Dorrell 2nd fastest at VCP-12:20, close 2nd\'s behind NE powers for VA boys

Quick highlights from Manhattan of the Virginians:

Peter Dorrell (pictured left by Don Rich of https://pa.milesplit.com)posted the second fastest time of the day at Van Cortland Park with a sensational time of 12:20 in the Varsity F race to finish ten seconds off the all-time record. However, he ended up finishing second in his race to Brian Leung of New Jersey, who had the day's best at 12:18. Dorrell, who was unable to preview the back section of the course, allowed Leung to build a 12 second lead on him at one point. The Blacksburg senior closed the gap with a strong finish, but not enough to come away with the fastest time of the meet. While it was Dorrell's first defeat of the season, looking back at times in the Van Cortland Park history, Virginia's top ranked harrier can walk away from this weekend as a runner.

Dorrell was not far off posting the fastest time ever by a high school runner from Virginia at Van Cortland. Who is the former Virginian prep that ranks ahead of Dorrell as the fastest ever from our state at Manhattan? Alan Webb. Webb as a junior at South Lakes High School took on the epicenter of high school cross country on the East Coast with a 12:18 performance. Webb went onto win Foot Locker South that fall and finish in the top 10 at Foot Locker Nationals. Dorrell hopes to follow a similar path this season.

One of the top Virginian stories of the meet was respectable second place finishes for the Virginia boys teams against the best that the Northeast has to offer. The state represented the Southeast region well in attempting to breakdown the reputation the region has as one of the weakest in the country in terms of national caliber teams.

The Oakton boys with 71 points finished only 15 points behind the #1 ranked team in the country (according to Marc Bloom's Super Harrier 25) in Danbury of Connecticut with 56 points in the Varsity B division. After dropping out of the top ten in Bloom's rankings to a US #25 position in their second place finish to Medina of Ohio at Maymont, Coach Phil Tiller's boys have asserted themselves as a team who can run with the best in the country and be competitive if given the chance to race at Nike Team Nationals. Running tight with the top ranked team in the country coming into this weekend bodes well for Virginia's top ranked squad.

Oakton actually had Danbury on the ropes through the #4 spot as the Cougars had four of the top nine finishers in the varsity A division with a impressive sight in having all four break 13 minutes on the historic 2.5 mile course. Joe Lorusso was the race runner-up leading his squad in with a time of 12:44. His next three teammates came in fairly quickly thereafter with the identical Hendricks twins, Brian and Neal, finishing with identical times of 12:54.76 for seventh and eight place respectively, while Andrew McCullen was the next finisher at 12:57 for ninth place. Oakton was beating Danbury through four at 26 to 38. However, Oakton's plot to upset the Harrier US #1 squad were foiled with Danbury's fifth coming in well in before Oakton's (Chris Weil, 45th, 13:40) with a 22 second gap and more importantly 27 places between the two team's final scorers. 

After a Midwest region bubble team (according to DyeStat.com's regional rankings) in Medina of Ohio beat the best in the Southeast region including top ranked Oakton at Maymont, it was quick to assume that whoever the Southeast sent to Nike Team Nationals would not be very competitive. However, Oakton's strong showing against the Northeast region's best in Danbury as well as a returning NTN squad makes for a more potentially positive reconsideration of how the Southeast boys could race in Portland, Oregon on December 1st.

Meanwhile, the Midlothian boys happened to be in the same race with the team which ended up with the fastest team average of the meet in Pennsylvania's North Penn at 12:57.1 as the Northeast ranked North Penn squad beat the Southeast ranked Midlo boys 44 to 98. Jason Witt finished second individually in the race to lead Midlothian.

Thomas Jefferson boys were also second to a top ranked team in the Varsity C race with only 17 points separating them from a Harrier US #20 Queensbury of New York squad and tying them with a team average of 13:14 through five.

Brentsville also hung tough in third in the Varsity E division behind the Harrier US #10 Germantown Friends of Pennyslvania and strong team fron Canada in Thousand Islands. 

Comparing the VA teams:

  • Oakton (13:01.8 Team Average) - 2nd to Harrier US #1 Danbury CT
  • Midlothian (13:04.2 Team Average) - 2nd to DyeStat NE #4 North Penn PA
  • Thomas Jefferson (13:14.2 Team Average) - 2nd to Harrier US #20 Queensbury NY
  • Brentsville (13:25.6 Team Averge) - 3rd to Harrier US #10 Germantown Friends PA 

It was less positive news out of the Eastern States Girls championship race with the three Virginian squads in the loaded field with Midlothian, Blacksburg, and Brentsville. The US Harrier #2 Midlothian girls, who already had been missing their #2 runner in Leia Lautzenheiser all fall due to injury, had to also sit out their #3 in Paige Johnston as the absence of two of their top three returning runners was too much for the Lady Trojans to overcome as the 2006 Manhattan champs were pushed all the way back to tenth place with 306 points. Their national ranking will obviously be impacted by this weekend's performance as well as their regional ranking with 2006 Nike Team Nationals squad Tatnall of Delaware finishing ahead of them. Coach Morgan's focus now will be to get his team healthy as well as have others step up as they head into the month of November with the state championships and Nike Team Nationals regionals. The new qualifying system for NTN is much different in the past where the Midlothian team's NTN hopes might have lived or died by their performance at Manhattan. All a team has to do is come ready to perform and finish in the top two at the regional meet, which is well over a month away in Hoover, Alabama.

The lone bright spot in the race was an eighth place run by Midlothian sophomore Kathleen Lautzenheiser (pictured left by WingedFootPhotos.com) to crack into the loaded top 10. Lautzenheiser has to be considered as a Foot Locker contender after her performance at Vanny finishing with some of the best runners in the Northeast. Lautzenheiser ran 14 seconds faster than her 2006 14th place run at Manhattan of 14:50 with a top time on Saturday of 14:36

 The Blacksburg girls also pull out one of their top runners last second in #2 Allison Homer as they finished in the middle of the pack in the 31 team field with 414 points for 15th place. Laurel MacMillan lead the team with a 40th place time of 15:20.1. MacMillan's time was the second fastest of the meet by a Virginian girl behind only Kathleen Lautzenheiser of Midlothian. Unlike Midlothian and Brentsville, it was the first time that the Blacksburg team has raced at the Manhattan Invitational and experience racing in the country's largest invitational certainly helps. Behind MacMillan, the Blacksburg girls held up respectably with Joanna Stevens (70th, 15:44.9), Kathleen Stevens (84th, 15:52.1), Leah Fitchett (109th, 16:11.7), and Avery Mattingly (111th, 16:12.3). Homer being healthy enough to race would have certainly given them another top 50 finisher with MacMillan to help the team's finish. 

The Brentsville girls had a respectable run giving their lower expectations compared to Midlothian and Brentsville coming in with an 18th place team showing with 441 points. Coach Rob Dulin's girls have ran very well this fall considering they are missing two of their top three returnees from last year's team with Lauren Bussian injured and Maggie Gentry not on the team this fall. A new freshmen emerged to the front of Brentsville's pack at Manahttan in Morgan Price as she was a step ahead of senior teammate Amelia Emerson (69th, 15:44.6) in 68th place with a time of 15:44.0. Only three seconds separated their top three with Courtney McGowan coming in at 15:47 for a 76th place run. Trailing less than 30 points behind Blacksburg in the Eastern States race, a second state title for Blacksburg will not come without a stiff challenge by the Brentsville girls. The Brentsville boys have already proven this season that one cannot count out the defending championships..

However, it was the Oakton girls who ended up as the only Virginian squad to come away with a first place finish out of Manhattan in the varsity B division as they finished well ahead of second place by 74 points with a team score of 66. Oakton five finishers in the top 22 with Becca Kassabian (3rd, 15:25), Haillie Eilerts (8th, 15:52), Cindy Adams (16th, 16:06), Jenna Cahill (17th, 16:09), and Becky Galbo (22nd, 16:21). Kassabian's (pictured right by WingedFootPhotos.com) race was particularly impressive as the Oakton pack has been their strength this season, but have lacked a true front runner. However, Kassabian's time beat some of the state's better runners from other races including one of the Northern Region's best in Hiruni Wijayaratne of Herndon (15:28). Wijayaratne has a 5K PR of 18:30, which is over a full minute ahead of Kassabian's best (19:40). If Kassabian can translate her breakthrough race at Manhattan into future races as a front runner, Oakton's hopes of joining their boys on the state meet podium will be improved. 

Manhattan College Invitational Results

Manhattan Invitational Photo Gallery of Virginians - More photos to be added from various photographers 

Manhattan Videos: Eastern States Girls (Midlothian, Blacksburg, Brentsville) - Varsity F Boys (Peter Dorrell, Blacksburg) - Varsity D Boys (Midlothian)

 

 

Top Virginian Results

 

Boys Individuals 

 1 Peter Dorrell       Blacksburg       12:20.07
 2 Jason Witt          Midlothian       12:41.72
 3 Joe LoRusso         Oakton           12:44.25
 4 Michael Hammond     Midlothian       12:47.56
 5 Brian Landry        Thomas Jefferson 12.49.95
 6 Ray Delgado         Brentsville      12:52.11
 7 Brayden Burleigh    Midlothian       12:54.69
 8 Brian Henricks      Oakton           12:54.76
 9 Neal Hendricks      Oakton           12:54.76
10 Evan Heflin         Thomas Jefferson 12:55.00
11 Andrew McCullen     Oakton           12:57.00
12 Darren Barlow       Midlothian       13:21.51
13 Todd Van Luling     Herndon          13:24.44
14 Andrew Johnson      Brentsville      13:25.74
15 Luke Watts          Brentsville      13:26.40
16 Alex Witko          Thomas Jefferson 13:27.86
17 Aaron Bernstein     Thomas Jefferson 13:28.42
18 Cam Shaver          Forest Park      13:28.9
19 Joe Blizard         Forest Park      13:30.0
20 Brian Davenport     Thomas Jefferson 13:32.8
21 Matthew Howard      Blacksburg       13:36.1
22 Grant Burress       Brentsville      13:38.5
23 Chris Weil          Oakton HS        13:40.7
24 Sam Burris          Forest Park      13:41.4
25 Robbie Cronauer     Brentsville      13:47.8
26 Tommy Galvin        Thomas Jefferson 13:48.1
27 Christian Viehland  Blacksburg       13:51.8
28 Kris Hull           Brentsville      13:53.1
29 Michael Rogers      Midlothian       13:58.7
30 Patrick Fulghum     Oakton HS        14:01.3
31 Pat Cobb            Forest Park      14:02.9
32 Colin Maloney       Thomas Jefferson 14:10.6
33 Brad Schmitt        Blacksburg       14:11.8
34 Andrew Milauskas    Blacksburg       14:15.0
35 Zack Williams       Forest Park      14:16.4
36 Austin Peton        Blacksburg       14:16.8
37 George Carter       Blacksburg       14:24.1
38 Hunter Sparks       Midlothian       14:25.1
39 Zach Morrow         Brentsville      14:36.0

Boys Team Averages

Oakton 13:01.8
Midlothian 13:04.2
Thomas Jefferson 13:14.2
Brentsville 13:25

 

Girls Individuals

 1 Kathleen Lautzenheiser   Midlothian       14:34.66
 2 Laurel MacMillan         Blacksburg       15:20.1
 3 Becca Kassabian          Oakton           15:25.83
 4 Hiruni Wijayaratne       Herndon          15:28.62
 5 Sammy Dow                Midlothian       15:36.5
 6 Amy Witt                 Midlothian       15:37.3
 7 Carly Kulik              Herndon          15:40.52
 8 Alison Underwood         Thomas Jefferson 15:44.05
 9 Morgan Price             Brentsville      15:44.4
10 Amelia Emerson           Brentsville      15:44.6
11 Joanna Stevens           Blacksburg       15:44.9
12 Courtney McGowan         Brentsville      15:47.3
13 Connor Flemaing          Thomas Jefferson 15:47.51
14 Erin Stehle              Midlothian       15:49.9
15 Lauren Pinkston          Herndon          15:50.75
16 Kathleen Stevens         Blacksburg       15:52.1
17 Hallie Eilerts           Oakton           15:52.83
18 Shannon Ropelewski       Midlothian       16:03.6
19 Cindy Adams              Oakton           16:06.85
20 Jenna Cahill              Oakton           16:09.51
21 Leah Fitchett            Blacksburg       16:11.7
22 Avery Mattingly          Blacksburg       16:12.3
23 Sarah Earman             Brentsville      16:13.5
24 Becky Galbo              Oakton           16:16.15
25 Caitlin Hoffman          Brentsville      16:16.3
26 Jessie Daley             Oakton           16:22.34
27 Jessica Jeilds           Herndon          16:24.4
28 Anne Tenser              Midlothian       16:26.0
29 Erin Geraghty            Forest Park      16:26.8
30 Orteli                   Herndon          16:29.1
31 Stephanie  Hutson        Brentsville      16:31.6
32 Kelly Jones              oakton           16:33.6
33 Brittney Combs           Forest Park      16:42.0
34 Tierney Willard          Midlothian       16:47.0
35 Jean O'Bryan             Herndon          16:49.8
36 Gabby Owermohle          Forest Park      16:57.8
37 Ronit Malka              Thomas Jefferson 17:02.5
38 Trinity Foreman          Blacksburg       17:03.8
39 Emily Café               Forest Park      17:06.7
40 Diana Davis              Forest Park      17:07.5
41 Alex Kulifay             Brentsville      17:24.7
42 Kristen Story            Forest Park      17:27.7
43 Kaylinn McAllister       Forest Park      17:30.7