Porter's desire for first state championship fuels his final kick to victory
Group AAA Boys: Thomas Porter (Mountain View) 15:13, Oakton - 70 pts (16:19 team average)
The monkey is now off his back. Thomas Porter now can call himself a state champion. Porter, a promising star as a freshmen including a national title in the freshmen mile, had several near misses of a state championship prior to this fall to make his victory in the AAA boys state race all more bittersweet. Another senior looking for his first cross country state title made Porter dig deep for the win in Atlee's Ben Dejarnette. Dejarnette and Porter had made up a lead pack of four regional champions with Eastern Region champ Bobby Peavey and Northern Region champ Leoule Degfae for over 2 miles. Dejarnette made a move with 1000 meters to go on a long downhill stretch to try to gap Porter, but the Northwest Region champ countered one back in the gate to surge past Dejarnette for a 15:13 victory. The defending indoor 3200 state champion Dejarnette took runner-up with a time of 15:18. Porter will now turn his attention to November 29th in Charlotte for the Foot Locker South Regional as he attempts to join rare company as a three-time national qualifier.
Photo by Andy Paisley
The Oakton boys shed the disappointment of the 2007 season by bringing home a state championship in the 2008 season. Much like in 2007, Oakton had been the top ranked team in Group AAA for virtually the entire season. However, different from 2007, the Oakton boys did not falter down the final stretch and finished off the season strong to win their four state title in school history. Their biggest competition heading into the meet was district and regional rival James Robinson, who had an aggressive race plan with many of their runners in the top 1/3 of the field in the first mile, but the plan backfired and Robinson ended up finishing at a distant 10th place. With the Robinson squad not having a great day, Coach Phil Tiller's Oakton boys won the AAA title quite easily with a 46 margin of victory. The Cougars averaged 16:19 on the Great Meadow course with a team score of 71 points.
Oakton junior Andrew McCullen was the lone All-State finisher on the squad in 9th place at 15:55, but only 45 seconds separated McCullen from the rest of his top five with Neal Hendricks (16:13), Patrick Fulghum (16:17), Chris Weil (16:29), and Karlan Cruz (16:39). In the combined state meet scoring, Oakton actually matched up very well with top ranked Jamestown from the Group AA race as only one point separated the two teams thanks to the performances of Oakton's #4 and #5 runners, despite Jamestown's stellar front three.
The Albemarle boys finished third in their district meet and were ranked 8th in Group AAA heading into the state meet. Long shots to finish on the podium, the Patriots still believed they had a shot and certainly ran with a lot of faith as Coach Buz Male's squad pulled off one of the biggest surprises in the meet in snag a state runner-up team trophy. Albemarle with 117 points had room to spare as well as 32 points separated them from third place and 34 points from Northwest Region champions Mountain View, who had beaten Albemarle convincingly at both the district and regional meets.
Photo by Andy Paisley
Albemarle's strength prior to the meet had been their front two in Anthony Kostelac and Luke Noble, who had finished second and third behind Thomas Porter at the Northwest Region Meet. The pair continued to run well at the state level and break into the top 10 with a 7th place finish by Kostelac (15:53) and 8th place finish by Noble (15:55). However, the personal best performances by senior Nathan Rouse (16:38) and junior Evan Karweik (17:02) were the difference makers to help Albemarle go from 8th in the rankings to 2nd in the state meet. Although not one of the team scorers in 101st place, Zach Vrhovac's presence alone appeared to motivate and inspire his teammates. Vrhovac, one of the state's top returning half milers, also plays football for Albemarle and played both ways on the gridiron on Friday only to race the next day in the state cross country championships.
Douglas Freeman did not send an individual on the podium to accept All-Region honors, but sent a team of 7 runners as well as coaches and alternates onto the podium at Great Meadow to accept their third place team trophy. Several teams were in close attention for the podium spot including Northwest Region champs Mountain View, who were 2 points behind Freeman in fourth place as a team depleted by graduation from last year almost duplicated their third place state meet finish from 2007. Freeman's top finisher was Alec Ward (16:15) in 19th place, but it was the races from their second and third runners, Kyle Ward (35th, 16:35) and Silas Frantz (38th, 16:39), who made the difference in allowing the Rebels to slip ahead of Mountain View.