VHSL State Cross Country Championships 2007

 Important information for Saturday's Virginia High School League Cross Country State Championships being held at Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia. Information on time schedule, admission costs, directions, reminders for coaches/athletes/spectators, and area hotel lists posted.

MileStat.com will be providing extensive pre-meet and post-meet coverage of Virginia's two high school cross country championships with Friday's Virginia Independent Schools Championships at Woodberry Forest and Saturday's Virginia High School League Championships at Great Meadow. MileStat.com will also be providing live results of the VHSL State Cross Country Championships for the first time ever!Click here for state championship coverage with more to be added throughout the weekVIS State Championships Results: Division I Boys - Division I Girls - Division II Boys - Division II Girls VIS State Championships Race Videos: Division I Boys - Division I Girls - Division II Boys - Division II GirlsVideo Interviews: Johns Ross - Megan Fitzpatrick - Jane Gay VIS State Championships Photo Gallery by John Herzog - 1143 total photos available for purchase! VHSL State Championships Results: AAA Boys - AAA Girls - AA Boys - AA Girls - A Boys - A GirlsVHSL State Championships Race Videos: AAA Girls (Part 1 & Part 2) - AAA Boys - A Girls - A Boys - AA Girls - AA Boys VHSL State Championship Photo Galleries: Herzog Gallery (All Races) - 1584 total photos available for purchase!Plunkett Gallery (All Races) - 1071 total photos D'Amato Gallery (AAA) - 243 total photos Paisley Gallery (AAA) - 260 total photos

As I was leaving the VIS State Champions on Friday, Fork Union coach Winston Brown made a comment that MileStat.com was the main reason that Virginia had 100 boys breaking 10 minutes for 3200 meters last spring. I have to disagree with Coach Brown though after watching the VHSL State Championships on Saturday as it apparent that the depth of talent in Virginia is an all-time high with many outstanding runners who may never get their front page glory on MileStat.com, but are highly motivated individuals on their own. The 2007 Virginia state championships lit up the all-time Great Meadow state meet performance lists with 56 boys beating the previous 100th performer cutoff of 16:13.3, while 52 girls ran faster than the previous 100th time to beat of 19:12.2. Each of these runners as well as the rest of the competitors in the field should all be given credit to taking Virginia high school cross country to a new level! Watch out South region at Footlocker South! We are coming to clean house! A pair of Midlothian harriers led the way with AAA state champions Jason Witt (15:10) and Kathleen Lautzenheiser (17:56). Only Alan Webb and Bobby Lockhart have ran faster than Witt's time at a Great Meadow state championship, while only Catherine White has a faster time than Lautzenheiser at the state meet venue since 1994. The most thrilling finish came with the Group A boys as it went down to the very end between Radford's Nathan Brame and Lebanon's Jakob Maidens (finish pictured right by John Herzog). A fully automatic timing system could have been very useful in determing winner with Brame declared as the winner as both were timed at 15:50.Peter Dorrell won a highly anticipated AA boys race to close the state championships in the day's second fastest at 15:16. Laura Rapp broke away from a half dozen runners in the hunt coming down the final stretch in 18:14 for the AA girls title. Glenvar's Megan Marsico went out aggressively to distance herself from co-favorite Susanna Sullivan of George Mason and never relented her large lead for a 19 second win 18:21. The team finishes were even wilder and more exciting. The AAA boys had four outstanding squads coached by some of the state's very best in Thomas Jefferson, Midlothian, Mountain View, and Oakton. The Thomas Jefferson boys, who at season's beginning looked to possibly be the odd one out of a top three podium finish and an end of five year streak of top three finishes, instead won their third state championship in a six year span led by Coach Matt Ryan. 15 points separated the top three with Thomas Jefferson (1st, 91 pts), Midlothian (2nd, 101 pts), and Mountain View (3rd, 107 pts). The Midlothian girls had the least trouble out of the favorites in the AAA girls division with a low team score of 57 points, but the bigger stories were in second and third place with Oakton (110 pts) and Western Branch (3rd, 131 pts). The Oakton girls had been overshadowed by their male counterparts all season, but came through big in crunch time by going from fourth in their region to second in the state. Meanwhile, the Western Branch girls accomplished a feat that has not been done by an Eastern Region team in ages by making it onto the podium. The new challengers in Millbrook and Hidden Valley girls made things interesting coming off their regional upset wins, but the order was re-established with a repeat of last year's state champions and state runners-up in Blacksburg and Brentsville. The closest team battle came with the AA boys as the Brentsville boys won yet another state championship under Coach Rob Dulin, but not before tough challenges from Western Albemarle and Jamestown. The Brentsville and Thomas Jefferson boys are a classic example of how tradition never graduates as they were able to come back stronger in 2007 from 2006 graduation losses. The Clarke County girls won a fourth state title in a row in Group A, but the Clarke County boys were denied a fourth consecutive with their girls thanks to a great state meet team performance by the Radford boys with three runners in the top seven for the lowest team score of the meet at 38 points.  VHSL State Championships Results: AAA Boys - AAA Girls - AA Boys - AA Girls - A Boys - A Girls More to come from Great Meadow including stories, interviews, pictures, and race videos.

Plenty of photos from the VHSL State Cross Country Championships are now posted on MileStat.com. Check out for yourself at the links below.Herzog Gallery (All Races) - 1584 total photos TO BUY Plunkett Gallery (All Races) - 1071 total photos D'Amato Gallery (AAA) - 243 total photos Paisley Gallery (AAA) - 260 total photos 

Photo by Ted Plunkett The goal of every runner who comes to the Group AAA state cross country meet is to make it on the awards podium. That means placing in the top 15 individually or top three as a team. Tallwood senior Octavia Rinehardt and Western Branch’s girls both achieved those goals, placing third on a cold Saturday morning at Great Meadow. Rinehardt ran a personal-best 18 minutes, 5.9 seconds, the fastest time ever posted by an Eastern Region girlsat the state meet. It’s also the sixth-fastest time overall at the state meet. Read full story... 

Peter Dorrell (pictured left by John Herzog) felt drowsy. "Real snotty," he said, referring to his nose. "Just not feeling perky." The redheaded senior at Blacksburg High School was nursing a cold before Saturday's VHSL state cross country meet at Great Meadows. He was one of three Timesland runners to claim an individual title on Saturday. In Group A, Radford's Nathan Brame repeated as champion in the boys' division. Glenvar sophomore Megan Marisco added the girls' state title to go along with her first-place finishes in the Three Rivers and Region C meets. Read full story... 

Midlothian cross country runners established a first at the Virginia High School League state meet at Great Meadow for the second year in a row. Running under low gray skies and in cold temperatures yesterday, sophomore Kathleen Lautzenheiser and senior Jason Witt  (pictured right by John Herzog) became the first runners from the same Group AAA school to win individual titles in the same year. The feat has been accomplished twice in Group AA (1980, 1986) and never in Group A. Read full story... 

Photo by Ted Plunkett At the beginning of the season, things were not looking good for the Jefferson boys cross country team. Star senior Brian Landry missed the entire month of August with a knee injury and coach Matt Ryan didn't sense the right team chemistry. “It was not realistic to sit there and say, 'We're going to try and win the state meet,'” Ryan said of his team's start to the season. “Get to the state meet and do your best, but to win would've been kind of a stretch.” Two months later, with a healthy Landry leading the way, the Colonials captured their second Virginia AAA state championship in four years, finishing 10 points ahead of second-place Midlothian.Read full story... 

Photo by John Herzog Talent may be in shorter supply on this Brentsville boys' cross country team than in years past. But working hard and running in unison can lead to great results. "Even though we may not have the strongest up-front runners as we've have had for the past four years, we have something else that other teams don't have and that's a strong core group of guys who work together," senior runner Ray Delgado said. Read full story... 

Editor Note: This article is not to be considered a personal attack on the state meet managment or officials, but hopefully brings discussion from both sides on the issue in achieving my hopes of more preventive officiating at the state meet and no uniform violating calls being made to eradicate the results of our athletes.   You may notice that there were no video interviews at this weekend's VHSL State Championships. I opted not to do any interviews because I was in a pretty foul mood after the first race of the day when one of the athletes I coach at Clover Hill High School was disqualified for what I believe is a ridiculous enforcement of a petty infraction that is being used far from its original intent in creation and instead taking away the accomplishments of our young athletes. The state meet should be the stage of the athletes and the athletes only. Not for officials to take the stage. Often in our country's major sporting events, the common theme for the officiating crew is to let them play the game and not have the officials impact the outcome of the game. This is not the case in high school cross country and track. During the regular season, we have this mindset and then suddenly come the state championship series, we have these new rules enforced. There has not been consistency over the years with our uniform rules at the state meets either. I remember wearing a headband with an adidas logo when I competed at the state meet. Also this year's state meet, it was decided that ear warmers are a much better advertising billboard than the chests with underarmor body logos and hands with gloves having logos as many other athletes on Saturday at Great Meadow had underarmor and gloves showing logos on them. Coaches were all told of the uniform rules at the coaches meeting beforehand and I was in attendance. I'll man up and take the blame for not checking my athlete prior to the start of the race for any logos on her other than her uniform. However, I got distracted because I more focused on having her mentally prepared going over our race strategy and giving a pep talk as well as make sure she was properly clothed in our first cold race of the season since she has renaulds syndrome. So performance and health came first in my mind and somehow it caused me to overlook to see if she was going to running billboard for Nike. Obviously I have a large audience through my website to make those aware of this issue and possibly speak up for those who have been affected in the past by such rulings. I'm not try to overturn the decision, but would hate to see this happen again to anyone. It is important that we have rules in this sport to maintain order. Officials have to follow the rules under the governing bodies that they work under. Some rules make sense, while some you have to question the mental rationality of the creators and enforcers. Does having a Nike logo on your ear warmers on a blistering cold day require the punishment of a disqualification of a young athlete who has earned her way to compete at a state championships? Does it justify her place and time being stricken out of the results after giving her all for 5000 meters with the rest of the competitors this past Saturday? Also has the concept of preventive officiating ever been talked about? This is really the biggest axe I have to grind about this weekend in which we could really improve upon for future state meets. We should have had more officials checking for logos at the starting line than in the finish line chute. Interests of the kids would be served in having officials doing this task at the starting line instead of serving the interest of individual power trips of having officials doing this task at the finish line. In my opinion, a starting line clerk should never let a uniform infraction to get to the starting line.  Why not punish the coach who forgot to make sure that the athlete did not turn her ear warmer inside out after being told at the coaches meeting? Or punish the school who could not afford to provide her with school issued warmups, gloves, and ear warmers.  But do not punish the girl by taking her name out of the results as if she does not even exist and did not even compete at the state championship as a freshmen. She deserves more respect than that.  She should be proud of what she has done this season and on Saturday. However, I was not a proud member of Virginia high school cross country. On Saturday, I almost wanted to walk out of the meet and out of the sport for good. I thought it was about the kids and not about us. I should tell her to go play other sports, so she can get her performances recorded. At least Barry Bonds can keep his home run record and Shawne Merriman can still be elected to the Pro Bowl.

Combined state meet results have been compiled from this past weekend's VHSL State Championships (compiled by Brandon Miles) and VIS State Championships (compiled by George Winslow). See how your team stacks up when combined with AAA, AA, and A in the VHSl as well as Division I and Division II in the VIS.Combined VHSL State Meet Results: Boys - Girls Combined VIS State Meet Results: Boys - Girls 

Podcast interviews with Thomas Jefferson S&T coach Matt Ryan. Coach Ryan's Thomas Jefferson boys won the VHSL Group AAA boys state cross country team title this past Saturday at Great Meadow. In the past six state championships, Thomas Jefferson boys have put a team on the podium with a top three finishes every year including three state championships (2002, 2004, 2007).

More photos from the VHSL & VIS State Championships by Brandon Miles. Tag away to your athlete profiles!   State titles separated by less than a stride!   VHSL State Championships Photo Gallery - 1663 total photosVIS State Championships Photo Gallery - 1283 total photos