Wendy's Invitational

October 03, 2009 @ McAlpine Greenway Park in Charlotte, NC

Hosted by East Mecklenburg    

 

The Oakton boys and Andrew McCullen almost pulled through with  huge wins at the Wendy's Invitational, but had to settle for very respectable second place finishes. Oakton senior McCullen has had to settle for second often this season with runner-up performances previously at the Chancellor and Oatland invtiationals in September. While another second place finish could not have made McCullen happy, he had to be estatic with his time. In a photo finish between himself and South Carolina's best in Fort Mill sophomore Mark Blackmon, McCullen (pictured by Ken Charnock, LandsharkPhotos.com) posted the state's fastest time for 5000 meters in a huge personal best of 15:18.

 

Following McCullen for Coach Phil Tiller's squad were Patrick Fulghum (9th, 15:57), Matt Woodhouse (15th, 16:08), Padraic Flynn (36th, 16:34), and Patrick Eberhardt (66th, 16:55) to round out the team scoring with 128 points, which put them 15 points short of race champions West Johnston at 113 points. With many personal and season bests across the board for the Oakton varsity lineup though, the team has to be encouraged moving forward this season in attempting to defend their Group AAA state cross country title from 2008.

 

The Oakton girls got off to a slow start but have looked much stronger in their past two invitational races including Saturday's race at McAlpine Greenway Park in Charlotte. The Lady Cougars finished third in the invitational division team standings with a total of 193 points. Leading the team with a time just under 19 minutes was 3200 meter run state qualifier Lanie Smith with a 16th place time of 18:56. Their tie spread for their top five was just over one minute with fifth runner Kathryn Berlin in 55th place at 20:04.

 

• Boys 3A
• Boys Freshmen/Sophomore
• Boys Invitational
• Boys Junior/Senior
• Boys Open
• Girls 3A
• Girls Individuals
• Girls Invitational
• Girls Open

 

Below are the performances entered for the meet that met the national silver standard.