James Robinson senior Jared Berman scored a major individual win over the Degfae twins of Thomas Edison in Wednesday's scrimmage at Burke Lake with a 16 second PR of 15:28 at home course for the Northern Region Championships. Berman looks to lead his team to bigger things this fall and make a state meet podium run. (Photo by Ted Plunkett)
Chantilly, James Robinson, and Thomas Edison gathered their cross country teams at Burke Lake Park's 2.98 mile course on Wednesday, August 27th for a final scrimmage prior to the start of the official season next week. The results showed a highly competitive scrimmage which had two ranked AAA squads in #3 James Robinson and #9 Thomas Edison facing off, while the girls' team scores showed an even more tightly contested meet with only one point separating the three schools and a sixth runner tiebreaker determining the winner.
James Robinson's Jared Berman scored a major individual victory over the Degfae twins as the unranked Berman defeated AAA #5 ranked Leoule Degfae (2nd, 15:34) and AAA #9 ranked Tihut Degfae (3rd, 16:09) with a time of 15:28. The Robinson senior Berman improved upon his 2007 Northern Region Championships time of 15:44 at Burke Lake by 16 seconds and has established himself early as one of the top individuals to look out for in the region this fall.
Chantilly junior Chris Foley (ranked #12 in AAA) did not race in the scrimmage, so the first 11 places went to runners from James Robinson and Thomas Edison as both have capable squads to qualify for the state meet in November. The Rams had the next three runners after the Degfae twins from Edison with Eric Flanagan (4th, 16:20), Nick Reed (5th, 16:41), and Stuart Steen (6th, 16:54) all finishing under 17 minutes. The James Robinson boys, also ranked #6 in the All-Class rankings, won the tri meet scrimmage with 25 points compared to Edison's 29 points.
The James Robinson girls made it a sweep in the scrimmage, but made it close as the Lady Rams and #9 ranked team in Group AAA ran without their top runner in Stephanie Bray. It came down to a sixth runner tiebreaker between Robinson and Thomas Edison with both teams tallying 41 points, while Chantilly had a virtually identical score in third place with 42 points.
Running ahead of the field individually was one of the state's top returning cross country runners in senior Lia DiValentin of Chantilly. DiValentin, who had to end her outdoor season due to injury, gained some confidence as she works to her top form through picking up an easy win with her time of 18:37. Finishing second to DiValentin by 36 seconds, Edison's Myah Hicks appears to have put in a decent amount of training over the summer to start her season 21 seconds faster at Burke Lake than she finished as a National District runner-up in cross country last October.