The Osbourn Park girls packed it up and packed it well en route to a team title at the Albemarle Invitational with only a 40 second spread separating their top six runners, while their front four finished in a quick wave of 11 seconds. Sophomore Jessica Gray was the team's top finisher in 19th place at 20:07 as she has worked herself into shape after being slowed earlier in the season by injury. While VA #2 ranked Colonial Forge certainly will be the favorites next month at the Northwest Region Championships, the Osbourn Park girls certainly have to feel confident after racing well on the regional course at Panorama Farms.
Taking runner-up honors to Osbourn Park by only four points with their team score of 131 points were the Oakton girls, who have an emerging young star in freshmen Allie Klimkiewicz who was the closest finisher to race champion Crystal Nelson of Millbrook (18:20). Klimkiewicz was only 7 seconds off her PR performance at Great American on the previous weekend with her second place run of 18:38. Nelson continues to impress with a virtual unblemished season of victories (only loss at Oatlands Invitational to Cosby's Megan Moye) as she broke away from a chase pack to win by a margin of 18 seconds.
The chase pack included quite some talent in the ninth grader Klimkiewicz, Wilson Memorial's Hannah Rose (3rd, 18:42), Ocean Lakes' Audrey Batzel (4th, 18:45), and Stafford's Hannah Lowery (5th, 18:58). Lowery is the defending Group AAA state cross country champion, while Rose may be one of the most improved runners in the state and making her name known in her first season of cross country as a serious threat to challenge two-time Group A state champion Katlyn Ayers of Strasburg.
The Albemarle boys were hitting on all cylinders the week before at Great American and defeated previous #1 ranked Midlothian with three runners under 16 minutes and six under 17 minutes in Cary, North Carolina. They were not as nearly as sharp at their home invitational with district and regional rival Stafford not too far behind them in second place by 20 points, but still came out on top against a competitive field with potential AAA state meet podium squads in Stafford (2nd, 144 pts) and Oakton (3rd, 152 pts) as well as defending private school state champions Trinity (4th, 209 pts). Albemarle had two runners among the top five finishers with Adam Visokay (2nd, 15:58) and Ryan Thomas (5th, 16:10). Visokay, who posted a state leading time of 15:16 last weekend at Great American, took a surprising defeat to Princess Anne's Matthew Schwartzer.
Schwartzer should run all of his races in Central Virginia as the area has been kind to him this fall with major invitational victories. Schwartzer opened up with a stellar win at Fork Union in early September and his return trip saw him pick up another first place finish. On a warm day which saw many runners post times slower than expected, Schwarzter was able to record a new personal best time of 15:45 and not only continue to maintain himself as the Eastern Region favorite with another regional foe in Brent Coulter (4th, 16:07) of Landstown in the field, but more consideration should now be given to the Princess Anne senior as a contender at the state level in beating Visokay and a strong field at the Albemarle Invitational.
The Stafford boys were actually pretty well matched up with Albemarle through four runners with three runners among the top 10 in Greg Bohmke (3rd, 16:02), Ian Macleod (7th, 16:16), and Joey Abbatiello (8th, 16:17), but needed more from their back end of their squad to pull off an upset. A top 5 performer last fall for the Indians, Brandon Hinton ran #6 for Stafford on Saturday, but should be getting stronger in championship season after getting a late start on his season. Oakton boys ran arguably their best race of the season since winning the Great Meadow Invitational in late August, which was the last time that their top runner Michael McNamee raced due to injury. If Oakton can get McNamee back to racing in time for championship season, look out for the Cougars.
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