John Horst, Catherine White, the Christiansburg boys\' team and the Blacksburg girls\' team leave Green Hill Park winners
Article appeared in The Roanoke Times
ROANOKE, VA --
The great thing about high school cross country is the fall colors.
Take Wednesday\'s Region III championships at Green Hill Park, for instance.
There was the maroon hair of Pulaski County\'s Will Frye and Lance McDaniel. There were the gray disguises worn by Jefferson Forest.
However, in the long run the day belonged to the Blue Demons of Christiansburg on the boys\' side, the Blacksburg girls\' team and Northside\'s Catherine White.
White and Christiansburg\'s John Horst breezed to individual titles, while the Blue Demons copped the boys\' team crown and Blacksburg edged Cave Spring by two points for the girls\' championship.
Horst covered the flat 5-kilometer course in 15 minutes, 53 seconds for a 30-second margin over Cave Spring\'s Lee Bradshaw.
Horst, a senior who missed last year\'s postseason meets with an injury, had some prerace jitters.
\"Uh, yeah, I was very nervous because Lee came pretty close to me last week, and [Jefferson Forest\'s] Kevin Kadak had run real well at his district meet,\" Horst said. \"But I just pushed everything aside and focused on my race.\"
Which meant the rest of the field had a good view of Horst\'s back for the entire race. Bradshaw held off a charge from Northside\'s Zac Edwards to take second in 16:23. Forest\'s Matthew Kadak was fourth, followed by Blacksburg\'s Peter Dorrell.
Bradshaw will have one final shot at Horst in next week\'s Group AA meet in The Plains.
\"He\'s a great runner,\" Bradshaw said. \"He\'s a fabulous runner.\"
A growing list of vanquished victims has similar feelings about White. White, a sophomore, blew the field away to finish in 18:50, good for a 39-second margin over Missy Ifie of William Fleming. Cave Spring\'s Laurel Sitze was third, followed by Forest\'s Lisa MacPherson and Lord Botetourt\'s Stephanie Spickard.
White, largely untested in Timesland races this year, will set her sights on a high finish in the Group AA meet, where she placed eighth in 2003. A victory in the state meet would be an upset for her.
\"I was projected to finish 10th last year so I was happy with eighth,\" White said. \"It\'s going to be a tough race. As far as winning ... in the future maybe.\"
Ifie joined White as an individual qualifier for the Group AA meet, and Fleming coach Darren Graham said he\'s unaware of any other girl from the school advancing that far.
\"This is my fifth year and this is the first time we\'ve had anybody get past the district,\" Graham said.
Ifie ran last year at Class AAAA Hebron High in Dallas and transferred to Fleming late this summer when her mother moved to Roanoke. However, Texas prep cross-country races are just two miles long as opposed to 3.1 miles in Virginia.
\"It\'s a mile longer, but it\'s great up here. It\'s nice,\" Ifie said. \"I like running in the mountains.\"
The closest race of the day was the three-way battle between Blacksburg, Cave Spring and Jefferson Forest on the girls\' side.
The Bruins put five runners between the sixth and 20th spots and finished with 56 points, barely ahead of Cave Spring (58) and Forest (64). Botetourt finished fourth, also qualifying for the state meet.
Veteran Forest coach Jerome Loy, hoping to hide his runners in plain view, had the Cavaliers change from their traditional red and black tops to a neutral gray. The ruse didn\'t quite work.
\"You gotta try,\" Loy said. \"But I couldn\'t find my own team.\"
Christiansburg put three other runners in the top 15 besides Horst and easily won the boys\' meet with 41 points. Forest (69), Cave Spring (97) and Salem (114) also made the Group AA meet.
Horst hopes to claim the state individual title won last year by Christiansburg\'s Justin Hatch.
\"I might talk to him; he\'s real good about knowing what to do,\" Horst said. \"It will be about half strategy and half reacting to what everyone else is doing.\"