Beach District - The Beach District Championships were held on last Wednesday afternoon at the Sportsplex in Virginia Beach. The Ocean Lakes program coached by Mike Nestor successfully repeated as district cross country team champions for both boys and girls. Their streak of dominance remains in the Beach District as it was the sixth consecutive title for the girls and fifth in a row for the boys. The Ocean Lakes boys (34 pts) cruised to a team title with 42 point margin of victory over a surprising runner-up showing from a Tallwood (76 pts) squad which leapfrogged several other top contenders for runner-up honors. The Ocean Lakes boys had a top five all under 17 minutes and finishing among the top 10 places within a tight 22 second window.
Photo by Ryan Kelly
Meanwhile, the Ocean Lakes girls (1st, 36 pts) had much more pressure and competition in their race with the Princess Anne girls (2nd, 40 pts) breathing down their necks smelling an upset. Only four points separated the top two teams as the battle up front between Audrey Batzel of Ocean Lakes and Lizzie Cornell of Princess Anne symobolized the hard fought struggle between both teams. Batzel won in a solid time of 18:33, but not before being challenged to the finish by Cornell who posted a personal best time of 18:39. Batzel and Cornell will do it all over again in two weeks at Bells Mill Park in Cheseapake with both runners considered the top two runners vying for the Eastern Region title.
Landstown junior Brent Coulter (pictured above by Ryan Kelly) figured to be contending for the district individual title at the start of the season after finishing his outdoor season winning the regional 3200 title, but poor showings in earlier invitationals had him entering today's race as a darkhorse challenger instead of a favorite to win. Coulter put together his best race of the season to defeat pre-race favorite Sean Helmke of Kellam (4th, 16:34) as well as Princess Anne's Matthew Schwartzer (2nd, 16:23) and 2009 Beach District runner-up Jon Winters of Ocean Lakes (3rd, 16:32). Coulter will have an opportunity next year to become a two-time champion, but Schwartzer will also be back to challenge him as a junior as well.
Eastern District - The Norview program is not known for producing distance runners, but they currently have a good pair of runners in Marquis Worsley and Chris Ware as the duo took the top two places individually at the Eastern District Championships held on Churchland High School's home course. Worsley (pictured above by Ryan Kelly) won easily with a time of 17:07 with his teammate Ware as the next finisher coming in at a time of 17:47 to hold off Maury's Jay Einhorn (3rd, 17:52) for second place. Worsley may be a long shot to qualify individually for the state meet next week at Thursday's Eastern Region Championships, but look for the AAU Junior Nationals qualifier in the 1500 meter this past summer to at least race for a top 15 finish.
The Granby boys (53 pts) squeaked out a narrow team title by two points over Maury (55 pts) with five All-District top 15 performers. There was no drama or suspense to decide the girls' team champions as the Maury girls threw down a dual meet like score of 19 points with five of the top six individual finishers. Only Norview's Joyce Newsome was able to break up Maury's top five in second place with a time of 21:14. Newsome is looking to use cross country to build toward a strong track season in the middle distance events as she finished 14th at the Eastern Region Outdoor Track & Field Championships with an 800 meter PR of 2:26. Maury freshmen Megan Dister (pictured above by Ryan Kelly) may have won her first of potentially several Eastern District individual titles in the future as she clocked a significant PR of 20:40 and looks to run much faster at Bells Mill Park than her last race of 22:14 which placed her third in the "B" race at the Chesapeake Invite in late September.
Peninsula District - A muddy course made the usual speedway known as Newport News Park not as nearly the automatic personal best producing 5K course as it is commonly known. Nothing slowed the Gloucester boys down though as they took the team title at the Peninsula District Meet this past Thursday. The Gloucester boys had five All-District top 15 finishers led by the Speray twins, Kevin (3rd, 16:50) and Eric (5th, 17:18), to tally a team score of 43 points and distance themselves from runners-up Kecoughtan (64 pts).
Bethel junior William Brown (pictured above by Ryan Kelly) successfully defended his individual district title as he cruised as well as he could through a sloppy 5K course in a time of 16:29. The AAU national 1500 meter champion Brown posted a much faster time at the start of the season on a dry course in 15:43 at the Newport News Invitational and will look to show himself running at that top form from earlier the season at Thursday's Eastern Region Championships where he expects to be one of the top individual contenders in the region.
There are four returning Eastern Region top 15 finishers from the 2009 regional race and Menchville's Graham Wilson is probably the forgotten name among that group of four with Bethel's Brown, Grassfield's Jeremy Greenwald, and Landstown's Brent Counter being the other three returnees. Wilson appears to be peaking at the right time to crack into the top 15 once again at the regional race after finishing second to Brown at the Peninsula District Meet by only 11 seconds with a time of 16:40.
In a considered upset snapping Gloucester's long streak of girls' cross country team titles within the Peninsula District, the Kecoughtan girls dethroned the Lady Dukes and quite convincingly with a great pack of four taking places four through seven indivdually. Last year, Victoria Worrall ran for Phoebus, but transferred to Kecoughtan prior to this fall and her impact was felt as the team's top finisher in fourth place (21:47). Kecoughtan teammate Ariel Smith (5th, 22:15) improved two places from her 2009 district finish. Smith is one of the few Kecoughtan cross country runners who also runs track as she was state qualifier as a sophomore in the 800 meter run with a 2:21 best.
The Gloucester girls had a superior front two with individual champion Elisabeth Drake (pictured above by Ryan Kelly) posting a winning time of 20:51 and junior teammate Morganne Roundy claimed third place with a 21:33 clocking. Bethel senior Tori Johnson-Lewis finished in between Drake and Roundy with her runner-up performance of 21:09. At last year's Eastern Region Championships, Drake was the 15th and final individual qualifier for the state meet with a time of 19:43 at Bells Mill.
Southeastern District - The Grassfield boys and Jeremy Greenwald (pictured above by Ryan Kelly) had appeared to open up a considerable gap on the Southeastern District teams at mid-season point when they won the Chesapeake Invitational in late September. Greenwald continued to open up that gap on the rest of the district with his 16:12 win to re-assert himself as top runner in the region and teammate Seth Taylor pulled in second place with a time of 16:32, but the Hickory boys (48 pts) were able to run down the rest of the Grassfield team (2nd, 52 pts) to pull off a four point upset for the Southeastern District cross country team title this past Thursday. It turned out to actually be a tight three way battle for first as Western Branch finished just off both teams in third place with 54 points.
Hickory's Michael Sanders (4th, 17:10) and Matt Freedman (5th, 17:14) were low score cards as their team's top two finisher, but it was the packing ability of their next four runners to key their team's win over Grassfield and Western Branch. Based off places at least, Hickory's #4-7 runners were well packed taking places 14 through 17, but actually 43 seconds separated #4 Gabe Wolstenholme (14th, 18:01) and #7 Paul McElroy (17th, 18:44). Hickory's sixth and seventh runners may not have contributed to Hickory's team score, but helped add points as displacers to Grassfield and Western Branch's team score finishing ahead of their fifth runners.
Western Branch sophomore Nick Richardson as some big shoes to fill as the top runner for a squad which had been led previous by current University of Colorado runner Blake Theroux, but his future is very bright to develop into the kind of runner which Theroux was as shown with this third place 16:36 finish at the district meet to lead the Bruins.
Despite losing one of her shoes in the early portion of the race, Teresa Williamson (pictured above by Ryan Kelly) of Hickory showed no signs of being handicapped with a spikeless foot as she simply dominated the Southeastern District field by winning with margin of victory of 61 seconds in her 19:27 clocking. Williamson had a breakout personal best race two weeks ago at the MileStat.com Invite when she placed 11th overall in a competitive field with a time of 18:38. Expect Williamson to be Eastern Region favorite and Beach District champ Audrey Batzel's ( Ocean Lakes) top challenger at next Thursday's regional race.
Williamson was unsuccessful to bring her Hickory team along enough to close the gap on the Grassfield girls as their male counterparts did with the Grassfield girls winning the team title by 10 points with a team score of 50 points. Grassfield was missing one of their top runners in past 800 meter state champ Amanda Smith, but their depth was enough to make up for her absence with four All-District top 15 performers led by race runner-up Carolyn Cunniffe (20:38) and followed by Hannah Gray (6th, 21:04), Peyton Holm (7th, 21:12), and Amanda Cullen (13th, 21:51). Grassfield will need Smith back in time for the regional meet though to stay competitive close to the region's top ranked squad Ocean Lakes as their depth falls off after four without the 800 meter specialist.
