As the event continues to grow in its second year of existence, Team Virginia came out in an even draw at the Battle of the Potomac in a post-season border war showdown with top athletes from Maryland. While many of Virginia's best were missing in the event, those who were present to represent the state did so proudly as the Virginia girls came out on top (VA 222 pts, MD 243 pts), while the Virginia boys fell just short (MD 207 pts, VA 258 pts).
The Virginia girls were led by a 1-2 finish from Millbrook freshmen Presley Parkes and West Potomac senior Elizabeth Heath. The Millbrook freshmen Parkes won quite convincingly on a challenging Smokey Glen Farm 5K course with a time of 19:29, while last year's Border War runner-up Heath repeated her finish from a year ago coming off an agonizing one place off all-state finish of 16th place in last week's AAA state race. Virginia had five of the top seven individual finishers to help the state's team cause with several low single digit score cards. Behind Parkes and Heath were Millbrook junior Presley Parkes (5th, 20:06), West Springfield sophomore Alex Watt (6th, 20:09), and Langley junior Lauren Shaw (7th, 20:10).
A handful of All-State runners comprised the boys' team for Virginia. Four of the top five finishers from Virginia were Group AA All-State runners last weekend in Josh Hardin of Potomac Falls (2nd, 16:47), Bryant Clopper of Harrisonburg (5th, 16:57), Dan Nafziger of Harrisonburg (9th, 17:07), and Stephen Lassiter of Millbrook (12th, 17:18). Also running up front for Virginia in the #4 spot was Gloucester's Doug Fenstermacher (11th, 17:11), a two-time AAA All-state cross country performer. However, they were overmatched against the Maryland boys who did a better job at assembling their state's best with a total of four state champions compared to Virginia's complete absence of champions.
Hopefully this meet continues on and grows in prominence to be an event of interest for the majority of Virginia's top cross country harriers in future years.