Its great to be the king!
But it won't be easy at the 2007 Maymont Festival!
With the likes of Thomas Porter and Jason Witt competing alongside their teams in Mountain View and Midlothian respectively as well as Blacksburg's Peter Dorrell racing individually in the invitational division at the Maymont Festival...to be crowned "King of the Festival" as Mike Spooner (pictured above) was in 2006 after dueling it out with fellow Footlocker finalist Griff Graves, it will take a great race from either of the previously mentioned individuals as well as any others.
The invitational division for the 2007 Maymont Festival, which saw many Nike Team Nationals regionally ranked squads as well as three eventual Nike Team Nationals selected teams in 2006, is shaping up once again to have a loaded field of many of the top teams in the Southeast region looking to pick up head to head wins and help their case with the new points system for at-large berths in Nike Team Nationals.
Some of the top boys' teams in the Southeast will be present for Maymont as many out-of-state squads will be venturing to Richmond to test themselves against the region's deepest state in relation to top tier teams. The best teams from Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee found out finishing behind a total of seven Virginia teams in 2006 with North Carolina's Chapel Hill as the team champions able to stop a complete Virginia dominance in the field. Chapel Hill's victory at Maymont was very helpful in landing them a second consecutive trip to Portland, Oregon for NTN along with a strong close at the North Carolina State Championships.
One of the top out of state teams coming into the Maymont Festival to be held September 28th and 29th looks to be Walton High School from Georgia. Walton finished second at the Georgia State Meet to Parkview in 2006 as Parkview finished the year ranked third in the Southeast region, while Walton finished out the 2006 season as the number eight team in the region in the Nike Team Nationals rankings. Walton returns five of their top seven runners and should be one of higher ranked squads in the Southeast to begin this season.
Oak Ridge of Tennessee will also be bringing in a formidable squad as defending Tennessee state champions as well as veterans of the Maymont course after finishing ninth in the invitational division last year. Oak Ridge returns six of its top seven runners including its top three runners, who all placed in the top 11 places individually at the Tennessee State Championships last November. Oak Ridge made appearances in the top ten Southeast rankings last fall.
A team that obviously is enthusiastic about events such as Nike Team Nationals as shown by paying their way all the way across the country to attend and compete in the open race at Nike Team Nationals in Portland, Oregon last December will be competing in exactly the right meet to test themselves if they are ready to make it into the championship race this season at NTN is Mooresville. Mooresville returns a very strong team which could be the best in North Carolina this season and possibly take the throne away from last year's Maymont champions and North Carolina 4A state champions in Chapel Hill. Mooresville, the defending 3A state champions from North Carolina, return five of their six including a a solid front runner in Patrick Campbell, who posted a time of 15:25 for 5000 meters at Nike Outdoor Nationals.
Word of the quality of fields assembled for Maymont appears to be growing outside of the Southeast region as Ohio's Medina High School will also be competing in the invitational division with a team that could surprise as a darkhorse since they finished fourth in the Division I race at the Ohio State Championships last fall. However, Ohio is a very competitive state in cross country as well as being placed in a very competitive NTN Midwest Region and the Medina team has a lot of promise as their only senior in last year's state championship race was their seventh man.
The big draw for these out-of-state teams is to have the chance to face off with many of Virginia's best teams competing at the same meet on the same weekend as very few of the top returning teams in the state are missing for the 2007 Maymont Festival.
Last year's #1 ranked squad in the Southeast region, Midlothian, who held the top position from the pre-season to the season's end onto a Nike Team Nationals berth in Oregon, will be competing in their first Maymont Festival despite the event being literally held in their backyward in Richmond. Midlothian returns a strong core of their talent from last year's group, which should pin them as the team to beat in the Southeast Region and state of Virginia as well this fall. Midlothian is led by Nike Indoor Nationals 5K champion Jason Witt, who went 15:03 for 5000 meters indoors in his national title. Witt also was a top ten finisher in the Nike Team Nationals race in Oregon. Midlothian also returns an all-state cross country performer in Mark Merritt as well as the Virginia 3A state runner-up in the 1600 meter run in Michael Hammond, who boasted a PR of 4:16 in the event this spring.
Virginia's 2A division held its own last year with the state's best teams with the likes of Brentsville, Jamestown, and Western Albemarle all either ranked or mentioned with fellow NTN Southeast caliber squads. All three teams return in 2007 with possibly even stronger squads as Western Albemarle and Jamestown especially were very youthful last fall and could move ahead of the defending AA state champions from Brentsville.
Western Albemarle has an incredible rising junior trio up front with Kyle Satterwhite, James Howard-Smith, and Tyler Stutzman as all three broke 16 minutes at Footlocker South last November, while Satterwhite went onto win the 2A state 3200 meter title indoors. Three freshmen made up Jamestown's top seven last fall, which ended up finishing second to Brentsville in the 2A state race. The Eagles are the top returning team from last year's Maymont invitational division as they finished 20 points behind Chapel Hill in second place in 2006.
Brentsville certainly cannot be overlooked as while they take two heavy losses in their top two runners in Adam Henken and Henry Melius, they return a solid next five of experienced runners with big race experience as well as tradition on their side as Coach Rob Dulin has led them to the past three AA state championships in cross country.
Out of the Northwest Region, Mountain View adds another talented team from Virginia to bolster the depth of the field as the team continues to make an upward trend of progression since the school's inception less than three years ago. The Wildcats return five of their seven from last year's fifth place finishing squad in the AAA state race, which does not include the Northwest Region 1600 meter champion Daniel Porter. Porter's younger brother, Thomas Porter, leads Mountain View as a returning Footlocker Nationals finalist and looks to be one of the early individual contenders to win at Maymont.
However, the individual field will be just as loaded as the team field as was the case in 2006 with meet director Dan Ward allowing select top level individuals to compete in the invitational race alongside the top tier teams. The 2006 saw a classic and rare battle up to that point between eventual AAA state champion Mike Spooner of West Springfield and eventual AA state champion Griff Graves of Abingdon. Both went onto qualify for Footlocker Nationals with Porter as the representatives from Virginia.
Already, one can get excited about the potential head to head battles at Maymont with the likes of Porter, Blacksburg's Peter Dorrell, and Midlothian's Jason Witt in the field. While Porter and Witt will also be competing with their team in the invite race, Dorrell will be competing as an individual. Dorrell had an amazing outdoor track season including his "never-been-done-before" feat the AA State Championships in winning all three distance races in by no means mediocre times with a 9:10 3200, 4:15 1600, and 1:54 800. The individual winner of Maymont is crowned afterwards as the "King" of the Maymont Festival with a formal crowning with an actual crown.
The field is by no means completely finalized with several other top teams looking to get in and we will update as time goes along.
The Midlothian girls, one of the nation's top returning cross country teams with only one senior graduating from their 2007 Nike Team Nationals top ten squad, which also scored a monumental victory for Virginia high school cross country runner in a win at the Manhattan Invitational last October against New York's top programs, will be leading the Maymont Festival as the top team coming in. The list of talent on their squad is long including the AAA state 1600 meter state champion Kathleen Lautzenheiser and AAA state 1000 and 800 meter state champion Paige Johnston. The Lady Trojans nearly return a total of seven girls who have broken 19 minutes with the seventh in Erin Stehle at a 19:04 5K best. Their success in cross country did not let up in track season with a state team title indoors and a state meet record 9:07.27 4x800 meter relay team indoors and had nearly had six girls under 11:20 in the 3200 meter run with the sixth in Amy Witt at 11:22. All six of those 3200 meter girls are back.
The field behind Midlothian at Maymont though will be stellar even if they may be considered heavy favorites. Two programs who have certainly ran with Midlothian at their level including one of them defeating Midlothian at Nike Team Nationals will be in Richmond with the defending Maymont champions in Eleanor Roosevelt of Maryland and Tatnall of Delaware. Both take several key losses from last year's Nike Team Nationals squads, but also have a core of veterans and great coaches to help them likely put together strong squads once again in 2007.
The team coming in which may be the biggest challenger to Midlothian could be Mauldin out of South Carolina. Mauldin was a very young squad last year and its inexperienced showed with a poor showing at Great American as they were well behind the likes of teams such as Midlothian, Tatnall, and even Virginia's own Blacksburg and Brentsville, but they were a totally different team in October and on. Their coming out performance last year was at the Wendy's Invitational in Charlotte, which is held the week after the Maymont Festival as they trounced last year's fourth place team at Maymont in Chapel Hill by 71 points. Mauldin had five girls in the top 20 places in the race with all five at 19:10 or faster and three well under 19 minutes for 5K.
Other top out of state teams already committed including Dulaney of Maryland, Morgantown of West Virginia, and Walton of Georgia. Dulaney should be a very tough squad this year and looks to have a realistic shot at stopping Eleanor Roosevelt's state title run in Maryland after finishing second to them a year ago at the Hereford course.
Virginia well be represented among the girls' teams as well with a returning Nike Team Nationals Southeast ranked squad in the field in Blacksburg. The defending AA state champions look to be even stronger than a year ago as they will be lead up front by two talented individuals in Laurel MacMillan and Allison Homer and the emergence of the Stevens twins, Joanna and Kathleen, should play a big role in taking the team to the next level. The twins came through big down the stretch last fall to put them over the top against a Group AA defending state champion Brentsville squad, who had returned their entire top seven from a year before. Blacksburg finished third in last year's Maymont invite division behind NTN bound squads Eleanor Roosevelt and Tatnall as Homer and MacMillan finished 7th and 11th respectively in the individual race.
Brentsville will be have the role reversed on them this fall and possibly to their perference as the underdog attempting to knock off the pre-season favored and defending champion Blacksburg squad. Brentsville will be at Maymont as well and return five of their top seven from last year's state runner-up squad including two All-State cross country performers in Amelia Emerson and Maggie Gentry. It will be one of the few regular season encounters between the two top AA squads and will test where each stands with one another at the mid point of the season.
If one team could be listed as the honorary host school of the Maymont Festival, even though the Richmond Sports Backers are the hosts of the event, it would be local Richmond school Maggie Walker as head coach Jim Holdren helps to mark off the Maymont course. 2007 could be a big year for the Maggie Walker girls as they have a team with the talent to potentially make a state meet top 3 podium run and will certainly bolster the depth of a growing invitational field at Maymont.