Two Northern Region teams in the Oakton boys and Lake Braddock girls received national rankings in Marc Bloom's latest Harrier Super 25 national team rankings. Virginia having three different schools represented in the top 25 national rankings speaks loudly of the quality of teams found within our state, but there is one school which for some reason keeps being forgotten in the NTN regional rankings in particular.
Photo by Mike Saunders
The Oakton boys, who have established themselves as the top team in the Southeast region after an impressive first half of September with a victory over preseason SE #1 and US #11 Midlothian at the Great Meadow Invite and then followed up with a second invite win at Delaware's Lake Forest Invite including a 12 second spread for their top five ranging from 16:17 to 16:29. Coach Phil Tiller's team now finds themselves as the #6 ranked team in the country.
Photo by Ted Plunkett
The Lake Braddock girls have competed without several of their key returnees early on such as Christine Moore, but their depth is well beyond their top seven as they picked up a win at Monroe Parker and finished third to the US #4 Midlothian and #6 Eleanor Roosevelt girls in the championship "A" race at the Brentsville Relays.
However, probably the biggest mistake this season in the NTN regional rankings and possibly even national rankings has been the absence of the Blacksburg girls. The defending AA state champions are ranked #2 in the state of Virginia ahead of Lake Braddock (ranked #3 in the Southeast), while are not even ranked in the top ten in the Southeast region despite Brentsville also being ranked #9 in the Southeast. Blacksburg finished the 2006 cross country season as the #6 ranked team in the Southeast, yet appear to be much stronger this year than last year's team.
A telling sign of this improvement was shown at the Knights Crossing Invite despite missing their top returning runner in Laurel MacMillan, Blacksburg averaged 22 seconds faster as a team (19:35) than their 2006 performance (19:57) in the same meet on the same course. Meanwhile, Lake Braddock had a nine seconds slower team average (19:16) at Monroe Parker than in 2006 (19:07). Lake Braddock could be rightfully ranked, but the Blacksburg being overlooked shows a lack of attention to research.