LEXINGTON, VA -- 17 teams gathered at \"The Pit\", Virginia Military Institute\'s indoor track facility for the running of the Walt Cormack Relays. Two meet records were broken in the boys\' paul vault and boys\' freshmen mile, while many great performances were found at the meet that were not that far from setting new meet marks. The Buffalo Gap girls (64 pts) with two member wrecking crew of the Jenkins sisters, Angela and Alisha, were able to score enough points in the field events to hold off the distance heavy Midlothian girls (60 pts) to win the team title, while the Manchester boys flat out ran away with the team (106 pts) with three relay victories and several individuals coming up with key performances.
Atlee freshmen Ben Dejarnette not only broke the meet record in the freshmen boys\' mile with his winning time of 4:45.71, but also ran the fastest mile time of the day as the fast heat of the boys\' varsity mile played around with too slow of a pace early on as heat winner Jason Witt of Midlothian (4:52.80) ended up finishing third overall in the event as Spotswood\'s Broc Dandrea won the mile out of the slow heat in a time of 4:49.11.
Another Harrisonburg area athlete also won an event at VMI as Harrisonburg junior Tim Beierle set a new Walt Cormack Relays meet record in winning the pole vault competition in a personal best clearance of 14-1. The old mark was shared by two athletes at a height of 14 feet.
The Buffalo Gap girls only had two athletes competing at the Walt Cormack Relays, but that was all they needed to walk out of the VMI fieldhouse with first place hardware. Buffalo Gap senior Angela Jenkins won three events total on Saturday as well as a runner-up finish to younger sister Alisha (17-0) in the long jump with a mark of 16-02.50. Angela Jenkins won two jumping events in the high jump (5-4) and triple jump (38-4). On the track, Jenkins also picked up ten additional points in winning the 55 meter dash with a 7.41 clocking. Meanwhile, junior sister Alisha added to the team score with a runner-up finish in the triple jump (35-8.75) and third place finish in the high jump (5-0).
Finishing second to Angela Jenkins in the 55 meter dash and scoring the first points for a Midlothian squad that had no athletes competing in the field events was Midlothian senior Kyra Richardson with a time of 7.63. Richardson was also a relay member on the winning 4x200 meter relay squad (1:55.12) and second place finishing 4x400 meter varsity relay (4:26.65).
Midlothian was able to catch back up to the damage done by the Jenkins sisters of Buffalo Gap in the field events thanks to the depth of their distance squad. All-state cross country runner in the fall, Midlothian freshmen Paige Johnston took runner-up honors (5:42.00) in the freshmen mile to Albemarle freshmen Liz Barclay, who ran an excellent race to overtake Johnston in the final lap in a winning time of 5:36.64.
In the varsity girls\' mile race, Midlothian had two point scorers in second and third place finishes from sophomores Samantha Dow and Erin Stehle. Woodbridge freshmen Michelle Britto set a hard early pace that no one was willing to follow as she gapped the field. However on the final lap, Dow made a charge and caught up to Britto. Britto responded on the final straightaway and was able to pull away with the narrow victory in a time of 5:33.00 as Dow finished right on her at 5:33.12 for second. Stehle motored in for a third place effort of 5:42.23. The meet was definitely filled with plenty of talented freshmen distance runners with the likes of Dejarnette, Barclay, Johnston, and Britto.
Earlier in the meet, Dow, Stehle, Johnston, and 2005 Group AAA 800 meter state runner-up M.C. Miller teamed up to win the 4x800 meter relay with ease as they lapped the field en route to their 10:16.86 victory.
The same group minus Miller and inserting Christine Sealander won the freshmen and sophomore girls\' 4x400 meter relay as well with a time of 4:29.05.
Meanwhile, Miller ran her second 800 of the day in anchoring the Midlothian girls\' 1600 meter sprint medley relay in a winning time of 4:30.78 as she ran down two runners and gapped the next finishing team by 8 seconds with a 2:26 split. The Lady Trojans just missed the meet record of 4:30.24 set by Manchester.
Central Region rivals Atlee finished third with 47.5 points as they picked wins in the 4x400 meter relay (4:16.67) and in the 55 meter hurdles with a first place finish from Nisse Chism (9.30).
In the girls\' shot put, Manchester continued to show itself as one of the Central Region\'s strongest throwing schools in the Richmond area as the Lady Lancers saw a 1-2 finish from Jennifer Maranacci (32-2.50) and Shekina Sims (31-8).
Over the past several years, the Manchester boys have had to live in the shadows of their female team members as the Manchester girls have been one of the better track programs in the state. However, with the graduation of many key athletes from that run of strong Manchester girls\' teams, the Manchester boys appear to have emerged into the spotlight with a very strong squad this year. It showed on Saturday with the Lancers winning the team title by 63 point margin over second place Atlee (43 pts).
The Lancers were very dominant in the relays as they notched three victories on the day. The 4x200 (3:43.96) and 4x400 (3:50.49) meter relay teams both came away with first place finishes, but their most impressive relay win came in the sprint medley relay as they came close to the meet record with a winning time of 3:50.49 as Andrew Duty anchored home the win as the 800 meter leg. The Lancers finished 11 seconds ahead of their nearest competition in the event.
The top individual performances on the day from Coach Bowen\'s squad came in the 55 meter dash and 55 meter hurdles as Anthony Chesson won the dash in 6.49 clocking, while Terry Ang crossed the line first in the hurdles with a time of 8.73. Also scoring in the two events for Manchester were Reggie Hill (6.68) in the 55 meter dash and Arsenio Birchett (4th. 8.99) in the 55 meter hurdles.
Manchester swept the throwing events for the day as Maranacci won the girls\' shot put and Ryan Stratus won the boys\' event with an impressive early season throw of 49-3.50.
Several other solid performances were turned in from the boys\' field events. Albemarle\'s Anthony Bryant offered some of the greatest excitement at the meet in winning the high jump with a personal best clearance of 6-6. Meanwhile, Forest Park senior Cameron Perry took top honors in the long jump with a best mark of 21-10.50.