Division 1 Girls
The Bishop O'Connell girls won their fourth state Virginia Independent Schools Division 1 state team title and it may have been their most dominant performance during the current streak. Coach Cindy Walls had wanted to see all of their top seven runners earn All-State honors with a top 20 finish. Her runners did even better than that with 7 among the top 13. If the meet was scored with the Bishop O'Connell team versus the rest of the runners in the field, O'Connell would win 26 to 29.
Leading their team again which has been highly ranked among the top public schools this season was senior Sarah McCarthy, who had hopes of an individual state title as well but had to settle for second in 19:27. McCarthy made a huge improvement from last year's state meet when she was running well outside of her team's top seven and over 24 minutes on the Woodberry Forest School. Following McCarthy and also earning All-State honors for O'Connell were teammates Devin Nihill (3rd, 19:54), Emily Blagg (5th, 20:42), Ashley Stumvoll (7th, 20:44), Alex Nihill (9th, 20:49), Nicole Carty (11th, 20:57), and Taylor Chamness (13th, 21:03). Friday at Woodberry Forest for the state meet was not the final race of the season for the O'Connell girls who will continue to train and prepare to compete at the Nike Cross Southeast Regional later this month in Cary, North Carolina.
O'Connell had three of the top five individual finishers in the Division I race, but the individual title belonged to Bishop Sullivan with their talented young freshmen Hannah Frazier, who was able to defeat private school top ranked McCarthy for the state title in a time of 19:11. After finishing second to teammate Colleen Schrader at the Catholic Schools State Meet and TCIS Championships with sub 19 minute performances, Frazier was able to claim her first state title. Sullivan junior Schrader finished fourth individually at the state race with a time of 20:37.
Earlier in the season, St. Catherine's appeared to have their work cut out for them if they wanted to match their 2009 performance and finish as a state runner-up behind O'Connell after being beaten soundly by Episcopal at the Woodberry Forest Invitational in mid September. The Episcopal girls proved to be a tough test at the state meet, but St. Catherine's showed themselves to be in much better form in November than October to edge Episcopal (3rd, 83 pts) by three points for state runner-up with 80 pts.
Episcopal was stronger on the back end against St. Catherine's beating them in the #4 and #5 positions, but Ali Doswell (6th, 20:44) and Taylor Clevinger (8th, 20:47) up front with top 10 individual finishes made up the point difference for St. Catherine's in their favor. Eighth graders are allowed to run in championship season on the varsity level for the private schools, so the addition of Keeilah Moseley (16th, 21:19) also helped out St. Catherine's as well as she earned All-State honors in her first state championship race.
The Episcopal girls had a nice spread of only 41 seconds among their top five scorers with Elizabeth Spruil (10th, 20:55), Virginai Wright (14th, 21:08), Elizabeth Buyck (18th, 21:22), and Alessandra Gavin (19th, 21:26) earning All-State honors as Cory Preston (22nd, 21:26) rounded out the team scoring just outside of the top 20.
Top 11 individual finishers were all from the top four finishing teams between O'Connell, St. Catherine's, Episcopal, and Bishop Sullivan (4th, 163 pts) who edged out Paul VI (5th, 166 pts) and Collegiate (6th, 176 pts) for one of their school's best finishes at the state meet behind their stellar front two in individual champ Frazier and Schrader.
Division 1 Boys
Trinity boys were not going to be sleeping on the defending champions and host school Woodberry Forest again after escaping with a 1 point win at the Prep League Championships against a late surging Woodberry team enhanced by the return of their top runner Kevin Bennert from injury.
Similar to the Prep League race, Woodberry Forest got out to a good start and was winning the meet halfway through the race. However, similar to their league championship meet, Trinity boys were able to run down the defending champs at the end. Only four points separated them at the Virginia Independent Schools State Championships with Trinity (39 pts) winning their first state team title in school history, while Woodberry Forest put up an incredible fight to try and hold onto their title in second with 43 points. Both teams had their top fives making up most of the front tier of the field as there were only four individuals among the top 15 finishers who were not from either Trinity or Woodberry Forest.
Guy Shelby was the top finisher for the Trinity Titans as he has been all season long. Shelby did much of the pace work in the early portions of the race with Prep League champion Scott Newton of Collegiate and IAC champion Reid Nickle of Episcopal. The Collegiate School junior Newton made a move on both Shelby and Newton in the last mile, which neither was able to counter and go with him. Newton crossed the line in first with a solid time of 16:29. Nickle (16:40) followed 11 seconds later to add another state runner-up from his two second places finish from last February's indoor state meet in the 1600 and 1000 meter races. Shelby was the third runner under 17 minutes on the difficult Woodberry Forest 5K course with a time of 16:46.
Mac Strehler was Trinity's next finisher in sixth place with a time of 17:05, but it was the pack of Alden Knipe (9th, 17:23), Reider Strehler (10th, 17:23), and Chris Cantone (11th, 17:26) which made the difference in being able to move ahead of the Woodberry pack of Logan Rafield (13th, 17:46), Addison Winston (14th, 17:47), and Matthew Laws (15th, 17:49). Woodberry Forest's front three had matched up well against Trinity with Kevin Bennert (4th, 17:02), Thomas Garrison (5th, 17:02), and Josh Trudgeon (7th, 17:09). Bennert had been simply gutting it up and risking a chance for injury again by hurrying back from his stress fracture injury to try and help his Woodberry Forest team's chances of winning another state team crown as a senior. Coached by Marcus Jones, the Trinity boys will be odds-on favorites to repeat next year for their school's second state team without a single senior among their top 10 runners.
Catholic Schools state champions Bishop Ireton rounded out the top three teams for trophy hardware, but had a much closer challenge for the third place trophy from St. Christopher's (4th, 161 pts) and WCAC school Bishop O'Connell (5th, 170 pts). Bishop Ireton junior Liam O'Connor was one of only two runners not from Trinity or Woodberry in the top 10 with his 8th place run of 17:13. TCIS champion Ian Granger was the top finisher from Tidewater area schools in 12th place with a time of 17:41.
Division 2 Girls
The flatlanders dominated the Division 2 girls' race with Denbigh Baptist freshmen Madison Strickland pulling away for 31 second win in a 19:55 clocking. Strickland improved her time significantly from her first state meet appearance last year as an eighth grader (5th, 22:01). Strickland and Stonebridge School senior Emily Dinning bolted out to the lead in the first mile before Strickland was able to distance herself for her first of potential several state titles.
Dinning (2nd, 20:26) had to hold off a late pass from Norfolk Christian's Bethany Barclay (3rd, 20:27) for runner-up honors. Nansemond-Suffolk Academy had a pair of girls finish among the top 5 with Katelyn McCracken (4th, 20:45) and Maya Venkataraman (5th, 21:07).
The St. Anne's-Belfield girls repeated as Division 2 state team champios as expected with a team score of 78 points and team average of 21:44. STAB's Corinna Coffin ran ahead of her teammates for ninth place (21:26), while the remaining top five for two-time champions came in a pack which almost all fit inside the top 20 for All-State individual honors with Meg Pritchard (18th, 21:45), Samantha Moore (19th, 21:46), Julia Won (20th, 21:48), and Audrey Schreck (21st, 22:04).
Trinity School at Meadowview has only had a cross country programs for a few years and just recently had enough runners to field a scoring team, but quickly have become competitive among the private schools as shown with their runner-up state finish in Division 2 race with 108 points. Trinity had two girls earn All-State honors in Emily Kelly (7th, 21:12) and Mary Pieschik (14th, 21:25).
Division 2 Boys
Broadwater Academy's Van Lewin took charge early in the race and never looked back as he was not challenged seriously en route to his 17:27 victory. The Broadwater Academy senior became his school's first state champion with his 22 second margin of victory. Norfolk Christian's Greg Swanson (2nd, 17:49) and Walsingham Academy's Adam Link (3rd, 17:55) joined Lewin under 18 minutes on the Woodberry Forest School 5K course and among the top 3 finishers.
Peninsula Catholic had far too much depth for Swanson's Norfolk Christian squad or any other school in Division 2 to challenge. Te repeat Division 2 winners from Peninsula had six runners among the top 20 All-State with Kevin Riley (5th, 18:04), Andrew Beals (11th, 18:22), Peyton Talbott (12th, 18:24), Hunter Wade (17th, 18:29), Christian Sprinkle (18th, 18:30), and Will Robinson (19th, 18:32) for a team score of 63 points.
Norfolk Christian had one of their best state meet finishes in state history with their runner-up finish and 106 point team score. Miller School boys claimed the third place trophy with sophomore Elias Hubbard in 7th place as their top individual finisher.