Chancellor Invitational Coverage
Meet Results: Varsity Boys - Varsity Girls - Developmental Boys - Developmental Girls
Race Videos: Varsity Boys - Varsity Girls - Developmental Boys - Developmental Girls
Video Interviews: Colin Mearns (Jamestown) - Natalie Young (George Mason)
Photo Gallery by Brandon Miles (1,296 photos total): - Awards - Varsity Boys - Varsity Girls - Developmental Boys - Developmental Girls
Mountain View coach Dave Davis instructed both of his teams, boys and girls, to take conservative race approaches for the first half of their races on Saturday at the Chancellor Invitational in Fredericksburg and run as a pack as long as they can. The other top teams attempted to run away from the Wildcats early on, but the course and the patient Mountain View runners were able to run them down in the finalmile for a team sweep.
The Mountain View boys needed more than five runners though to score a win against defending Group AAA state champions Oakton, who were competing at Loriella Park for the first time, as both teams through five tallied a team score of 94 points each, which was a first in the meet's 21 year history. Nicholas Wolfe ended up being the most valuable finisher of the 2009 Chancellor Invitational as the sophomore's 29th place finish of 17:48 decided the team title in favor of Mountain View with Oakton's sixth runner 20 places behind Wolfe.
The Mountain View girls were competing without their usual #5 and #6 runners, yet still managed to pull off the invitational victory with points to spare on the runner-up team unlike their male counterparts sweating out a win to Oakton. While the Mountain View boys lack a true front runner, the girls do not with Kaitlyn Davis as one of the state's best and the 2009 Group AAA state indoor champion at 3200 meters. Davis made an individual sacrifice for her team on Saturday not attempting to race for the win and instead paced her team's top four through 2 miles and then proceeded to pick off a dozen or more runners to finish third overall in 20:33.
With Davis not challenging, George Mason sophomore Natalie Young was a runaway winner in the varsity girls' race as she had opened up a sizeable lead on the field midway through to come across the line in first by a 22 second margin of victory at 19:50. With defending Group A state champion and Foot Locker finalist Megan Marsico still out with injury, Young is top runner for the small schools until Marsico can come back and show herself to be close to top form.
Colin Mearns has taken over the reigns from Andrew Colley at Jamestown to be the state's #1 ranked runner as his former teammate and current athlete at NC State now was for much of last fall. Mearns had company through 2 miles from Oakton's top runner Andrew McCullen, but the more experienced runner at Loriella Park (Jamestown runs their regional meet at Loriella), the Jamestown senior was able to open up a gap of 11 seconds in the last mile for a 16:08 victory, which is one of the faster times on the course's all-time list. Mearns is looking forward to return to Loriella for the Region I Championships in November, when he can make an assault on his old teammate Colley's course record performance of 15:45 from a year ago.