The invitational boys division for the 2007 McDonald's Maymont Festival will be comprised of a US #6 squad, 6 NTN regionally ranked squads, and 5 NTN regional bubble teams to make for another heavyweight showdown with teams looking to put themselves into position as legitimate NTN qualifiers this fall. Last year at Maymont, the North Carolina's Chapel Hill boys certainly improved their stock drastically by winning over a loaded Maymont field filled with ranked teams. Meanwhile, the individual race could be even more exciting than in 2006 when Mike Spooner and Griff Graves had a classic duel with Spooner coming away as the victor in a course record time of 15:35. Graves is back this year as a returning Footlocker finalist along with Mountain View's Thomas Porter in a rare regular season meeting of two runners with experience racing at Balboa Park in December. Joining them in the race will be national caliber runners from Virginia with Footlocker National aspirations in Blacksburg's Peter Dorrell and Midlothian's Jason Witt. Nine of the top ten ranked runners in Virginia will be in the race, while five of the top six teams will be in the invitational division as well. Also one cannot forget the teams and individuals in the top division from Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Teams: US #6 Oakton leads 6 NTN ranked and 5 NTN bubble teams
The Oakton boys come into Maymont as the team to beat with the US #6 and NTN Southeast #1 ranking. There is no dispute over those high rankings for Coach Phil Tiller's boys after their impressive run so far this September including a dominant win at the Great Meadow Invite over NTN ranked squads Jamestown, Mountain View, and Midlothian. Oakton continued to impress with only a 12 second spread for their top five at the Lake Forest Invite in Delaware with their entire top five under 16:30. Quite impressive feat considering many of their considered top competition is struggling to find a fifth or even fourth under 17 minutes for 5K.
Oakton is led by senior Joe Lorusso, a 4:16 miler on the track, who actually has had off races thus far this season as many expected him to be the third best in AAA behind Witt and Porter. If he shows his top form at Maymont with the way the rest of the guys behind him are running, Oakton's win could be even more decisive. The Cougars have two twins to rely on for support up front with Lorussi in the Hendricks brothers, Neal and Brian. Both are ranked among the top 15 runners in AAA currently as Neal was the team's top finisher in their win at Great Meadow with a 16:17 5K.
Oakton may be looking to see how they compare against last year's Maymont teams as they showed at the Great Meadow Invite that they are way ahead of schedule of the 2006 Midlothian team which went onto NTN and placed 14th in the 20 team field in Portland, Oregon. Oakton averaged 20 seconds faster than the 2006 Midlothian team (16:51) at the Great Meadow Invite with their team average of 16:31. The other 2006 NTN Southeast representatives from Chapel Hill had the fastest team average at Maymont last September in 16:47.
Chapel Hill will not be at this year's Maymont Festival, thus the highest finishing team from last year's invitational division is the Jamestown boys as the 2006 Maymont team runners-up. Jamestown caught many off guard beating some of the higher ranked AAA squads last September at Maymont as a AA school, but Coach Howard Townsend's boys will not be able to come in under the radar this weekend. Jamestown is ranked #2 in Virginia behind Oakton and #3 in the Southeast behind Oakton and Maryland's Quince Orchard.
Jamestown tested themselves early against many of their top challengers at the Great Meadow Invite in early September with a second place finish to Oakton, while finishing ahead of Mountain View and Midlothian. While many of the other top Virginia teams took last weekend off, Jamestown was defending their home turf at the William & Mary Invite and successfully did so with a 47 point margin of victory. Jamestown has a strong front runner in junior Andrew Colley, who finished as a two second runner-up to Potomac School's Johns Ross at William & Mary in 15:24. Colley will be looking to give the Eagles a low score card with a top 10 finish, while junior teammate John Holt is capable of placing among the top 15 or 20 individuals.
The team with the most experience at Maymont is arguably Jamestown as they have been coming to the Maymont Festival for years prior to it becoming a hyped clash between NTN teams in 2006.
Coach Dave Davis could not pass up sending his Mountain View boys down to compete against the loaded field assembled for the Maymont Festival despite being originally slated to compete in the Oatlands Invite. Mountain View's next seven is a solid group who will be looking to keep the Wildcats in good position for the final leg of the triple crown among the three meets in the Great Meadow Invite, Oatlands Invite, and Octoberfest Invite. However, Mountain View's "A" team at Maymont will find out if the NTN Southeast Regional on Saturday, November 24th is a date which they should put on their calendar as well. It is important for them to get a clearer picture if they cane make a run at a top two finish in the NTN regional meet since they also have on their team a returning Footlocker finalist in Thomas Porter, who certainly would like to make a return trip back to San Diego if the team's chances of making to Portland, Oregon are unlikely.
Based off their current ranking position, Mountain View is definitely in the hunt as the #4 ranked team in the Southeast region. Saturday will actually be the third time this month which Mountain View has faced Jamestown as the Eagles came out on top in both previous encounters. The final team scores on both occassions were close as Mountain View's depth proved to be better than Jamestown's, but not enough to overcome the front running from Jamestown's 1-2 in Colley and Holt. It will be interesting especially with the fierce competitiveness of Saturday's invite field and plenty of front runners in the mix, which team will be better suited with a team having a slightly better #1-2 compared to a team having a slightly better #3-5.
Western Albemarle comes in as a team with plenty of promise to be one of the Southeast's best as its tough to overlook a squad with such an outstanding duo in juniors Tyler Stutzman and Kyle Satterwhite, but it is the responsibility of their next three to match up well with the other NTN ranked squads on Saturday for the Warriors to find anyway to be successful with a high finish. Stutzman and Satterwhite have been nothing but sensational this fall as Stutzman had the fastest split among all runners in the two mile leg relay races at the Ragged Mountain Cup, while Satterwhite broke Kippy Keino's course record at the Fork Union Invite with a 15:04 three mile time.
However, Western Albemarle's vulnerability was shown at the adidas Wolfpack Invite on September 15th when they were defeated by two unranked North Carolina squads. Western Albemarle can certainly run better than they showed at SAS Park in Cary, North Carolina two weeks ago as #3 James Howard-Smith was a minute slower than his last cross country race in North Carolina last November at Footlocker South when he went under 16 minutes in the sophomore race with teammates Satterwhite and Stutzman.
Western Albemarle was written off a little bit after the Wolfpack Invite since they had made a major jump in the Southeast rankings only the week before to #3 spot in the region from a previously unranked squad. However, one team that has taken a bigger hit from a high early ranking is the Midlothian boys, last year's Southeast #1 ranked team throughout and the preseason #1 heading into this fall. Their preseason ranking was given based on the assumption that two of their top four returnees would actually be returning but with #2 Mark Merritt transferring and #4 Thomas Cole sidelined for the season with injury, Midlothian's stay at #1 was shortlived after a humbling fourth place finish in the season opener at Great Meadow.
Midlothian has rebounded well considering all the circumstances as shown with a win at the Brentsville Relays over Mountain View and two freshmen have stepped up well for them in Brayden Burleigh and Darren Barlow. The other Virginia teams will be anxious to see if Coach Stan Morgan's boys have any fight left in them at Maymont as they certainly can run better than shown so far as Michael Hammond has not run up to expectations coming off his 4:16 1600 breakthrough outdoor season. Hammond running up to his potential would likely give Midlothian one of the best the top three's in Saturday's race with the way that Jason Witt and freshmen Brayden Burleigh have been running this season. However, their issue will be a fifth man and how long the door stays open while other team's fifth, sixth, and seventh runners may be coming in.
Oakton, Jamestown, Mountain View, and Midlothian are the top four ranked teams in Virginia as well as four of the top five ranked teams in the Southeast currently, so the potential for a top four sweep of Virginia schools is a possibility. It could be even more dominant upfront throwing in teams such as Western Albemarle.
However, out-of-state teams in the invitational division such as Walton and Brookwood of Georgia, Oak Ridge of Tennessee, Medina of Ohio, and Mooresville of North Carolina are not making the trip to Richmond this weekend to see how bad they can get beat by the Virginians. They are all coming with the goal in mind to win and scalp some heads with these higher ranked Virginia squads. Walton and Oak Ridge are both ranked in the top 10 in the latest Southeast regional rankings with Walton at #8 and Oak Ridge at #10. Meanwhile, Medina sits just off the top ten in the Midwest region as a bubble team and Brookwood and Mooresville are in the same boat as bubble teams in the Southeast.
Medina is a team to especially keep a close eye as the Southeast boys are considered one of the weaker regions in the country for cross country teams and despite the fact that the Ohio squad is not ranked in their region currently, they still look to be very formidable in a deep region. Can one imagine a program such as York of Illinois not being ranked in the top ten in the Southeast boys? Well they currently are only a bubble team in the Midwest.
Based off 5K times this season, Medina would appear to be the superior team coming in as they averaged 15:57 as a team recently in a close runner-up finish in a major invite to Ohio's #1 team in St. John's Jesuit with five under 16:30. More impressive is Medina's top runners as junior Donny Roys clocked a 5K time of 15:21 in the race with teammate Sam Maynard 18 seconds back at 15:39. Their remaining top five times were 16:02, 16:18, and 16:27.
Oak Ridge is the one of the highest ranked teams among all of the non-Virginia schools as the Southeast #10 and will have always valuable experience on their side in competing at the Maymont Festival. After 2006 invite champions Chapel Hill, Oak Ridge was the next finishing team not from Virginia in ninth place. Oak Ridge opened their season last weekend in a highly competitive McCallie Invite in Tennessee, which featured three other NTN ranked squads in #6 Baylor TN, #7 Hoover AL, #9 Parkview. Coach Allen Etheridge's finished fourth in the race behind the three ranked teams who all had a few races under their belts coming into McCallie. With the race rust shaken off, expect Oak Ridge to take it up a notch this weekend at Maymont and with more awareness of what type of the field they will be running into.
Two of Georgia's top three teams will be at Maymont with SE #8 Walton and bubble team Brookwood. Year in and year out, Walton is battling out for the Georgia state title and return most of their runners from last year's state runner-up team to Parkview. Walton already has two invitational wins this season their credit.
It was already known last December what kind of goals that the Mooresville boys of North Carolina had. Making the trip all the way across the country to compete in the open race at Nike Team Nationals and paying their way for an adventure that had to taken some serious cash, showed the level of committment and drive this group of young men must have in trying to make the dream happen in qualifying for the championship race at Nike Team Nationals. Mooresville is attempting to follow in the footsteps of fellow North Carolina squad Chapel Hill with a Maymont Festival victory. In their season's first invite at the WNC Opener, Mooresville ran even better than the 2006 Chapel Hill squad with a much faster team average. Their team will also have an individual runner who should mix it up with Virginia's top harriers up front in Patrick Campbell. Campbell has a 5K personal best of 15:25.
MileStat.com's Predictions - Invitational Boys Teams
1. Oakton VA
2. Medina OH
3. Jamestown VA
4. Mooresville NC
5. Midlothian VA
6. Mountain View VA
7. Western Albemarle VA
8. Oak Ridge TN
9. Walton GA
10. Brentsville VA
Individuals: Running fast will not cut it to get into top 10 or 15
The individual race might have more excitement and anticipation than the team battles as while it is rare to see these teams from different states race against one another, it might even be more race to see the likes of Griff Graves, Peter Dorrell, Jason Witt, and Thomas Porter all in the same race. All are serious contenders to qualify for Footlocker Nationals as all four are ranked in the top 10 in the MileSplit US Footlocker Power Rankings for the South Region.
Graves is the top returnee from last year's Maymont race as he was a runner-up in 15:46. Graves may be chasing the ghost of Mike Spooner and get some form of revenge in last year's defeat by breaking Spooner's course record of 15:35. The two-time AA state cross country champion will certainly be pressed to do it with a loaded field of Virginia's best top harriers and a sprinkle of new faces from the out-of-staters. Graves is one of three runners in the race who have ran under 15:15 for 5000 meters as Graves has the fastest time of all with his 14:55 performance from Footlocker South last fall. Meanwhile, Witt and Porter both went under the time at Nike Indoor Nationals with Witt as the national champion at 15:05 and Porter just missing the national sophomore record in third at 15:12.
Dorrell might feel like the slow poke of the group at 15:30, but not really considering his accomplished track times which are superior to the others with a 1:54 800, 4:15 1500, and 9:09 3200 to his credit. The first mile at Maymont can be fairly fast with the only hill coming right before the mile mark, so look for one if not the whole group to not play around and set a hard honest pace from the start as they gruel it out.
The depth of the individual runners extends well beyond four of the top five ranked runners in Virginia with five others joining them in the race also among the top ten of the state's best. #6 Alex Ott of Turner Ashby, #7 Andrew Colley of Jamestown, #8 Tyler Stutzman of Western Albemarle, #9 Kyle Satterwhite of Western Albemarle, and #10 Tim Smith of Cave Spring are normwally winning races or at least finishing a close second. This weekend, boys with 5K bests well under 16 minutes will be having to fight it out just to secure top 10 and top 15 finishes in the loaded invitational race.
MileStat.com's Predictions - Invitational Boys Individuals
1. Griff Graves - Abingdon VA
2. Peter Dorrell - Blacksburg VA
3. Jason Witt - Midlothian VA
4. Thomas Porter - Mountain View VA
5. Patrick Campbell - Mooresville NC
6. Donny Roys - Medina OH
7. Alex Ott - Turner Ashby VA
8. Andrew Colley - Jamestown VA
9. Tim Smith - Cave Spring VA
10. Kyle Satterwhite - Western Albemarle VA