Two district championship meets were held on Wednesday at Bull Run Regional Park for predominantly Prince William County schools between the Cardinal District to start and Cedar Run to finish the day.
In both girls races, the individual district champions were runaway winners under 19 minutes with Woodbridge junior Laura Webb taking the Cardinal District title with her first sub 19 effort and a new PR at 18:38, while Patriot senior Lindsay Yentz broke 19 for the third this season in a 18:58 victory and more importantly announced her college decision after the race. Yentz has decided to join the Lady Pirates at East Carolina University next fall.
Webb's performance may have been the most impressive individual run of the day for her to chop off 22 seconds from a previous 16 second time drop she already had made two weekends ago at the MileStat.com XC Invitational with a 19 flat effort and 22nd place finish in a deep varsity A race at Pole Green Park.
The Forest Park boys and girls swept the team titles in the Cardinal District as the boys were led by race champion Zachary Diller in a time of 16:58. Diller was trying to go 1-2 with another Zach from Forest Park in teammate Zachery Lauster (3rd, 17:01), but Woodbridge's Kolby Demory (2nd, 17:00) kicked it in strong the final straightaway to spoil those plans.
The girls team battle in the Cardinal District was fairly competitive as only 9 points separated the top 3 teams between Forest Park (41 pts), Colgan (47 pts), and Woodbridge (50 pts). Among the top 15 finishers in the girls race, 14 of those runners came from those 3 teams. Meanwhile, the Forest Park boys had a 12 point buffer between themselves (29 pts) and Woodbridge (41 pts).
Meanwhile, the Cedar Run District did not see any teams dominating both races with the Patriot boys winning by a margin of 37 points with 1-2 finish up front from Justin Sriver (1st, 16:18), and Michael Speeney (2nd, 16:23). The transition seems to be going well for the Patriot program under first year coach Ian Connor, who took over after the program's only head coach since the school opened stepped away after the track season in Adam Daniels.
The Osbourn Park girls took the next four individual places after Patriot's Yentz with another two runners under 21 minutes and in the top 8 to tally a low winning score of 22 points. A team which appears to have the depth and tight enough spread to push for a state qualifying spot out of a competitive regional race next Thursday at Burke Lake Park.