Alex Ott

A steady downpour of rain that started yesterday and continued throughout today made Saturday\'s Octoberfest Invitational at Great Meadows a mud slop-fest as two over flowing creek crossings and long stretches of mud and puddles made for tough race conditions for the high school runners throughout the day. Not a day for anyone to run a personal best, but some outstanding performances were recorded throughout the day. Northside senior Catherine White took the \"A\" girls race in a time of 19:08.07, but more impressive was James River junior Kristen Wolfe only finishing nine seconds off the Foot Locker All-American in a time of 19:17.81. Meanwhile, Radford junior Nathan Brame pulled away from the field midway to come away with a 17:10 victory in the \"A\" race with Manchester senior Andrew Duty charging hard into a second place run of 17:16. Maryland\'s best in Quince Orchard (142 pts) as well as NTN Southeast #9 ranked squad knocked off SE #7 Thomas Jefferson (161 pts) for the \"A\" boys team title. The Northern Region took three of the top four team places in the \"A\" girls\' race with James Robinson (151 pts) finishing ahead of higher ranked AAA squads Langley (2nd, 178 pts) and Maggie Walker (3rd, 195 pts). Complete meet summary is posted with photos as well as video clips (clips of runners crossing creeks a MUST SEE) and a photo gallery from Octoberfest! More to come from other meets, Virginia teams and individuals participated in this weekend! Octoberfest Invitational Video Clips Octoberfest Invitational Photo Gallery

The selection was very tough as always for the All-MileStat.com Team. As this cross country season like any other, anything can happen. What you expect to happens never seem to does and what happens you never would have expected. One week someone is hot, the next week that person is out of the picture. A star runner goes down, a newcomer comes out of nowhere. There were many deserving athletes to be on this list. Looking at this year\'s group, there are probably a dozen or so runners who are probably in a group of their own and then 3 dozen or more runners who could beat each other on any given day. Some of the runners missing from this list definitely deserve recognition for their fine seasons. Let these All-MileStat.com selections serve as a way to recognize the great accomplishments of the state\'s top athletes this fall, while serving as motivation and providing drive for those left off or returning next fall to strive for greater excellence in the future.