Becca Kassabian

Check out the top rankings in the 5000 Meter Run for VA.

Here are the top 1,000 girls times from the Great Meadow non-state meet course.

  It's the Herndon girls and Robinson boys with narrow leads after day one of the Concorde District Championships held at the Prince George's Sports and Learning Complex on Friday, January 30.  After the conclusion of seven of the 15 events, the Herndon girls have 54 points with one of the highlights, a win in the 3,200 run by senior Hiruni Wijayaratne in 11:08.63.  The Robinson boys currently sit in first place with 56 points. The Rams posted one victory by senior Fabian Bailey in the long jump (20-5.25) and also received runnerup spots from senior Joey Esposito in the shot put (46-10.5) and junior Ryan Tarpey in the 55 dash (6.69).

Can any Virginian stop Solomon Haile at Saturday's Oatlands Invitational? The Ethiopian native competes at Sherwood High School in Maryland and is one of the nation's top returning distance runners after winning national titles in the 5K last year at Nike Indoor and Nike Outdoor Nationals. He will be given his toughest test likely until Foot Locker regionals as five of the top six runners in Virginia will be racing at Oatlands with #1 Tyler Stutzman, #2 Thomas Porter, #3 Ben Dejarnette, #5 Alex Ott, and #6 Kyle Satterwhite. (Photo from mocorunning.com) This Saturday should push the Oatlands Invitational over the top into becoming a nationally recognized event with a huge field of 101 schools featuring some national caliber teams and athletes including the Saratoga Springs girls of New York and Solomon Haile of Sherwood (MD). Both will be heavy favorites in Leesburg despite the fact that most of Virginia's best will be present to give their best against the national powerhouse squad and emerging individual national star.

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.

The Oakton girls and J.J. Kelly senior Brittany Killough were big winners at the Hagan Stone Park Classic held in Greensboro, North Carolina. Oakton coach Scott Raczko\'s girls from Vienna had five runners in top 12 places and all under 20 minutes on the Hagan Stone Park 5K course to finish 22 points ahead of Green Hope High School (NC) with a team score of 43 points. For Killough, it was her second consecutive win at Hagan Stone as she bettered her 2005 time by two seconds with a 18:25.90 clocking.