Team VA's NXN Championship Recap

Photos by: Bobby Reyes

Virginia's record 24 athletes who ran at NXN Saturday all showed grit and determination and on average performed great. Virginia had three teams, Loudoun Valley Boys & Girls and Western Albemarle, competing and three at-large individuals, Sean Stuck - Kelsey Harrington - Kaitlynn Wolfe, who all ran strong. 

The weekend's competition was highlighted by two performances that stood out above the rest though. The first of those was Western Albemarle finishing 5th, VA's second highest finish ever at NXN. The second was Kelsey Harrington finishing 20th to become VA's fourth runner to finish as an All-American at NXN. 

Up first was the girls race. In this race we had the two individuals and Loudoun Valley's girls team. Since this meet is a team meet we will start with the team race. 

They opened the race strong with Ava Gordon leading the way. Behind her were Elise Abbe and Ricky Fetterolf. They opened the first mile in 9th place and followed it up with being in 11th at the two mile mark. The final mile though is where these girls fought their way back and overtook some other teams moving up to finish in 10th place overall. 

We would have to look back quite  a lot but believe this may be one of the highest finishes a VA team has had in their first NXN appearance. 

VA's top finisher on the girls side was Kelsey Harrington who received an at-large invitation and finished 20th overall to earn an All-American spot. Her time was 18:04 which ranks fifth all-time for VA at NXN. 

Ava Gordon was VA's second finisher in 58th place in 18:49 with her teammates finishing in 95th, 98th, 127th, 151st, 159th, and 192nd. 

VA's other individual runner, Kaitlynn Wolfe finished in 116th place with a time of 19:32. 

Here are all of VA's girl finishers: 

Running second were the boys where Virginia had a staggering 15 individuals competing. This included twice defending champions Loudoun Valley, Class 3 state champions Western Albemarle, and Sean Stuck who was the runner-up at NXR-SE. 

The story that came out of this race was that Western Albemarle really is that good. They roughed it out and showed us what running on tough courses all year does to you. While other teams struggled with the conditions, Western Albemarle flourished and managed to finish fifth in the most stacked race NXN has ever had. 

We recapped their historic performance here in a stand alone piece. 

Loudoun Valley unfortunately was unable to defend their title and finished a solid 10th place. They started the race in 6th at the mile but fell back to 11th place by the two mile. Ultimately they were able to grit it out and finish 10th at the finish. 

Their top finisher again this year was Carlos Shultz who was 22nd overall in 15:33. That was quite the run for this senior who was 30th a year ago. 

Kellen Hasle was their second finisher in 67th place and Kevin Carlson finished 76th. Those were their top three finishers on the day. 

Their finish though does have an asterisk because they did have a fall in the first 300m where their number 2/3 runner, Taylor Ney, went down. Huge props to him though for getting up and finishing the race. That type of mentality shows us exactly why this team has made three NXN's in a row... they are tough even when things are going completely against them. 

If they had him finish in third for their team they would have been closer to 5th place. 

VA's other individual racer, Sean Stuck, finished 104th with his 16:19 finishing time.