Pulaski County's Sabrina Hall (pictured above by Scott Rigler) and Abingdon's Griff Graves continued their hot starts to the cross country season as each picked up another invitational victory at the Blue Demon Invitational hosted by Christiansburg High School. Hall (19:31) led from the start and built a commanding 46 second margin of victory over Marion's Maggie Graham, who was also a runner-up to Hall at Run Fer Da Hills last Saturday. The heat made it tough for Griff Graves, who recently made an early verbal committment to Syracuse University, to go after his course record from a year ago of 15:47. However, Graves did distance himself from two quality runners in Cave Spring's Tim Smith (2nd, 16:32) and Radford's Nathan Brame (3rd, 16:44) for a 16:01 win on Christiansburg's challenging and hilly 5K course.The Jefferson boys with 61 points spoiled the Christiansburg squad's (2nd, 68 pts) hopes of winning one for the home crowd with seven points separating the two former Region III rivals. After finishing just a few points ahead of Jefferson Forest last weekend, the Pulaski County girls (2nd, 110 pts) were handed a pretty decisive defeat by the Lady Cavalier, who put 67 points with three runners in the top ten places.Blue Demon Invitational Photo Gallery by Scott Rigler - 178 total photos of the varsity races. Blue Demon Invitational Videos: Varsity Boys - Varsity Girls - JV Boys
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Photos taken by Scott Rigler from the 2007 Blue Demon Invitational held at Christiansburg High School in Christiansburg, Virginia on Saturday, September 8th.
Abingdon's Griff Graves will be back at the Blue Demon Invitational on Saturday looking to improve upon his course record time of 15:47 in 2006. His competition early in the season may be himself in comparision to his 2006 times as he was ahead of schedule last week at Run Fer Da Hills in Bristol, Tennessee with a winning time which was 15 seconds faster than the previous year. However, the Blue Demon Invite will have two top harriers to make it an honest race for Graves with Cave Spring's Tim Smith and Radford's Nathan Brame battling for a second week in a row. Smith picked up a opening win at the Eagle Invite last weekend over Brame. Eagle Invite girls champion Jessica Alley will also be competing as well as Run Fer Da Hills runner-up Maggie Graham of Marion. Jefferson Forest boys are in position to start the year with a second straight invite team title, while the Jefferson Forest girls could make it a team sweep for Coach Loy at Blue Demon.Blue Demon Invite Team List