Charlie Ban is the Editor-in-Chief of RunWashington, the runner's source for the DC area.
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Author: Charlie Ban
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Two Foot Locker champions. Another runner one spot from qualifying. Three Nike Cross Nationals individual qualifiers, plus the rest of one of their teams. State champions and runners up. These all add up to a banner year for the D.C. area’s cross country runners.
Members of our coaches panel discussed the season in December and named the All-RunWashington postseason team. The top 10 boys and girls would be a force against any metropolitan area in the country. The D.C., Maryland and Virginia teams are no slouches either. Voting on the panel: Gonzaga’s John Ausema, Walt Whitman’s Steve Hays, Georgetown Visitation’s Kevin Hughes, Lake Braddock’s Mike Mangan, West Springfield’s Chris Pellegrini, T.S Wootton’s Kellie Redmond and Winston Churchill’s Scott Silverstein. Coaches emphasized post-season performances in their evaluations.
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By all accounts, Drew Hunter and Weini Kelati are generous runners, each giving of their own time to help their teams win Virginia state championships in November.
But Saturday at San Diego’s Balboa Park, they took the course all to themselves and refused to share the lead with any competitors at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships. Leading isn’t easy, and it’s a risk in the first competitive races each winner has contested in a year, but in doing so, they both earned every bit of their national championships, the first time the national titlists have come from the same county.
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Lake Braddock junior Kate Murphy finished 16th at Nike Cross Nationals Saturday in Portland, leading her team to a 13th place finish, one spot behind Blacksburg, the top Virginia team. The Bruins moved up from 19th place at the mile mark.
Murphy, the southeast region champion and the 24th place finisher in 2014, finished in 17:27.4, 31 seconds behind winner Katie Rainsberger. Patriot junior Rachel McArthur was 41st in 18:04, after finishing fifth at the regional meet.
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Molly Huddle took control from the start of the .US National 12k and concluded her scorched earth campaign through the USATF Running Circuit.
Since a last-second kick for third by Georgetown alumna Emily Infeld kept 31-year-old Huddle off the World Championships 10k podium, she has dominated the road racing scene, recording wins at 20k, 5k, 10 mile and 10k to win the domestic professional circuit.
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The D.C. area only had one champion at the Maryland state cross country championships, but it was one that’s easy to remember: the Walter Johnson girls.
[button-red url=”http://www.mocorunning.com/meet.php?meet_id=3566″ target=”_self” position=”left”] Results [/button-red]The Wildcats claimed their third consecutive 4A team championship with a 51-85 win over Dulaney, a team coach Tom Martin said was the fastest in school history. Their team score matched their winning total last year, and their scoring five all fit in the top 21.
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The patterns in the Virginia state cross country championships repeated almost as frequently as the pop music on the public address system.
By the time someone started wondering why Pink Floyd’s “Run Like Hell” didn’t make the mix, it was apparent: Dominant individual performances led to team victories.
Nominate the Best of Washington Running 2016 through Dec. 31. The top six nominees will move on to final voting in January and February and winners will be announced in RunWashington‘s second issue of 2016.
Also, nominate the best running photo of 2015 by emailing [email protected] with a link to the photo.
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Entrance to the main part of the zoo, and the Harvard Street bridge to North Road, will be will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and until 7 p.m. March 15-Oct. 5), a change from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (7 p.m. in the middle of the year). The gates to the trail, which allows pedestrians to circumvent a nearby tunnel shared with cars, will remain open from dawn until dusk, a zoo spokeswoman said.
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Taylor Knibb repeated as D.C.’s champion at Fort Dupont Park to kick off a slew of state meets over the next eight days of state meets for local cross country runners. She’ll also have a chance to defend her D.C./Maryland Private Schools championship next Saturday in Derwood, Md.; Virginia’s public schools have their state meet Friday and Saturday in The Plains; and Maryland’s public schools will face off Saturday at Hereford.
Though she faced scant competition on her way to a 71 -second victory in 19:32, an improvement over her meet record that left her wobbly-legged afterward, Knibb hammered the entire course, not with disregard for next week’s private school state meet, but with an eye toward it.