This past Saturday Team VA put on a show down at the NXN-Southeast Regional. Though there were many races on the day at the WakeMed course in Cary, NC, the two centers of attention were the championship races just prior to noon. Up first was the boys race.
In the Boys Championship race Loudoun Valley, Lake Braddock, Midlothian, and Albemarle were all racing. They were joined by half a dozen individual VA runners as well with the top five individuals and top two teams advancing to NXN.
The race began quick with the leaders coming thru the 2K in 6:03 or on 4:52 pace. At that point Loudoun Valley (The Jungle TC) was sitting nice in second place. Individually VA had five individuals inside the top 30 at this nearly halfway point.
The final 3K though there was a lot of shakeups as the athletes went around the outside fields. The biggest moves though were done by Brentwood (TN) who moved up from third (134 points) in the team rankings to a dominant win with 66 points. That move pushed Loudoun Valley out to third with 124 points, missing the cut by 20 points.
Individually though Peter Morris finished 7th and 5th amongst non-top two teams meaning he is headed to NXN. He ran a very solid 15:25 for that position.
Just missing the cut was his Loudoun Valley teammate Colton Bogucki who finished 11th in 15:32.
Alec Schrank (Millbrook) finished in 16th (15:40), Jacob Hunter (Loudoun Valley) finished in 20th (15:43), Conor Lyons (Lake Braddock) finished in 22nd in (15:47), and Yared Mekonnen (Thomas Edison) finished in 28th (15:52) to round out VA's top finishers.
In the final race of the day history was made yet again thanks to the Bruins. Now in back-to-back years, Virginia will be sending two teams out to NXN with Blacksburg taking home the team title and Lake Braddock finishing second. This is now just the second time this has ever happened for Virginia with last year being the first.
Though they ultimately went 1-2 scoring 105 and 122 points, it did not look that great at 2K. Coming thru that split point Blacksburg was all the way back in 9th place with Ailene Edwards leading them in 21st place. Lake Braddock was in third place at that point.
It wasn't until the final 3K that both Blacksburg and Lake Braddock started to make their moves and pick off runners one by one. Kate Murphy individually also began to make her move and pull away from her competitors at this point.
Down the homestretch though Kate Murphy was all alone as she powered down the homestretch and thru up the University of Oregon "O" as she crossed the line in 17:13. That strong finish helped Lake Braddock advance to their second NXN in a row. Of course they brought back the flannels for the award ceremony too.
Leading Blacksburgs' team was Ailene Edwards who finished 12th in 18:16.
Just missing out on a trip to NXN were three Virginia athletes who finished 10th, 11th, and 13th. Those athletes were Ryann Helmers (Albemarle), Doria Martingayle (Princess Anne), and Averi Witt (Western Albemarle) who all finished between 18:15 and 18:17.
Also finishing in the top 30 for VA was Samatha Marin (14th - 18:17) , Caroline Howley (23rd - 18:35), Samantha Schwers (26th - 18:39), and Noel Palmer (29th - 18:40).