For decades each fall, two similar, small and unique high school cross-country championship meets annually are held in two nearby Northern Virginia jurisdictions, generating significant anticipation and excitement from participants and spectators.
Those two girls and boys varsity competitions are the Arlington County and Alexandria City championship meets, typically held in late September or early October. This year both were held the same afternoon — Wednesday, Oct. 7.
Each consists of just four schools.
The Arlington meet was held at Bluemont Park, which it has been for many years, and pitted the private Bishop O’Connell Knights against the public-school Wakefield Warriors, Washington-Liberty Generals and Yorktown Patriots.
The meet occasionally was held at other sites over the years, like Gravelly Point along the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
“After our district championship, the Arlington County meet is the next biggest meet for us every season,” Washington-Liberty coach John Bacon said. “We love the Arlington County championships. It’s real exciting for the teams.”
Bacon’s teams enjoyed big success during this fall’s meet. The girls team won the championship and the boys were a close second behind two-time champion O’Connell.
Washington-Liberty was led by individual girls winner and freshman Susie Richard in the girls race in a time of 20:10.9 on the 5,000-meter course.
“We were prepared for this meet and to give our all,” said Richard, a first-year cross-country runner.
Washington-Liberty runners took the top three places in the girls race with junior Maddie Brys second (20:11.5) and freshman Allison Ervin third (20:11.5).
O’Connell senior Jayse Brefczynski won the boys race for the second straight year, finishing in 17:15.8. His younger brother Landon, a sophomore, was second in 17:15.9.
The top runner for the Washington-Liberty boys was junior Alessandro Piosa in third (17:28).
The Alexandria meet was held at Episcopal High School this year and had the opposite setup as Arlington, with a single public-school squad (the Alexandria City Titans) facing a trio of private schools: Episcopal Maroon, Bishop Ireton Cardinals and St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes Saints.
Alexandria City won both the girls and boys races and had the individual champion in the girls meet in junior Sophie Meisner in 19:04. Her senior teammate Quinn McGlinchey was second in 19:20.
The individual boys winner was Ireton senior Jason Day in 15:29. The top finisher for the Alexandria City boys was junior Jack Hersey, third in 16:29.
The Alexandria meet is officially called the Joe Halm Memorial City Championships, named for the former Episcopal coach, Joe Halm. He led the Maroon distance program for 18 years prior to his death in 2014.
The meet is now mostly held on the Episcopal campus each year.
The finishing order in the two varsity races was the same this fall, with Alexandria City first followed by Ireton, St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes and Episcopal. The meet also included junior-varsity races for the girls and boys.
The Arlington meet had just the two varsity events, with many of the junior-varsity runners participating in that event.
Teams in the Arlington meet could enter an unlimited number of runners.
Other metro-area jurisdictions hold such meets, but they include many more teams.
The Montgomery County Public Schools meet is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 17 at Bohrer Park in Gaithersburg. In Prince George’s County, the public-school championships are Wednesday, Oct. 21 at Fort Washington Park in Fort Washington.
Like Arlington and Alexandria, the Loudoun County school system used to hold an annual and much-anticipated four-school countywide championship on the grounds of Northern Virginia Community College in Sterling when the school system was much smaller. The participating high schools back then were Broad Run, Loudoun County, Loudoun Valley and Park View.
With Loudoun now having 18 public high schools, a countywide meet no longer exists. If still held, the meet would be larger than some of the big and annual invitational meets if it did occur.
