Results and coverage from the 2012 Battle of the Potomac, a border war post-season race between top high school runners from Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and DC. Race videos, interviews, and full meet summary to come late Sunday.
Wittich & Hawkins lead Team VA girls to victory!
The 7th annual Battle of the Potomac was held on Saturday, November 17th at Smokey Glen Farm in Gaithersburg, Maryland. A race organized by Dave Watt of the American Running Association, brings together high school cross country runners from the border states of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. This's year meet had a special guest appearance from a three-time Olympian in Dathan Ritzenhein and record number of entries. All runners were treated to a barbeque chicken dinner following the race. Team Virginia consists of runners from Virginia and West Virginia, while Team Maryland is made up of runners from Maryland and DC.
In this year's event, it was a split between the two with the Team Virginia girls and Team Maryland boys taking the teams title. Maryland had the first two finishers in the seeded girls' race including a course record breaking performance on the challenging Smokey Glen Farm 5K layout from Ellie Gonzales of Catholic High School as she become the first girl under 19 minutes ever in meet history with a 18:46 performance. Next finisher was the top runner from the Bethesda-Chevy Chase girls' team in Caroline Beakes with a strong time of 19:10, which would win most years at the Battle of the Potomac.
The next six runners across the line were all from Team Virginia led by West Springfield senior Maddie Wittich (3rd, 19:34), who is typically running #2 on her high school team behind AAA state runner-up Caroline Alcorta. Alcorta was sitting out of this meet to train and prepare for a hopeful Foot Locker Nationals berth next weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. Wittich was closely followed in by Region II cross country champion Amber Hawkins of James Wood with a time of 19:35 for fourth. Oatlands Invitational champion Jennifer Flack of Thomas Edison was the third finisher from Virginia at 19:38 for fifth place, while last year's Battle of the Potomac individual winner Bailey Kolonich of Thomas Edison claimed sixth place in 19:49, beating her winning time of 19:56 from last November. West Springfield's Wittich knocked a significant chunk of time from her 2011 Battle of the Potomac performance (20:20), which should bode well for her to a fast time at Foot Locker South after Thanksgiving.
While the Virginia girls won comfortably, the Virginia boys took yet another humbling defeat to Team Maryland at the Battle of the Potomac which has historically been the case in the meet's history with 50 point margin of victory (scored through 10 runners on each team). The history will only change if more of Virginia's best are represented in the meet with only Herndon's Bradley Heuer, Osbourn Park's Nick Causey, James Madison's Matthew Calem, Tuscarora's John Dooney, and Tabb's Baron Kieffer as the only All-State runners from last weekend's VHSL State Championships representing the state at the Battle of the Potomac (hint: a challenge to VA runners for next year).
Coming off a seventh place finish and 15:49 5K run in the Group AAA state race, Herndon senior Bradley Heuer was able to break away in the final mile from a chase pack pursuing William Bertrand of Clarksburg High School in Maryland to secure an individual runner-up finish in a time of 16:43. Osbourn Park junior Nick Causey will be one of the top returning individual runners in the new 6A classification next fall. After finishing 8th in the Group AAA state race just behind Heuer, Causey finished 9th at the Battle of the Potomac with a time of 16:57 as Team Maryland packed it up well in between Heuer and Causey. Mountain View's Ben Sorensen (12th, 17:04) and James Madison's Matthew Calem (15th, 17:15) also finished among the top 15 individuals in the seeded race.
Results: Middle School Boys - Middle School Girls - Open Boys - Open Girls - Seeded Boys - Seeded Girls
Race Videos by Brandon Miles: Seeded Girls - Seeded Boys - Open Girls - Open Boys - Middle School Boys/Girls
Video Interviews by Brandon Miles: Dathan Ritzenhein - Maddie Wittich - Nick Causey