Northern Region Meet Wrap

BURKE, VA -- The Herndon girls and Thomas Jefferson boys squads succesfully defended their team titles while Melissa Dewey of Hayfield and Jefferson's Christo Landry ran to convincing individual victories at the Northern Region Championships held at Burke Lake Park on Thursday, October 30.

The Concorde District was dominant as they qualified five of the eight teams for the AAA state championships this Saturday, November 8 at Great Meadow in the Plains, VA and had 17 of the 30 medal winners on the boys and girls side in the competition over the 2.98 mile course in sunny and comfortable mid-60 degree weather.

Herndon put four girls among the top twelve finishers to finish with a first place total of 50 points with district rival Westfield the runnerup at 80 points followed by Patriot District champ Hayfield in third place with 86 points and with Lake Braddock of the Patriot claiming the final automatic state qualifying girls team spot with their fourth place total of 113 points.

The boys side saw the Concorde take the top three team spots in fairly close scoring with Jefferson the winner at 65 points over second place Oakton (77 points) and Westfield (86) while Lake Braddock was the final team qualifier for the boys as well, in fourth place at 119 points.

The girls race had junior Melissa Dewey of Hayfield, Yorktown senior Katie Read, Westfield freshman Catherine Lynn and seniors Morgan Phelan of Hayfield and Jefferson's Jen Dolson grouped together at 9 minutes even at the 1.5 mile mark with the chase group just a couple of seconds behind.

After the 1.5 mile mark and approaching the generally uphill portion to the two mile mark, the lead group of five picked up the pace and the quintet went past two miles between 11:53 and 11:55 with the chase pack now falling to ten seconds behind.

Hayfield's Dewey was now in control of the race and gradually lengthened her lead throughout the final mile to win handily in 17:36 as she remained undefeated this season against Northern Region runners.

Read of Yorktown, the National District champ from a week ago, could not go with Dewey but easily separated from the rest of the field to come home in second place with what may be an Arlington County all time best at Burke Lake of 17:48.

Westfield's Lynn also got under 18 minutes at Burke with her third place finish at 17:58 with Phelan of Hayfield fourth in 18:06.

Herndon's all senior scoring lineup then had their top two finishers come in with Heather Fisher (5th; 18:21) and Kristin Hart (6th; 18:26), after they had picked up a couple of spots in the final mile. The next three positions went to automatic individual qualifiers with Oakton junior Danielle Light finishing seventh at 18:32, just one tick ahead of her Cougar sophomore teamate Kayley Byrne (8th; 18:33) as they just edged out South Lakes junior Nicole Pederson, the Liberty District champion (9th; 18:33).

Herndon senior Jenny Miller (18:35) then made it three Hornets in the top ten with Dolson of Jefferson holding onto eleventh at 18:38 to qualify for states while the next four spots all went to state team qualifiers in Herndon's Jessie Erickson (12th; 18:38), Lake Braddock junior Kelsey Snowden (13th; 18:51), Braddock sophomore Erin Klein (14th; 18:51) and Westfield senior Ashley Johnson (15th; 18:55).

The boys race shook out as expected with a clear delineation of the top six from the rest of the field.

As expected, the Jefferson duo of Christo Landry and Chris Mocko, the Westfield twosome of David Groff and James Scheiner, Herndon's Shane Young and Steve Tobin of West Springfield, who were the top six finishers from the Glory Days Grill Invitational from two weeks prior and the the top six times from the district meets the following week, formed a close knit pack after the mad dash to the trail in the woods at the half mile mark.

The pack of six seniors, all from the Concorde District except for Patriot champ Tobin of West Springfield, were just under five minutes at one mile and at 10:02 at two miles, which was the same time as at the Concorde championships in weather conditions not as pleasant.

Once again, as he had the week before, Concorde champ Landry of Jefferson made a concerted effort to pull away from the field as they headed uphill towards the 2.25 mile marker and the Colonials senior was successful again, going unchallenged for the final half mile and ducking under 15 minutes for the second straight week with his winning time of 14:59.

Westfield's Groff and Scheiner swapped their places from the district meet as Groff prevailed in the runnerup slot at 15:07 with Scheiner third in 15:12. West Springfield's Tobin finished strong through the final half mile to grab fourth in 15:16 while Mocko held on for fifth (15:24) ahead of Young (6th; 15:29).

Lake Braddock's Brad Clark was the first non senior finisher as the Bruins junior placed seventh at 15:34, just getting the lean on Oakton senior Karl Lang (8th; 15:34) with Liberty District champ Dawit Legesse of Lee in ninth, also with a time of 15:34.

Liberty runnerup Andrew Waring of Madison ran perhaps his best race of the season in claiming tenth place (15:36), just ahead of Oakton senior Stephen Best (11th; 15:36). Jefferson got a strong performance from their number three runner in Kyle Smith (12th; 15:41) as well as from their number four runner John McConnell (20th; 15:57) while the final three awards spots went to individual state qualifiers in Langley sophomore Alex Gilman (13th; 15:43), Wakefield senior Mudasar Haidat (14th; 15:44) and fast closing sophomore Kris Benton of West Springfield (15th; 15:47).