Interview with Kathleen Poole, James DeMarco, Blacksburg’s coaches
Blacksburg Bruins bust the field at MileStat.com Invitational
Photo by Scott Reid
In their first appearance at the MileStat.com Invitational, Blacksburg ran away with a first place finish for the girls and third place for the boys in the varsity A races.
“Two girls who were out earlier in the season were back for this race,” coach Kathleen Poole remarked. While their first finisher was 16th, the combined score of 146 for their top five girls was ample room to fend off second place Thomas Jefferson S&T, which earned 162 points.
Blacksburg usually attends the Maymont X-Country Festival, but it fell on homecoming weekend this year, so they chose the Milestat.com Invitational. “We’ve wanted to do it in the past,” said Poole.
Blacksburg competed in Octoberfest, where the boys varsity team captured first and girls varsity placed second, and Knights Crossing, where the boys team finished second and girls team fourth in the “A” races. “This is probably more competitive than all of them,” head coach James DeMarco compared.
Blacksburg has 93 runners and brought 85 to the MileStat. “We usually do a big team trip earlier in the season to have bonding time. The way the schedule worked out, this was the best time for us,” DeMarco noted. The team was heading to King’s Dominion after the race.
Photo by Jon Fleming
Nick Link had a PR of 15:32 and finished second overall. Their next four boys finished in a pack at 32, 33, 34 and 38. It was a good day for Noah Combs, usually their fifth place finisher, who edged out his teammates to capture second for the team. “They each needed 10 more seconds to be more competitive,” DeMarco observed.
Interview with Sophie Chase
Girls have work cut out for them to beat Chase
Photo by Scott Reid
Sophie Chase, with an appropriate surname, may be the girl to beat at the state AAA meet in November. Amazingly, the Lake Braddock junior had no previous running experience when she joined cross country as a freshman.
Chase bested her 2010 MileStat.com Invitational time by 25 seconds to capture first overall in the varsity A race and set a new course record of 17:22, edging Cosby’s Megan Moye by 18 seconds.
“Coming out and running against a stacked field knowing that they’re some of the best runners in Virginia and seeing that I can run at that level is pretty awesome,” Chase said after the race.
“They’re really great girls and friends.” She keeps up with her competitors on Facebook, such as Stafford’s Hannah Lowery, who was absent from the field, and James W. Robinson’s Macey Schweikert.
“It was definitely a great showing for the Northern region. The field looks a lot like what I’ll be competing against at the state championship. I had a race plan coming in to today and stuck to it better than I usually do.”
Photo by Jon Fleming
Two weeks ago Chase won the Florida North Port Bobcat Invitational. “We’ve run a few smaller meets in Northern Virginia, but this was definitely the biggest meet of the year for me. These types of races give me experience going into Foot Locker South and making it to Nationals,” she concluded.
Chase’s teammate Nick Tuck also had a stellar day at the MileStat.com Invitational, earning a personal best 5k time of 15:34 and placing third in the boys varsity A race. Last year, he finished 15th with a time of 16:23.
Tuck passed Albermarle’s Adam Visokay, the defending Group AAA 3200 meter state outdoor champion, whom he had never beaten. “I like this course, it’s very fast and flat, compared to our championship season races, they are really hilly and challenging,” Tuck added.
Like Chase, Tuck also won the Florida North Port Invitational, with both teams taking home first place finishes.