With the district meets barely a week away and with the regional meet the following week, Robinson looks to be the dominant team on the girls side as they moved up one spot from their runnerup finish at last year\'s Glory Days Grill meet to win with 92 points. The Patriot District was especially strong as they took the top three and four of the first five team positions as Lake Braddock scored 135 points for second place to slip past third place Hayfield (141 points) with Magruder (MD) fourth with 179 points and West Springfield fifth at 194 points.
Robinson was led by junior Sam Ference, who has been the Rams most consistent performer this year, with her sixth place overall finish at 19 minutes, 17 seconds over the rolling, moderately hilly, all grass 3.1 mile (5k) course. Robinson also had juniors Lauren Hovland and Joanna Rodgers within 30 seconds of Ference in the number two and three spots with their fourth through seventh runners all within 1:30 of Ference, as they now look forward to the championship season.
Runnerup Lake Braddock was paced by junior Kelly Swain\'s third place finish in 18:53 and also had freshman Sara Rothe greatly contribute with her ninth place time of 19:24 while third place Hayfield put three runners among the top twenty five finishers led by Morgan Phelan (13th; 19:32).
In the individual competition, Oakton senior Keira Carlstrom made her first foray into racing on Northern Virginia soil this season a good one as she won in 18:27 to become the number seven performer all time, with five of the six performers ahead of her former Foot Locker National Finalists.
Carlstrom and a group of nine others were in the lead pack after a fairly conservative first half mile in somewhat breezy weather under warm, sunny skies before Carlstrom, Centreville sophomore Dacia Barr, Swain and Katie Endres of Potomac Falls made a slight break from the pack and went through the first mile in 5:42.
Approaching a short but steep hill close to the race\'s halfway point, Swain picked up the pace but first Barr and then Carlstrom covered the move with Endres then relegated to fourth place. Carlstrom then took the lead in the next quarter mile on the back portion of the course and held a five second lead over Barr at the two mile mark, which the Oakton senior hit in 11:38.
Carlstrom then maintained a twenty to thirty yard lead over Barr for the remaining mile of the course and finished well in control for a seven second victory over Barr, who now ranks as the number ten performer with her runnerup time of 18:34 with Swain third (18:53) and sophomore Endres fourth in 19:07 to finish just ahead of fast closing Kristin Hart of Herndon (5th; 19:10).
On the boys side, Good Counsel matched the Robinson girls as they scored 92 points in winning for the second straight year. Good Counsel employed some excellent pack running as their top five scoring runners were all within 40 seconds of each other led by Joey Norcia (8th; 16:17) and Kevin Graves (9th; 16:21).
The Northern Region took the next six spots in the team scoring with West Springfield notching second with 127 points to finish just ahead of Herndon\'s third place total of 135. The Hornets were followed by Westfield (189), Robinson (200), Oakton (248) and Langley (260) in the fourth through seventh spots with the only notable absence among region teams not competing from the top ranked squad of Jefferson.
The boys race for the individual title was not expected to be very close with three time AA state champion and two time Foot Locker National Finalist Bobby Lockhart in the field and the Handley senior left no doubt shortly after the opening gun. Lockhart had a thirty yard lead after the first half mile, blitzed through the mile mark in 4:29 and hit the two mile mark in 9:24 with a thirty second lead before finishing up in 15:03 to break former West Springfield star Sharif Karie\'s 1995 record of 15:05.
Ben Stern of Georgetown Day was the closest pursuer behind Lockhart for most of the race and finished in the runnerup spot for the second year in a row, this time at 15:47. Oakton senior Phil Gaeta ran in third for most of the race but was overtaken on the final downhill straight by Herndon junior Rasheed Thompson as Thompson placed third (15:52) and Gaeta fourth (15:54).
The next region finisher was West Springfield junior Jeff Day as he led the Spartan\'s runnerup team position with his tenth place finish in 16:22. The region also had the next six spots behind Day in Langley\'s Billy Bylund (11th;16:23), Herndon\'s number two runner Mike Dominguez (12th; 16:24), Lee sophomore Robert Longoria (13th; 16:25), Hayfield junior Kevin Camp (14th; 16:30), junior Brian Buckland leading Westfield\'s fourth place team finish (15th; 16:31) and West Springfield\'s Bryan Will as the number two runner for the Spartans (16th; 16:33).