Photos by Thomas McElroy
Two boys and two girls from Virginia broke into the top 10 in the seeded races at Foot Locker South to qualify for the Foot Locker Nationals in two weeks at Balboa Park in San Diego. Mattie Webb (7th, 17:28) of Western Albemarle and Sophie Chase (8th, 17:31) of Lake Braddock ran personal best times to make up for not winning state titles two weeks ago to join the 40 best high school runners in the country in San Diego. Annandale junior Ahmed Bile and Douglas Freeman senior Silas Frantz battled it out for state titles at Great Meadow, but now will be teammates on the South Region team at the 2010 Foot Locker Nationals with Bile taking fourth place at 15:02 and Frantz coming in two seconds later at 15:04 for sixth place. More to come from Foot Locker South including full meet summary, photos, race videos, and interviews.
Photo by Thomas McElroy
Photo by Andrew Kicinski
Meet Page w/ Complete Results, Photo Galleries, Seeded Race Videos
Meet Summary
Two boys and two girls from Virginia broke into the top 10 in the seeded races at Foot Locker South to qualify for the Foot Locker Nationals in two weeks at Balboa Park in San Diego. Mattie Webb (7th, 17:28) of Western Albemarle and Sophie Chase (8th, 17:31) of Lake Braddock ran personal best times to make up for not winning state titles two weeks ago to join the 40 best high school runners in the country in San Diego. Annandale junior Ahmed Bile and Douglas Freeman senior Silas Frantz battled it out for state titles at Great Meadow, but now will be teammates on the South Region team at the 2010 Foot Locker Nationals with Bile taking fourth place at 15:02 and Frantz coming in two seconds later at 15:04 for sixth place.
Seeded Girls Race
Both Mattie Webb and Sophie Chase came into the Foot Locker South Regional as two runners with a chip on their shoulder or at least hungry to get redemption and finish the season on a high note after being unable to win state titles two weeks ago at Great Meadow. Webb had the state's top ranked runner for much of the cross country season and favorite to win the Group AA state title, but finished third behind the Hidden Valley pair of Annie LeHardy and Haley Cutright despite turning in a swift sub 18 minute effort at the state meet. Meanwhile, Lake Braddock sophomore Chase was agonizingly close to a Group AAA state title as Stafford's Hannah Lowery was able to cross the line only a half stride at best ahead of Chase for the state championship.
Webb, Chase, Lowery as well as surprisingly Millbrook junior Crystal Nelson put themselves in good postion just inside or just outside of the top 10 as they entered the lake loop at McAlpine Greenway Park in Charlotte completing the first half of the race. When they returned back to the lake loop for the final 600 meters, Webb and Chase were comfortably inside a top nine which had built some distance, while Lowery was part of a small pack competing for the tenth and final national berth place. Webb crossed the line first from Virginia in 7th place and nine second PR of 17:28, while Chase closely followed her and onto San Diego in 8th place with a nine second PR of 17:31.
Chase also adds to a long list of past Lake Braddock girls' cross country runners in the storied program to become a Foot Locker Nationals finalist but is the first since former Lake Braddock Bruin Erin Swain won the Foot Locker South Regional in 1999. Chase becomes the 8th Foot Locker finalist from Lake Braddock, which only the national caliber Saratoga Springs program from New York has more Foot Locker finalists in the meet's history. The NC State recruit Webb's 17:28 clocking ties her as the 9th fastest runner from Virginia in Foot Locker South meet history with the late Demarch Robertson of Jefferson-Huguenot-Wythe, who ran an identical time in 17:28. Chase ranks VA #11 all-time in Foot Locker South meet history and the second fastest from Lake Braddock behind only Andrea Volpe's 17:21 performance in 1982.
Stafford sophomore Hannah Lowery enjoyed the highs of a state title against Chase and a strong Group AAA field two Saturdays ago and then experienced the disappointment of just missing on earning a trip to Foot Locker Nationals as she placed 12th in the seeded race with a time of 17:46. Lowery was 11th entering the lake for the final loop, but was unable to run down returning Foot Locker finalist and Georgia's best Grace Tinkey for 10th place and ended up being passed at the very end by Valerie Reina of Arkansas for 11th place. Nonetheless, Lowery completes a stellar 2010 cross country season with numerous invitational wins, a state title, and running under 18 minutes in quite a few races including her Foot Locker South performance. She will have two more years to join Chase as a Foot Locker finalist.
With two national qualifiers this year, the future of Virginia girls' cross country looks even brighter for upcoming years as few upperclassmen made up the top group of finishers from the state in seeded race to help Team Virginia to second place in the state team scoring behind Florida. The top 6 finishers from Virginia were all under 18 minutes with Webb, Chase, Lowery, Millbrook junior Crystal Nelson (14th, 17:49), and a pair of freshmen in Hanover's Molly Breidenbaugh (21st, 17:57), and Cave Spring's Katie Fortner (22nd, 17:58). Nelson established herself in a great postion early in the race off a pack of runners contending for national berths, and she did not fall off much as she was pulled along to significant PR by 34 seconds to follow up a 6th place finish in the Group AA state race with an even better showing at the Foot Locker regional race.
Just as one great rivalry between two talented runners has begun to develop between sophomores Chase and Lowery, another great one has emerged between the state's fastest two freshmen in Molly Breidenbaugh and Katie Fortner. Both opted to skip racing in the freshmen races and instead test themselves against the best runners in the South region regardless of grade, which resulted in both breaking 18 minutes for the first time and earning All-South honors. Might have to check further to verify, but Breidenbaugh and Fortner's Foot Locker South performances appear to be the fastest times ever by freshmen girls from Virginia.
Another quality pack of Virginia runners consisting of all upperclassmen followed the two freshmen to showcase further depth of Virginia with Sherando senior Krista Deceault (30th, 18:08), Deep Run senior Erica Dobbs (32nd, 18:10), Maggie Walker senior Anna Spiers (33rd, 18:12), Ocean Lakes junior Audrey Batzel (34th, 18:15), Northside senior Erin Wheeler (41st, 18:21), Hanover senior Anna Gordon (43rd, 18:23), and Princess Anne senior Lizzie Cornell (46th, 18:25). The state of Virginia made up over 28% of the finishers among the first 46 places.
Seeded Boys Race
The Virginia boys figured to have their work cut out for them in having any runners crack into the top 10 and become a state representative national meet, especially with a strong contigent from the states of North Carolina, Florida, and Texas this fall. The irony that the two runners who had an epic battle for the Group AAA state title two weeks ago ended up pushing each other to San Diego with Silas Frantz and Ahmed Bile. Similar to the state race, Frantz asserted himself early on and pressed the pace in the middle to stay up with the lead group vying for national spots, while Bile lingered behind the pack. Frantz held a near five finish into the final lake loop and finished strong for a sixth place finish and personal best time of 15:04, while Bile was just inside the top 10 entering the lake but then unleashed his kick to pass several runners including Frantz to move all the way up to fourth place finish with a time of 15:02.
As a junior, Bile is quickly splashing on the national scene and figures to be just the tip of the iceberg as Bile could develop into a national caliber middle distance runner on the track as he follows in the footsteps of his 1987 World 1500 meter champion father Abdi. Just last month, Bile was coming back from an early season injury and finishing fourth at his district meet on a 3 mile course with a time of 15:28. Four weeks later, Bile is finishing fourth in the Foot Locker South region against the best runners in the 12 state region with a 15:02 5K personal best performance. The improvement curve for Bile clearly still has a lot more room for Bile, who could step up even more in the Foot Locker finals in San Diego two weeks from now.
Douglas Freeman senior Silas Frantz has been the state's most consistent performer from start to finish this fall, so earning a trip to race against the nation's 40 best cross country harriers in San Diego was well-deserved. While other top ranked runners have suffered off races or ran poorly at times, Frantz has been steady all season long from his 1 second runner-up performance at the Fork Union Invitational and under the old course record at season's beginning to his recent 15:04 all-time best 5K run in Charlotte to punch his ticket to San Diego. Frantz had only finished twice in two races prior to Foot Locker South including the photo finish loss to Bile at the state meet, while winning all of his remaining races on his schedule.
Three of the next four finishers from Virginia were Group AA runners, which showed throughout the season to be just as good upfront if not better than its larger school Group AAA counterparts. Grafton senior and two-time Group AA state champion Kyle King had hoped to join Bile and Frantz in San Diego, especially after running the fastest time of the day at the state meet in 15:21. However, King was unable to improve his time from the state meet and make the similar 20-25 second drop at McApline which Bile and Frantz did as he finished with an All-Region 28th place time of 15:26. Finishing ahead of King was a runner which was denied a state title two years in a row by King in Loudoun County senior Tommy Curtin. Curtin was actually the top returning Virginia runner from the 2009 Foot Locker South regional and ended up putting an all-time best performance of 15:22 to place 19th overall as the state's third finisher.
Thomas Madden just trailed King into the chute for the Group AA state title and was right on his heels again in Charlotte as the Skyline sophomore snagged the final All-Region spot of 30th place with a time of 15:27. The next finisher from Virginia was another sophomore in Chantilly's Sean McGorty (35th, 15:31) as two sophomores figure to both be in serious contention for national berths over the next two years if they continue to develop as runners.
Rounding out the top 10 finishers from Virginia in the seeded race and all under 15:40 for 5K at McAlpine was a senior group including Warren County's Seumas O'Reilly (36th, 15:32), Robert E. Lee's Abraham Yacob (37th, 15:35), Grassfield's Jeremy Greenwald (41st, 15:37), and Atlee's Andrew Catanese (45th, 15:39). The state of Virginia made up over 22% of the top 45 finishers in the seeded race.
Class Race Highlights
Battlefield's Haben Zemichael concluded a strong first season of high school cross country with a runner-up finish in the freshmen race at Foot Locker South. Zemichael followed up leading Team Virginia at the Battle of the Potomac last week by clocking a personal best time of 16:08 in Charlotte.
While the state of Virginia could have probably taken five of the top six places in the freshmen girls' race if sub 18 performers in the seeded race with Molly Breidenbaugh and Katie Fortner, the other top ninth graders in the state held their own. Robert E. Lee's Bailey Kolonich (2nd, 18:51), Ocean Lakes' Olivia Bethune (3rd, 18:59), and Maggie Walker's Daisy Banta (4th, 19:03) were a force up front as the chase pack following race winner Karisa Nelson (1st, 18:23) of Tennessee. Team Virginia won the freshmen girls' state team title with 30 points.
Maggie Walker girls could have been competitive at the Nike Cross Southeast Regional after a runner-up finish at the state meet, but opted to make their annual tradtional trip to compete as individuals at Foot Locker South. It was a good day with fast times and high finishes for their team at McAlpine as Banta's fourth place finish in the freshmen race was matched by teammate Rachel Galton finishing second in the sophomore race with a time of 18:32. Virginia had three girls among the top 6 with Galton, West Springfield's Maddie Wittich (4th, 18:58), and Warren County's Kayla Gibbons (6th, 19:02).
Three of the top seven finishers in the junior boys' race were from Virginia including a sub 16 minute performance from Grassfield's Seth Taylor in 3rd place at 15:59. Right behind in fourth place was fellow Eastern Region runner Matthew Schwartzer of Princess Anne with a personal best performance of 16:00. Rustburg's Kyle Bibler placed 7th with a time of 16:07.
Two-time Group A state cross country champion Katlyn Ayers of Strasburg ended up being the only individual race champion from Virginia on the day as she led a 1-2 finish by Virginia with Mountain View's Mackenzie Davis (2nd, 18:56) with her best race of the season in a 18:47 PR performance. Team Virginian won the junior girls' team title as the state had five of the top nine finishers in the race with the Western Branch pair of Alexandra Justice (5th, 19:02) and Katie Bishop (8th, 19:08) along with Warren County's Leanna Eisenman (9th, 19:11).
Photos by Thomas McElroy