Grant Holloway, Noah Lyles, Western Branch, Andrew Hunter! This group of guys and girls are one special group and all of them are returning! This year's national invitational was serious one for the record books and included state records and national records by Grant Holloway and Western Branch's Shuttle Hurdle Relay. Check out the full recap below.
This weekend was filled with a ton of bang and one of the biggest bangs of them all was Grant Holloway's race of the century to cross the line in 7.85 which was good enough for US #2 all-time and en route a 55mH national record! Grant was rightfully overcome with emotion immediately following learning that he had just won his first national title and ran the absolute race of his life.
Though Grant may have had a great race, he was certainly not the only one. In the boys 200 we got to see Noah Lyles redeem his 60m performance and show up Ryan Clark by crossing the line in 20.83 to not only win the 200 national title but rank himself US #2 all-time and set the junior national class record to join his sophomore national class record set last year. Noah's brother Josephus came up just short in the boys 400 due to a very poor lane draw but will still remain the outdoor defending champion in that distance going into the outdoor season.
The only other individual national champion for Virginia was none other then Andrew I don't even have an indoor season Hunter. Despite not having the opportunity to get in any serious races prior to this weekend, Drew was able to capitalize big time and come away with a national title in the 2 mile in one of the best races of the decade. Drew drove the pace early and let everyone know that he was the guy to beat and that was exactly the case when he lunged at the line to win the title in 8:48.22. This time ranks him inside the top three all-time in the state of Virginia for 3200 when you convert the time.
On the relay side of things Virginia came away with three national titles, well more specifically, Western Branch came away with three titles. On Saturday alone the Bruins won both the girls' shuttle hurdle relay and 4x800 comprised of just six girls for both the relays. Their boy teammates though showed their stuff in the 4x200 to take home in the crown in the opening championship on Sunday.
The story of their success though has to be the fact that such a small group of girls were able to run so many events and exemplify range of skill. Faith Ross for instance was the anchor on their national record setting shuttle hurdle relay team, their third leg on the champion 4x800, and the opening leg on their all-american 4x200 and 4x400 teams. One of the most exciting things she did was split a 2:09 800 and taking her team from ninth to first in the matter of just 300m.
Throughout the entire weekend we also saw some amazing close finishes that had Virginia just short of national titles. Marcellus Fletcher in the triple jump was one, Grant Holloway in the high jump was another, and Chantilly's Brandon McGorty was a third and very close runner-up. McGorty was in the slower section of the boys 800 and was chasing the clock and if he were in the fast section could have legitimately came away with the title.
We also had some very impressive performances on the girls side of things including sophomores Kate Murphy and Lauryn Ghee who shocked a lot of people with their performances. Murphy ran a blazing 10:20.22 full two mile for the runner up position and Ghee blazed a 54.65 to finish just short at the line in the 400. Both of these girls will return as heavy favorites next year and have raised a lot of eyebrows for what they could be capable of doing by their senior campaigns.
If you include Grant's 55h time then Virginia came away from the weekend with a staggering six national titles and two national records. Also we placed numerous all-americans and runner up positions. The best part of all of this is the fact that not a single senior won an individual title and nearly every single relay leg will be returning again next year.
