There were quite a few elite performanes at the Asics Elite Invitational held at Liberty University's Tolsma Track Center in Lynchburg on Saturday, December 25th.
Blacksburg senior Peter Dorrell, likely highly motivated from coming up just short of making it to Foot Locker Nationals this cross country, has steamrolled through the month of December in indoor. Dorrell followed up his 4:19 1600 meter opener last weekend at Liberty with a 9:16 3200 meter performance this weekend on the same track.
Both are early season national leading performances in the two distance events, but his 1600 meter time was topped this weekend by Logan Collins of Orange County who blitzed a personal best time of 4:17 at the Asics Elite Invite.
The best in the Eastern Region are already rolling in December as Keith Ricks of King's Fork matched Torry Womack's 6.37 clocking at CNU on Friday night with a 6.37 win himself at Liberty on Saturday.
Patrick Henry junior Natalie Woodford has looked very sharp early on in the sprints this indoor season. After winning the 500 meter dash last weekend at the Liberty Christmas Invite in 1:18, Woodford scored another victory at the Tolsma Track Center this weekend with an auto state qualifying performance of 41.64 in the 300 meter dash.
Alisha Royal doubled up in the distance races with first place finishes in the 1600 and 100 meter races as the William Byrd junior put up times of 5:18.93 and 3:06.20 respectively.
Nick Ward's time of 1:06.81 in the 500 meter dash is a state leading performance in the event for the Western Albemarle senior. Ward was one of several stellar races by Western Albemarle individuals as Coach Lindy Bain had two solid runner-up performers in the distance races with Tyler Stutzman running a personal best time of 4:20 in the 1600 meter run, while Kyle Satterwhite clocked in at 9:42 for the 3200 meter run.
The same pair from Charlottesville who won the boys and girls high jump at last week's Liberty Christmas Invite were winners once again at the Asics Elite Invite with Christen Rhodes clearing 5'6" and Justin Jackson at 6'6" as high jump winners.