Dante Morales

Check out the Virginia boys' all-time performances at McAlpine Park.

Here are the top 1,000 boys times ever records at Oatlands.

There is a pretty solid group of 8 runners who are forming as the state's top tier of boys cross country runners this fall in Tyler Stutzman, Thomas Porter, Ben Dejarnette, Andrew Colley, Alex Ott, Kyle Satterwhite, Josh Morris, and Bobby Peavey. Who is this week's #1? It is tough to call with none of the mentioned runners having raced head to head yet. The Oatlands Invitational this weekend will change that with Stutzman, Porter, Dejarnette, Ott, and Satterwhite racing in a field which will also include of the nation's top returning runners in Solomon Haile (Sherwood HS of MD), the Nike Indoor and Outdoor Nationals 5K champ last year. Megan Marsico's recent string of jaw dropping performances could not be overlooked and helped move her up to the #2 spot in Virginia and knocking on the door of defending Group AA state champ Kathleen Lautzenheiser (pictured left by Ted Plunkett), who rolled on her anchor leg at Brentsville to lead Midlothian to victory. Marsico destroyed the field at Knights Crossing in a meet record time of 18:01 as she bested the old record held by three-time AAA state champ and Foot Locker finalist Catherine White. Complete individual rankings for each classification and each region in Group AAA and Group AA to be posted later this evening...

Photo by Ted Plunkett The Oakton boys were already expected to run through the Concorde District again as they have done the past few years. Now with Dante Morales coming over to the defending district champions from Fairfax, Oakton has the top three fastest returning 5K runners in the district with Morales and the Hendricks twins, Neal and Brian. Two other All-District performers are also back in Chris Weil and Patrick Fulghum as Weil broke 4:30 in the 1600 and Fulghum went under 10 minutes in the 3200 this past spring. Chantilly has a potential individual champion contender and an athlete who could break up the Oakton guys up front in junior Christopher Foley. Foley ran a personal best of 9:31 this past spring in the 3200 meter run and earned All-State honors in the event with an 8th place showing at the AAA State Meet.

Oakton was already the deepest team on paper heading into the 2008 cross country season, but now has become a much more formidable squad with the transfer of Dante Morales (16:07 5K best @ 2007 Foot Locker South) from Fairfax High School. Oakton will be the third high school for Morales, who also attended Poquoson High School as a freshmen and sophomore. (Photo by Brandon Miles) Transfers can have a significant impact on the high school cross country team battles in the fall and sway the balance to favor one team over the other. The majority of transfers are related to family reasons due to job relocations of the athlete's parents. Some are academic related with an athlete transfering into a school to be a part of a magnet or specialty program offered by the school. A very small portion transfers are due to athletic reasons and in most situations, it is the choice of the athlete or parent to switch schools rather than a coach recruiting an athlete to transfer in. As the saying goes, "Great programs recruit themselves". If running is a high priority for an athlete and their parents, they will probably find a way to end up at a established top program versus going to a school with little history of success in cross country and track. The high school coach of those teams do not have to actively recruit. Parents looking to move into a school district with a good program and good coach can simply go onto MileStat.com and look at results from past seasons to find the programs which year after year produce successful cross country teams. Which schools this year will benefit (or be hurt) from incoming transfers? Could these transfers make the difference between a team going up onto the podium at Great Meadow to accept their state championship trophy instead of watching another team making the same walk up the steps on November 8th? We shall find out, but it will help if you can inform MileStat.com of any transfers which might have occcurred over the summer. Email us at milestat@gmail.com.

Fairfax junior Frances Dowd (pictured left by Kevin Milsted of mocorunning.com), the 2007 AAA state 800 meter runner-up, kicked off her cross country season at the Peter Geraghty Invite in Maryland against one of the best runners from our neighbors to the north of the Potomac in Walt Whitman's Morgane Gay. Gay well distanced herself from the field and Dowd with a 18:44 win, but Dowd closed well to secure second place in 20:04 as she continues to build the confidence she exhibited as a speedy half miler this past spring now in the fall as a cross country runner. Fairfax had a pair of individual runner-up performers as Dante Morales, a transfer from Poquoson High School, posted a personal best 5K time of 16:47 to garner a second place finish in the varsity boys race. Both Fairfax and Paul VI competed as the lone Virginian teams in the Mount St. Mary's University hosted event.