Hawks junior really poured it on over the long, gradual uphill from 2.5 to 2.9 miles before cruising through the downhill finish enroute to her time of 18:35; which now moves her to number eleven on the girls all time performer list.
Yorktown's Read continued her solid improvement, which has been increasing greatly since the end of last year's indoor season, with her second place finish in 19:04 as the National District favorite showed that she should also be a factor at the Northern Region and AAA state level.
The Herndon girls team rolled to a very impressive victory, placing four runners in the top eleven among the 137 finishers in the varsity seeded race with a low score of 54 points. The Hornets top five scorers were all seniors, led by Heather Fisher's very strong last half mile which brought her home in third place at 19:19. Herndon also had Kristin Hart continue her consistent season in eighth place at 19:36 while Jessie Erickson continued her solid autumn in 11th (20:01). The Hornets were also greatly aided by the return of Jenny Miller from an early season injury as Miller placed 12th (20:03) and Herndon had Carleigh Gregory round out their scoring in 24th place (20:32).
While Herndon completely outdistanced themselves from the 20 team field, the battle for second place was extremely tight with Northwest (MD) notching the runnerup spot with 143 points with Oakton claiming third at 149 points and Westfield fourth (152) as the Concorde District claimed three of the top four spots. Northwest was paced by senior Karen Aherne (9th; 19:40) while Oakton was extremely strong at their front end in having three finishers in the top ten overall with junior Danielle Light (6th; 19:32), sophomore Kayley Byrne (7th; 19:35) and junior Allegra Smith (10th; 19:44) while Westfield had just a 40 second difference between their top five runners led by Christina Larssen (20th; 20:20).
Other top individual finishes were recorded by Potomac Falls senior Katie Endres in fourth place at 19:24 and Lake Braddock junior Kelsey Snowden in fifth place at 19:30. In a preview of what should be a tight team race in the Patriot District, Snowden's Lake Braddock squad finished in eighth place with 189 points overall while Patriot rivals Robinson finished sixth at 184 points and Hayfield was seventh with 188 points.
The boys race for individual honors was probably the tightest ever at the Glory Days Invite with the all senior, six runner pack of David Groff and James Scheiner of Westfield, the Jefferson duo of Christo Landry and Chris Mocko, Herndon's Shane Young and Steve Tobin of West Springfield running within a couple of strides of each other for more than the first two miles of the race.
The front running sextet went through the first mile in the 4:45 range and then paced themselves through the fairly hilly second mile in a more conservative fashion as they hit the deuce in 9:58. The lead had jockeyed back and forth through the first two miles among the entire group, but just after the two mile mark, Jefferson's Chris Mocko made a concerted effort to pick up the pace. Mocko's break helped him to maintain a slight lead all the way to about 2.6 miles with Groff, Scheiner and Landry in close pursuit a couple of strides behind; Young about 10 meters further back and Tobin now off the pace.
With just a half mile to go, Groff, Scheiner and Landry finally passed Mocko in the middle of the final uphill portion of the race and ran together until the final downhill stretch. At that point with 200 meters to go, Groff showed his superior closing speed and crossed the line in 15:53 for the win.
Landry held a slight lead over Scheiner on the final downhill until being overtaken right at the line with Scheiner awarded second and Landry third with both runners timed at 15:56. Young rallied back well enough in the final 400 meters to overtake Mocko and finished fourth in 16:02 with Mocko fifth (16:04).
Tobin held on just well enough to maintain sixth (16:13), just ahead of Northwest junior Matt Logie (7th; 16:15) and Fauquier's Matt Bierlein (8th; 16:18).
Ninth place overall went to Oakton senior Karl Lang (16:23), as he led the Cougars to a narrow one point victory over Concorde rival Jefferson as Oakton defeated the Colonials by 82-83. Oakton then packed their next three runners within seven seconds of each other with senior Kris Cruz (15th; 16:38) running a very strong second half of the race in his return from an early season injury. Cruz was followed closely by sophomore James Phillips (16th; 16:42) and senior Stephen Best (18th; 16:45) and Oakton finished with less than a 40 second differential between runners one through five as junior Kevin Meehan placed 24th in the team scoring at 17:02.
Jefferson, seeded race team runnerup for the second week in a row after being beaten by James Wood at Octoberfest the week prior, had junior Kyle Smith run a nice race as the Colonials number three runner (12th; 16:34) behind teammates Landry and Mocko, but Jefferson's gap of 45 seconds from their number three runner to number five spelled the difference.
Westfield, led by the grand total of just three points in the scoring from Groff and Scheiner, made it a Concorde District sweep of the top three places with their third place team score of 122. Lake Braddock was next with 157 points for fourth place paced by junior Brad Clark (14th; 16:38) while individually, James Madison senior Andrew Waring established himself as a Liberty District favorite with his eleventh place showing at 16:28.
The Glory Days Grill Invitational was once again a successful meet with a total of 1,362 finishers in the range of races of freshman only; junior varsity, Varsity B and Varsity Seeded for both boys and girls over one of the most spectator friendly courses in the area. The meet was also greatly aided by the first time utilizaton of computerized scoring, with results quickly available; something that should be, but is not always the case at cross country invites.