Albemarle Invitational Preview

The Albemarle Invitational should have some excellent showdowns at Panorama Farms in Charlottesville this Saturday with many of the state's top teams and individuals. The Maggie Walker girls, led by a great front 1-2 in Susannah Piersol and Clarissa Schick, will face off against an upstart team this fall in Millbrook, who also is very tough at the top with the Parkes sisters, Presley and Parkes. Albemarle's Liz Barclay will look to go for a second Albemarle Invite win in front of the home crowd, but Osbourn Park's Ariel Karabinus will attempt to challenge and see if the Northwest Region title later this fall is a realistic goal with Barclay standing in the way. VA #5 Western Albemarle and VA #6 Mountain View lead the boys field as both team's front runners with Thomas Porter for Mountain View and the Western duo of Kyle Satterwhite and Tyler Stutzman will be the strongest individual contenders in the race.

Photo by David Fleenor

While the top half of Virginia's top ranked teams will be at Manhattan Invite, virtually the entire bottom half will be at Albemarle Invitational with VA #5 Western Albemarle, #6 Mountain View, #8 Ocean Lakes, and #9 Albemarle. Western Albemarle and Mountain View certainly believe they can beat the best in the state and will be hoping to pick up decisive wins over each other this weekend at Albemarle to strengthen their case. Both met each other two weeks ago at the Maymont Festival with Western Albemarle finishing sixth with 196 points and Mountain View taking seventh with 210 points. It could be very close between the two teams as Western Albemarle can put three runners ahead of Mountain View's second man, but Mountain View can pack in five in front of Western's fourth man.

Western Albemarle was second at the Albemarle Invite in 2006 to Fork Union, while Mountain View did not attend. However, Mountain View is very familar with the course as the Northwest Region Championships are traditionally held at Panorama Farms.

Ocean Lakes and Albemarle are two underrated squads who came into this season with little or no fanfare, but have already established themselves as legitimate squads in the state. Ocean Lakes won the Chesapeake Invitational and finished second at the William & Mary Invitational to Jamestown. Meanwhile, Albemarle has scored two invitational victories this season at Woodberry Forest and in the gold division at the Maymont Festival. 

The depth extends beyond the four top 10 ranked teams in the state as Fork Union, Louisa County, Sherando, and Osbourn Park will make for some tight team battles further down the line. Louisa County and Sherando obviously will be an interesting matchup between two teams trying to make it out of the ultra-competitive Region II Championships in November. 

The top two teams in the meet also have the leading individual contenders at the Albemarle Invitational as Mountain View junior Thomas Porter is coming off a statement making win at the Octoberfest Invite with a 15:23 5K performance, while Western Albemarle's #1 alternates between fellow juniors Kyle Satterwhite and Tyler Stutzman. Satterwhite defeated Porter two weeks ago at the Maymont Festival with a ninth place run of 15:55, while Stutzman finished just a tick behind Porter in 13th at 15:59. 

A darkhorse in the race is Ethan Richards as the E.C. Glass senior broke Patterson Wilhelm's course record at the Presbyterian Home 5K course in Lynchburg in a 16:13 win at the Hilltopper Invitational. Wilhelm happened to be the 2005 Albemarle Invite champion in 15:52. Richards is the second fastest returnee from the 2006 Albemarle Invitational as he placed seventh last year in 16:37. 

Other individuals to make for a solid top ten of individuals will be Fork Union's Jeremy Haney, Louisa County's Thomas Baker, Covenant's Austin Ellis, Western Albemarle's James Howard-Smith, Osbourn Park's Tyler Simmons, James Wood's Josh Wilson.

Two teams with goals of making it onto the state meet podium this fall at Great Meadow will be clashing at Albemarle with AAA's Maggie Walker and AA's Millbrook. Both are in good position to accomplish the task with #3 rankings in their respective classifications.

Both took off last weekend from racing as each squad had strong team performances two weeks ago on September 29th. The Maggie Walker girls finished seventh in a stellar invitational field at Maymont as only Virginian squads Midlothian and Blacksburg faired better in the meet. Meanwhile, Millbrook was racing against a national caliber squad on the same day in Saratoga Springs of New York at the Oatlands Invite. Millbrook ended up beating several AAA ranked opponents as Virginia's highest finishing squad in the meet with a third place showing.

Maggie Walker will still be considered the favorites between the two teams as their front running matches up well against one of the state's best duos in the Parkes sisters with freshmen Presley and junior Sullivan. Maggie Walker was the only team in the invite race at Maymont to have two individuals in the top ten with Susannah Piersol (9th, 19:09) and Clarissa Schick (10th, 19:12). The Parkes sisters were very comparable at Oatlands on the same day with Presley Parkes in eighth (19:00) and Sullivan Parkes in tenth place (19:18).

However, the gap that Maggie Walker may create on Millbrook and the rest of the field is their depth after their front two as they have four girls under 20 minutes for 5K and an entire seven under 21 minutes.  Millbrook's spread in their top five is nearly 30 seconds greater than Maggie Walker's and will need to close on Saturday in Charlottesville for the #7 ranked squad in Virginia to have a shot at knocking off #4 ranked squad in the state.

Just as the Louisa and Sherando boys will be racing against each other within a race, Region II girls teams Sherando, Western Albemarle, and Monticello will be going head-to-head and seeing how they stack up as they approach championship season. With Brentsville and Millbrook girls appearing to the best two teams in the region that leaves two remaining spots open. Sherando girls have ran well as of late to move to a #7 ranking in AA, while Western Albemarle and Monticello follow closely behind at #8 and #9. With AA #5 Potomac Falls not present at Albemarle this weekend, realistically it could be three teams this weekend sizing up with one another to see who may take that final spot to qualify onto the state championships at the Region II Meet. 

Albemarle junior Liz Barclay (pictured right by John Herzog) won big in the 2006 Albemarle Invite as her final time of 18:42 put her 34 seconds ahead of the next finisher. Barclay is running well again as shown by her third place run of 18:49 at Maymont, but another 34 second margin of victory might be tougher to pull off as she should have some company upfront.

Although struggling at the Oatlands Invitational, Osbourn Park sophomore Ariel Karabinus appears to be Barclay's biggest threat for Saturday. Karabinus had a great opening race at the Great Meadow Invite in early September as she dropped her 5K best considerably with a 18:36 runner-up finish. In the process, Karabinus also beat the event Maymont champion in defending AAA 1600 meter state champion Kathleen Lautzenheiser at Great Meadow. If Karabinus can bounce back from her seventh place finish (19:00) at Oatlands, she could be a spoiler for a second straight Albemarle Invite title by Barclay.

Including Barclay, five top 10 finishers from the 2006 race are back including Maggie Walker's Susannah Piersol, Colonial Forge's Kaylan Comer, and Maggie Walker's Clarissa Schick. Three-time AAA All-State cross country performer Comer leads a Colonial Forge squad that could slip into the top three behind Maggie Walker and Millbrook, while Eastern Region squad Ocean Lakes will look to get up there as well as they are led by returning AAA All-State cross country performer Stacey Nobles.

Pulaski County's Sabrina Hall had been an undefeated tear to start her year with several invitational victories, until beating dealt her first loss last Saturday by Lee-Davis sophomore Amanda Lineberry at the Hagan Stone Classic. 

Two of the best freshmen in the state this fall will be in the same race with Millbrook's Presley Parkes and Krista DeCault. Parkes is ranked #3 in AA, while DeCault ranks at #8. Parkes is also the only freshmen ranked among the top 15 runners in the state currently as she rounds out the state's best in the #15 spot after she ran a personal best of 19 minutes at Oatlands two weeks ago coming in right behind Osbourn Park's Karabinus. DeCault had an exceptional run at Octoberfest last Saturday with a 5K PR run of 19:06. 

Top Girls Teams:

Maggie Walker

Millbrook

Colonial Forge

Ocean Lakes

Sherando

Western Albemarle

Monticello

Top Girls Individuals:

Liz Barclay (Albemarle)

Ariel Karabinus (Osbourn Park)

Presley Parkes (Millbrook)

Susannah Piersol (Maggie Walker)

Sullivan Parkes (Millbrook) 

Clarissa Schick (Maggie Walker)

Kaylan Comer (Colonial Forge)

Sabrina Hall (Pulaski County)

Krista DeCault (Sherando)

Stacey Nobles (Ocean Lakes)

Top Boys Teams:

Western Albemarle

Mountain View

Ocean Lakes 

Albemarle 

Fork Union 

Louisa County 

Sherando

Osbourn Park 

Top Boys Individuals: 

Thomas Porter (Mountain View) 

Kyle Satterwhite (Western Albemarle)

Tyler Stutzman (Western Albemarle)

Nathan Richards (E.C. Glass) 

Jeremy Haney (Fork Union) 

Thomas Baker (Louisa County) 

Austin Ellis (Covenant)

James Howard-Smith (Western Albemarle) 

Josh Wilson (James Wood) 

Teams List

Albemarle
Brooke Point
Brookville
Buffalo Gap
C.D. Hylton
Charlottesville
Collegiate
Colonial Forge
Covenant
Culpeper
Deep Run
E.C. Glass
Essex
Fluvanna
Fork Union
Franklin County
Garfield
James Wood
Maggie Walker
Manchester
Massaponox
Millbrook
Monticello
Mountain View
Nelson
North Stafford
Ocean Lakes
Osbourn
Osbourn Park
Potomac
Pulaski
R.E. Lee
Riverbend
Rockbridge
Sherando
STAB
Stafford
Thomas Dale
Western Albemarle
Woodberry Forest