Hannah Varnell

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The 50th annual William & Mary Invitational will be contested this weekend at Eastern State Hospital. The longest running high school cross country invitational might not be as large and competitive in past years with meets such as Oatlands and Maymont growing to fields of 100 plus schools, but the meet still has a large gathering and will feature some of the state's better runners and teams including matchups of VA #1 Jamestown and VA #9 Western Branch as well as VA #4 Andrew Colley and VA #8 Bobby Peavey. More...

The Newport News Invitational saw a very early season showdown of the two runners who likely will be battling for the Eastern Region title later this season in Kellam's Bobby Peavey and Western Branch's Blake Theroux. The only definite heading into the race would be that fast times would be posted in a duel between the two as the #10 ranked (Peavey) and #11 ranked (Theroux) in the state of Virginia would meet on one of the fastest 5K courses in the state found at Newport News Park. The senior Peavey defeated the junior Theroux in their first head-to-head race of the season with a state leading 5K time of 15:32 to break the old course record of the newer version of the Newport News Park course. More... Newport News Invitational Results: A Boys - A Girls - B Boys - B Girls - C Boys - C Girls - JV Boys - JV Girls

Photo by Andy Paisley The 2007 Peninsula District Championships saw an exciting duel between Gloucester's Hannah Varnell and Hampton's Kristina Woodard for the individual title with both runners posting times well into the 18's with Varnell as a two second winner over Woodard at 18:18. Both return in 2008 and another fast race should be expected between the two. Woodard has been a district runner-up twice in cross country and will attempt to knock Varnell off for her first championship. After running her first full year of track this past year as a sophomore and qualifying for state competition indoor and outdoor in the 3200 meter run with a 11:21 best, Woodard may be ready to make that jump. Varnell leads the Gloucester girls as favorites to repeat their district championship as the Lady Dukes have three of the top six returnees from the 2007 district meet in Varnell, Elisabeth Drake, and Danielle Martin. Freshmen Victoria Luera should also make an instant impact for the team as well individually within the district. Meanwhile, another sweep of the district team titles for the Gloucester program will be no easy feat as the Gloucester boys should have their hands full with two solid returning teams in Menchville and Gloucester.

Several cross country scrimmages have already taken place this month. If you would like the results of your scrimmage posted on MileStat.com, please email us at milestat@gmail.com. MileStat.com had not previously posted results from scrimmages from previous years before on a regular basis, but why not even enter times from more meets into the database. Greater Danville Preseason Jamboree (Altavista, Chatham, Chatham Hall, Dan River, Franklin County, George Washington, Jefferson Forest, Halifax County, Peaks View, Tunstall) Clover Hill vs. Gloucester Scrimmage Chantilly, Robert E. Lee, & West Springfield Scrimmage

Photo by Ted Plunkett Gloucester’s cross country teams go into today’s Eastern Region meet in Chesapeake after a sweep of team and individual honors in last week’s Peninsula District meet. The girls won their fifth straight team championship, and junior Hannah Varnell outdueled Hampton’s Kristina Woodard to win the individual race. Douglas Fenstermacher easily won the boys race for his second straight individual title, and the Dukes’ depth paid off as the team earned its fourth championship in five years. "Both teams are really strong," said coach Heidi Overbay, who hopes both teams qualify for next weekend’s state Group AAA meet. Should both make it, that would be a first for Gloucester. Read full story... 

Photo by John Herzog While Gloucester junior Hannah Varnell won the Peninsula District title as expected in a stellar time of 18:19 at the Newport News Park 5K course, there was a new name to take notice of right behind her in second place at 18:20 with Hampton sophomore Kristina Woodard. Woodard, who actually defeated Varnell last year to finish second at the district meet in 19:10 and qualified for the state meet as a freshmen out of the Eastern Region, still has been very much under the radar compared to the likes of Tallwood's Octavia Rinehardt and Gloucester's Hannah Varnell within the region.

 More than 80 schools will be represented at Saturday's William & Mary Invitational as many outstanding cross country runners and teams from Virginia, Maryland, DC, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina will be spread out among the three varsity race divisions. Leading the individuals will be newly minted stars with Foot Locker South rankings in Virginia private school runners Johns Ross (pictured above by Linda D'Amato) of The Potomac School and Barbara Strehler of Trinity. The Jamestown boys will be the overwhelming team favorites with none of their fellow NTN regionally ranked Virginia squads present to take on the NTN Southeast #3 ranked Eagles on their home course at Eastern State Hospital. Meanwhile, Eastern Region title contenders in the Western Branch and Ocean Lakes girls look to clash for the first time this season with several Northern Virginia teams looking to make things interesting.

Hannah Varnell (pictured left by John Herzog), a rising junior at Gloucester High School, claimed the national title in the intermediate girls' division of the 1500 meter run at the AAU National Junior Olympic Games in Tennessee. Varnell, who clocked a personal best for 800 meters by four seconds in a time of 2:14.94 in Tuesday's preliminaries, came back to continue her great week in Knoxville on Thursday with a national championship in a 1500 meter time of 4:45.16, which would convert to a 12 second improvement on her actual 1600 meter best of 5:18.  Varnell had finished seventh in the 800 meter finals on Wednesday. Read more on performances by Virginia's high school athletes so far in Knoxville. MileSplit Network's Results Page Live Results Live Webcast