Hurricane Francis alters the course
RADFORD, VA -- The 15th annual Radford Fall Classic was held in spite of the flooding caused by Hurricane Francis. The normal starting and finishing area had been under water from flooding by the New River and was still a muddy mess the day of the race. However, the Radford officials did an outstanding job of pulling off this meet by making alternate plans on Thursday and completely changing the course. The changes created problems, but overall the meet was another huge success. There were 29 complete girls teams competing in the Red and White divisions and 41 complete boys teams in the two divisions. Due to the changes, the course was a "little" long according to meet officials, the start and finish lines were on opposite points of the course, and there was a narrow gap and bridge to navigate about 120 meters or so from the start. The length of the course and the start area would come into play for a lot of competitors. The Blacksburg Girls would claim the Red Division (large schools) with 49 points finishing ahead of a good Cave Spring team, which had 58 points. The Blacksburg girls ran a smart race this weekend and reversed the tide on the Lady Knights of Cave Spring from a week ago at the Blue Demon. In the small school division, Roanoke Catholic would post a narrow win over Buffalo Gap by the score of 84 to 97. On the boys' side, Christiansburg flexed their muscles and won by a commanding 47-point margin over Jefferson Forest with a score of 65 to 112.The only thing that affected the sensational John Horst from Christiansburg was his finishing time due to the long course. Competitors hoping to derail the 2nd ranked Horst fell by the wayside as the meet unfolded. Horst sprinted to the front at the sound of the gun, and was closely followed by Lee Bradshaw of Cave Spring and Kevin Kadak of Jefferson Forest. These three were able to pass by the narrow gap without an issue and took off to a commanding lead on the pack. Mired in the pack and almost coming to a stop was Pulaski County's, 7th ranked AA runner, Will Frye. However, with a small opening he was able to come through the gap in the top 20. Some of Frye's teammates and others were not as fortunate as many runners had to come to a complete stop and walk through the opening. Bradshaw and Kadak gave valiant efforts to keep up with the torrid pace, but in the end it was their demise. Around the two-mile mark, Horst opened a lead that was in surmountable and pushed to the finish in 16:50. A little past the two-mile mark Frye would overtake Bradshaw and hold off a fast closing Zac Edwards of Northside to claim the #2 spot in 17:33. The little known Edwards finished a solid third while Kadak would hold on to cross the line in fourth. Jason Yontz of Marion won the small school race with a time of 17:35.00 as he was unchallenged and posted the 3rd best time of the day.
On the girls side in the large school division, Brittany Killough of AAA Franklin County would lead from start to finish and hold off a hard charging Kelly Clark of single A Glenvar. Killough's time of 20:30 was impressive considering the extra length of the course. The 20:30 will still put her in the top 20 all time finishing times at Radford. The fastest girl of the day was not in the large school division, but in the small school division. Catherine White of AA Northside ran in the small division and posted the day's best time of 20:23.
Hopefully next year the course will be back to normal and the narrow gap will be avoided. We look forward to watching Horst to see if he can break another Fleet Hower record.