The Lynchbug Area Track & Field Club Invitational hosted at the Lynchburg College Fieldhouse kicked off the high school indoor track season in the state of Virginia as the meet served as an icebreaker for many teams as well as a chance to get some of their younger runners some invitational experience. Several athletes qualified for the Group AA State Meet in their debut meet of the season, while three athletes in Atlee\'s Dana Harvey, Buffalo Gap\'s Angela Jenkins, and Heritage\'s Wayne Ferguson garnered three first place finishes. Cave Spring junior Rachel Travitz had one of the performances of the day in breaking a 11 year old meet record in the mile run.
Atlee senior Dana Harvey had an outstanding meet as she won three individual sprint events in the 60 yard dash (7.58), 300 yard dash (39.70), and 600 yard dash (1:33.90).
Cave Spring junior Rachel Travitz also had a solid meet as she doubled in the mile run (5:25.10) and 1000 yard run (2:56.10) with first place finishes. Both times gave her early state meet qualifiers for the Group AA State Meet in the 1600 and 1000 meter races, which will be held in Lynchburg as well on March 4th, but will be hosted at the year old Liberty University indoor track facility. Her time in the mile also broke the meet record of 5:26.1, which was set in 1994 by Cassie Messerschmidt of E.C. Glass. Messerschmidt, now married and now known as Casie Stilley, starred at NC State and now currently is an assistant coach at Christopher Newport University.
Taking runner-up honors to Travitz in the mile run with a 5:39.20 clocking, Franklin County junior Brittany Killough bounced back to win the two mile run by a 25 second margin with her 12:00.30 clocking.
Atlee\'s Harvey was not the only triple event winner on the day as Buffalo Gap senior and All-American Angela Jenkins swept the jumping events with first place finishes in the high jump (5-1), long jump (17-07.75), and triple jump (37-08.75).
In the girls\' shot put, Heritage (Lynchburg) sophomore Kimberly Jones easily qualified for the Group AA State Meet in her first throw of the season with her winning toss of 38-03.50.
Charlottesville junior Nico Tamm came away from his first indoor meet of the year with two wins in the middle distance events at the LATFC Invite as he won both the mile run (4:49.20) and 1000 yard run (2:34).
Two state qualifying performances were found in the boys\' 60 yard hurdles for Group AA with race winner Michael Bern of Cave Spring (8.27) and Brett Olinger of Broadway (8.28) just dipping under the Group AA standard of 8.28.
Olinger ended up qualifying for two state meet events on Saturday as his third place finish in the pole vault at 11-6 clearance also earns him a free pass to the state meet along with junior teammate Michael Miller, who won the event at a height of 12-6.
Wayne Ferguson of Heritage was the sole three-event winner on the boys\' side as he had the best mark in both the long jump (22-1.50) and triple jump (42-3.75) with his long jump mark qualifying him for the Group AA State Meet. The Heritage junior also showed his skills on the track as he took the win in the 300 yard dash with a 34.90 clocking.