CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA -- With the rescheduling of the Albemarle Invitational to Tuesday after the meet was washed out due to rain on Saturday, a meet schedule conflict arised with many of the Fredricksburg area teams obligated to compete in the Free-Lance Star Area Meet on Tuesday as well. Despite losing many solid teams and individuals which would have made for a great meet, the field was still solid nonetheless with some very notable performances at Panorama Farms on Tuesday. E.C. Glass senior Patterson Wilhelm won the boys\' race with ease as he clocked a time of 15:52.14 on the 5 kilometer course. Clarke County junior Simon Biddle-Snead, running as an individual without his Group A #1 ranked team, took runner-up honors in 16:24.69. The Western Albemarle boys won by a convincing margin of 44 points as 54 second gap between top Warriors finisher Will Massie (5th, 16:28.27) and fifth runner Kyle Satterwhite (18th, 17:22.96) helped secure the team title.
The Fork Union boys (3rd, 100 pts) looked strong through three in junior Axel Mostrag (4th, 16:27.51), senior Jonathan Buckland (6th, 16:39.70), and senior Szymon Rola (8th, 16:46.11) and were only 2 points behind Western through four runners, but a fifth runner just under 19 minutes allowed Western to gap them pretty good.
John Handley was able to take advantage of the weak fifth for Fork Union to sneak into second place with 96 points. The Judges put four runners in the top 25 places with junior Clint Chiavone (10th, 16:58), sophomore Austin Cote (15th, 17:21.32), junior Cameron Crowell (20th, 17:26.74), and junior Erin McWhorter (24th, 17:33.34).
In an important position battle in the state polls for the top ranked private school runner, Covenant sophomore Austin Ellis was able to knock off top ranked Mostrag from Fork Union with a 16:25.20 clocking for third place honors.
Albemarle star Rachel Rose was absent from her home meet, so that opened the door for Western Albemarle senior Samantha Stafford to grab the individual glory as she won the girls\' race in a time of 19:13.89. There was no question who was the top girls\' team on Tuesday at Panorama with the Stafford-led Western Albemarle girls as they put up a low team total of 25 points. All seven Lady Warriors finished in the top 15 with race winner Stafford, Valerie Wilder (6th, 20:44.18), Rachel Hyde (7th, 20:44.91), Madeline Gomez (9th, 20:56.56), Beth Mounsey (10th, 21:01.40), Carrie Ellwood (11th, 21:03.22), and Leah Benson (15th, 21:37.19).
Similar to the boys\' race with Biddle-Snead taking second place honors, another runner-up performance was turned in by a Group A runner in the girls\' race with Buffalo Gap junior Mariah Hagadone (19:37.80).