• Loudoun Valley graduate Drew Hunter signed a 10-year contract to run professionally for adidas. He will make his professional debut at the Sir Walter Miler in Raleigh, N.C. Aug. 5.

• Lake Braddock’s Kate Murphy and Northwest alumnus Diego Zarate will race in the World Junior Track and Field Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Zarate, who attends Virginia Tech, will begin racing July 19 in the heads for the 1,500 meters. The finals will be run July 21. Murphy’s 3,000 meter final is July 20.

• Drew Glick and Page Lester were named Gatorade Players of the Year for track and field in D.C. Glick, who graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, won the 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters and anchored the winning 4×800 meter relay at the D.C. state championships. Lester capped off her sophomore year at the National Cathedral School by winning the 800 meters and 1600 meters at the Independent School League championships.

As is their custom, D.C. area runners won a slew of championships at their respective state meets, though a cancellation of the Virginia 3A/4A meet with several races remaining scuttled the 800 meters.

DC

800 meters
Zakyrah Haynie – Wilson: 2:23.50
Tristan Colaizzi – Georgetown Day School: 1:58.22

1600 meters
Katherine Treanor – Georgetown Day School: 5:23.17
Drew Glick – Wilson: 4:25.50 – breaking Aidan Pillard’s 4:30.33 state record from 2014. Gonzaga’s Harry Monroe was also under the record, running 4:28.40

3200 meters
Katherine Treanor – Georgetown Day School: 12:05.24
Drew Glick – Wilson: 10:04.29

4×800 meters
Girls – Wilson 10:03.39: Zakyrah Haynie , Meredith Ellison, Sofia Laine, Anna Cestari
Boys – Wilson 8:18.25: Aaron Coates, Ulyses Chalus, Patrick Mulderig, Drew Glick

Maryland

3A

800 meters
Gary Ross, Oxon Hill  1:56.36

4×800 meters
Oxon Hill 7:56.30: Adel Akalu, Aaron Robinson, Anthony Wimbush, Gary Ross

4A

800 meters
Kyra Badrian – Paint Branch: 2:17.06
Thierry Siewe – Montgomery Blair: 1:55.22

1600 meters
Rohann Asfaw – Rich. Montgomery: 4:20.95

3200 meters
Rohann Asfaw: Rich. Montgomery: 9:24.05

4×800 meters
Girls Bethesda-Chevy Chase – 9:32.28: Sarah Haas, Analise Schmidt, Zoe Nuechterlein, Lily O’Dowd
Boys Montgomery Blair – 7:58.58: Ben Geertseema, Alexander Mangiafico, Dominic Massimino, Thiery Yanga

 

Virginia

4A

3200
Weini Kelati – Heritage: 10:09.70
Drew Hunter – Loudoun Valley: 9:17.91

5A
1600 meters
Heather Holt – George Marshall: 4:54.28

6A
800 meters
Rachel McArthur, Patriot 2:06.55
Brandon McGorty, Chantilly 1:51.86

1600 meters
Reagan Bustamante West Springfield 4:51.97
Brandon McGorty, Chantilly  4:16.54

3200 meters
Conor Lyons Lake Braddock 9:16.80
Sara Freix  Westfield 10:51.63

4×800 meters
Boys: Lake Braddock – 7:51.35 Andrew Delvecchio, Cavanaugh McGaw, Colin Schaefer, Ben Fogg

 

With summer finally here, many D.C.-area high schoolers are already looking ahead to the upcoming cross country season. Namely, ways to maintain their fitness levels during the off-season or to log additional training time to start the season off strong.

We spoke with several new and long-running camps — all of them different in their own unique ways — that offer athletes a chance to break the monotony of solo training runs and learn from elite coaches and staff while having fun away from home. From the camp that loves a killer game of ultimate Frisbee as much as it loves a good fartlek, to the camp that touts its urban backdrop, there’s something for everyone this summer.

 

The Everyman Camp

American Running Camp’s history dates back more than two decades to the University of Oregon, over 3,000 miles away from the camp’s home in Portsmouth, R.I. Legendary Ducks coach Bill Dellinger — who trained stars like Steve Prefontaine and Alberto Salazar — started the camp based on his successful “Oregon System” of distance running.

“Lectures, workouts and runs are all based on these principles — moderation, progression, adaptability, variation and callousing — and teaching campers these principles,” said Kerri Gallagher, assistant camp director, adding that co-camp directors Matt Centrowitz and Pat Tyson both ran for Oregon under the tutelage of Dellinger in the 1970s.

The staff at American Running Camp, which will take place Aug. 1-6 on the campus of Portsmouth Abbey School, is a diverse mix of Olympians, high school and college coaches, and elite post-collegiate athletes.

“We have a lot of different perspectives [from coaches and staff] having different backgrounds,” explained Gallagher, who represented Team USA at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing. “We can relate to a lot of different kids, whether trying out for cross country for the first time or the runner going into senior year and top in the state and looking to have a big season coming up. I think we’re very versatile in that way.”

Aside from its incredibly experienced staff, what sets American Running Camp apart is the fact it is open to athletes of all ages and abilities from middle and high school students to adults. Campers are assigned to running groups based on their current ability and mileage background, but have the flexibility to move groups as needed. The typical day is structured around a morning run followed by a meal and strength or stretching sessions such as yoga, core or hurdles. After lunch and some free time, athletes have the option to head out for a second run depending on their ability.

“We’re very aware that every runner is at a different place at that point during the summer,” Gallagher said.

Each day ends with a fun evening activity. At the close of camp, runners participate in a casual, non-competitive race as a way to gauge their fitness level and abilities heading into the official cross country season.

Additional perks of American Running Camp include on-site housing in Portsmouth Abbey School’s dormitories and a fully staffed dining hall that is very accommodating of dietary needs, Gallagher said.

 

The Urban Camp

This July, Pacers Running’s DCXC Distance Project will hold its first summer cross country camp, DCXC Camp, on the campus of Georgetown University. Athletes will get a taste of being a Washingtonian runner over the four days (July 23-27), including running through Rock Creek Park, Glover-Archbold Park and along the C&O Towpatch, participating in the Crystal City Twilighter 5K and exploring the National Mall and Smithsonian museums.

“This is the only camp that I know of that highlights it as an urban camp experience. It’s a unique feature,” said Landon Peacock, assistant manager at Pacers 14th Street and the camp’s director.

The day-to-day structure of DCXC Camp will be modeled after the 42-year-old Wisconsin Cross Country Camp of Champions, where Peacock, a two-time all American from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, worked for five years. The camp will feature clinics on strength and conditioning, injury prevention, form and gait analysis, and running workouts. Most notably, campers will have one-on-one contact with runners who have competed at the collegiate, professional and Olympic levels.

“What makes camps [like Wisconsin] good is the counselors and how much they’re willing to engage with the kids,” Peacock said, adding that Julie Culley, a 2012 Olympian and Arlington resident, is booked as a guest speaker. “[DCXC Camp] will be a good combo of fun activities and something they’re going to learn and take from the camp to use throughout their running careers.”

In addition, campers will stay in Georgetown University’s Southwest Quad dorms and have access to the facilities at Yates Field House, which includes a 200-meter indoor track, eight-lane pool, weight room, tennis courts and more.

 

The “Un-Camp”

Nestled in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains of Madison, Va., Camp Varsity Running Camp has been churning out state champions, All-Americans and record holders for nearly 35 years. Although it’s almost 100 miles from Washington, the camp has extremely local roots and attracts many area runners. Its founder — then George Mason University coach John Cook — started the camp in the early 1980s and operated it for several years with George Watts, an All-American out of the University of Tennessee and native of Alexandria, Va. Today it’s run by Bob Digby, head track and field coach at Lake Braddock High School.

During Camp Varsity Running Camp, which this year will run from Aug. 14 to 20, athletes are up early for the first run of the day, followed by breakfast, a morning recreational activity like volleyball or ultimate Frisbee and then free time at the waterfront and on-site country store. After lunch, campers have an opportunity to squeeze in a nap before an afternoon run, followed by more free time, dinner and a fun evening activity such as capture the flag. At the end of the week there is a camp-wide relay where the victors are awarded an ice cream party.

Despite Camp Varsity Running Camp’s illustrious reputation and staff, noticeably missing from its schedule are the numerous lectures and speakers found at other running camps.

“Our camp is extremely different because the focus doesn’t necessarily rely around intense training. We spend a considerable amount of time on non-running things,” explained Bob Digby, director of Camp Varsity Running Camp. “I’m a believer that kids are not in great shape in August and if you take those kids and pound them for a week, you’re going to send them back to their coaches broken.”

While it may seem like an unproductive concept, Camp Varsity Running Camp is a disruptor by design — borrowing some of the “fun, goofy activities” from the six-week recreational camp, simply named Camp Varsity, that precedes it. And Digby, who has worked at the running camp since 1983 before taking it over 12 years later, has no plans to change its philosophy of fun.

“Our camp focuses on the recreational, fun part of it. It affords kids the opportunity to be kids, [especially for] juniors and seniors who are stressed out about college,” he said, adding that many of Lake Braddock’s coaches opt also to coach at the summer running camp, giving their teams a chance to see them in a “non-coaching role,” goofing around and dressing up silly for dinner. “That’s such an important thing for kids to have and they just don’t get at that age. It’s nice to be able to provide that.”

Our Lady of Good Counsel was 1,000 meters from glory. This was all that separated the Falcons from beating rival Bishop O’Connell for the first time in seven years to win the 2014 Washington Catholic Athletic Conference cross country crown.

But then the squad’s best runner, 16-year-old junior Megan Crilly, started to fade, developing a glassy look in her eyes that had become eerily prevalent throughout her fall workouts. Crilly crashed and ended up collapsing across the finish line. She finished 16th — almost two minutes slower than her individual winning time the year before — and Our Lady of Good Counsel wound up second.

What was far more troubling, though, was that Crilly, after the race, needed nearly two hours to become coherent enough to know where she was.

Everything was a symptom of thyroid cancer, which was diagnosed a month later, attacking her energy and metabolism the entire fall, crippling her running and putting her life at risk. But rather than feeling sorry for herself, Crilly was determined to make amends for her frustrating conference championship meltdown.

“I felt like I had let my team down because I should have done a lot better than I did,” she said. “That was a source of motivation, to be able to back in shape for my team and come back stronger for my senior year.”

Crilly did just that and more.

Now a senior, she was not only able to defeat the cancer, but returned to the Good Counsel cross country team running times better than before her run-in with the disease.

Running was more than a distraction. It provided fuel throughout her cancer treatment and recovery to return to cross country.

“She really did an amazing job of getting through this with grace and composure and maturity beyond her years,” her mother, Kim Crilly, said. “She inspires me every day.”

Crilly isn’t your typical high schooler. She’s a gritty, determined competitor.

Her workouts fall somewhere between impeccable and perfect, according to Tom Arnold, her coach.

“She just didn’t make mistakes,” even as a freshman running on a competitive varsity team, he said. “She just had a maturity you don’t see in many athletes.”

Every summer, she showed up religiously every weekday in the summer for 10 weeks, at 6 a.m., to train and lay a base for the upcoming fall season. That added up to a WCAC cross country individual title her sophomore season.

But in her junior year she started to struggle. She didn’t seem to have the control and dominance she usually had, and it got worse throughout the race season. Megan couldn’t finish some of the team’s harder workouts, the interval and tempo runs, and her times in races were slipping back to freshman-year levels.

“I felt very tired and very sick,” Crilly said, adding that she had trouble breathing.

Doctors first suspected a much more common ailment: anemia. But anemia doesn’t come with a lump on the throat, and a biopsy revealed the truth.

Thyroid cancer is comparably manageable, which was fortunate.

“If you’re going to have cancer, it’s one of those ones one you want to have,” Crilly said.

But it had also spread to her lymph nodes, which had to be treated with radiation that spring. The radiation forced Crilly to stop her medication for hypothyroidism, further complicating her recovery and running.

But in the end, Crilly attacked her cancer with a just-do-it attitude almost as if it were shin splints or plantar fasciitis.

Kim Crilly tries to raises her children with an understanding that everyone is going through rough times and life is sometimes hard. But don’t let that slow you down or hold you back.

Megan Crilly scheduled her surgery on New Year’s Eve so she wouldn’t miss school. Radiation treatments came on long weekends for the same reason.

“Most kids would have milked that for all they could get,” Arnold said. “‘Oh, I’ll get this time off from school and all this attention.’

But she didn’t want anyone to know. She wanted to get through it as best she could on her own.” Just two days after her surgery,

Crilly wanted to go on a 20-minute walk that left her exhausted the rest of the day.

“Even when she wasn’t feeling well, she went to practice and just did what she had to do,” Kim Crilly said.

She started running again in late January, wanting to get back to her team and help them. “Running was one thing that kept me mentally and physically strong,” Megan Crilly said. “It was a great outlet. …. I almost needed running as a way to get through it.”

Getting back to her old self took a few months, but she returned in time for spring track season and ran personal bests in the 400 and 800 meters.

That success late in the season gave her confidence headed into summer workouts that aided her senior cross country season last fall.

She ran four sub-20-minute 5Ks; before her illness she hadn’t broken 20 minutes. She finished second overall at the WCAC meet where she collapsed the year before, although her team came up short of the team title.

Crilly finished sixth in the Maryland and D.C. Private School Championship after running 11th her sophomore season.

“It was the first season where I felt I was up to my full potential,” Crilly said. “It was nice for once to see all my hard work pay off.”

Fighting cancer gave the high schooler perspective about adversity and life that proves valuable to handling tough times in racing.

“It’s great to set goals. However, you might not reach those goals every single race, and that’s OK,” Crilly said. “As long as you keep working as hard as possible and you believe in yourself, your training and yourself, you’ll eventually get there.”

Tests early in 2016 revealed no signs of cancer remaining. She wants to continue running at a local college in Maryland and is thinking about studying engineering.

“After my junior year, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run in college because I was kind of discouraged,” Crilly said. “But after going through this experience, I’ve come out stronger, and I’ve learned to believe in myself a little bit more. I want to pursue running in college.”

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of RunWashington.

Despite unseasonably warm temperatures in the D.C. area last week, the indoor track season wasn’t quite over, which was good for plenty of local high school athletes and the Georgetown women’s distance medley relay team.

NCAA Indoor Championships

In Albuquerque, Georgetown’s team of Emma Keenan, Heather Martin, Andrea Keklak and Katrina Coogan won the NCAA indoor championships March 11, running 10:57.21, ahead of the University of Washington’s 10:58.52. The next afternoon, Coogan finished third in the 3,000 meters, running 9:07.74 to Molly Siedel‘s (Notre Dame) 8:57.86, and Keklak  finished fourth in the mile in 4:38.44, behind Oklahoma State runner Kaela Edwards‘ 4:35.62.

Loundoun County alumnus Thomas Curtain, running for Virginia Tech, finished second in the 5,000 meters, running 13:50.70 to trail Oregon’s Edward Cheserek‘s 13:47.89. The next day, Cheserek held a 8:00.40 – 8:01:55 lead over Stanford’s Sean McGorty, a Chantilly alumnus, in the 3,000 meters. Ahmed Bile, an Annandale alumnus who runs for Georgetown, was 14th in 8:24.15.

New Balance Nationals Indoor

Heritage’s Weini Kelati kicked off the top local performances at the New Balance Nationals Indoor meet by breaking the less-than-one-year-old high school indoor 5,000 meter record, running 16:08.83. That broke Anna Rohrer‘s mark of 16:10.79. She also won the two mile in 10:02.71.

T.C Williams’ Noah Lyles broke Xavier Carter‘s 12-year-old high school indoor 200 meter record, running 20.63 to shave off .06 seconds.

Lyles team up with his brother Josephus, Tre’kel Locket and Kai Cole to win the 4×200 relay, running 1:26.21. Joesphus Lyles also won the 60 meters in 6.65 seconds.

In the boys’s distance medley relay, Loudoun Valley’s team “The Jungle,” won in 10:03.42 over River Dell, of New Jersey. Loudoun Valley’s team consisted of Will Smaugh, Colton Bogucki, Drew Hunter and Nathaniel Thompson.

Chantilly’s XBC club broke the national sprint medley relay record, running 3:24.02 to outdistance Motor City Track Club from Michigan (3:25.96) and cut .14 seconds from Dayton, Ohio’s Dunbar team, which had broken the record the year before. Chantilly’s runners were Michael Scopellite, Justin Loh, Titus Jeffries and Brandon McGorty.

Lake Braddock’s girls distance medley relay team — Shannon Browing, Skyla Davidson, Samantha Schwers and Kate Murphy — finished second in 11:39.10. Murphy also finished second in the mile, running 4:39.47.

U.S. Indoor Championships

Two D.C.-based Georgetown alumnae competed in the U.S Indoor Championships March 11-12 in Portland, Ore. Rachel Schneider finished eighth in the 1,500 meters, running 4:19.48. Chelsea Cox ran 2:04.29 in the 800 meters preliminary heat. Georgetown alumna Emily Infeld finished 10th in the 3,000 meters in 9:10.22.

Eritrea native Weini Kelati came out of nowhere to take high school running by storm

She blends in with her classmates at Heritage High School, constantly joking around and texting with her friends and cross country teammates. But Weini Kelati doesn’t share the same stories with her classmates about growing up in Leesburg, having shown up a year and a half ago from a country only her most geographically-astute classmates knew about — Eritrea.

Now a junior academically, the 19-year-old has been making headlines all school year as she nabs win after win, including the 2015 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships in December and a national high school record 16:08.33 for the 5000 meters at the New Balance Nationals Indoor in New York, two seconds faster than the existing record set my Anna Rohrer last year in 16:10.79. But her journey to become a champion — which began half a world away on the east coast of Africa — was not easy.

Coming to America

Eritrea borders Ethiopia and Sudan on the Horn of Africa. Therace she ever ran, she recalled, was in her sixth grade physical education class, and she hated it. But soon enough, her natural talent took over. At age 12, she already was a top-ranked runner in Eritrea, racing well outside of her age group and mixing it up with professionals in their 20s.

She competed at international meets across Europe as a teenager, but she was mostly unknown in the United States. In July 2014, at 17 years, Kelati ran 9:12.32 to finish eighth in the 3,000 meters at the at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene, Ore.

Then, she didn’t go home. She applied for asylum and moved to Leesburg to live with her third cousin and now guardian, Amlesom Teklai, also an Eritrean immigrant and former competitive runner for West Potomac (Alexandria) in the late 1990s. Teklai, who first approached Heritage cross country coach Doug Gilbert, didn’t know he had a distant relative in Kelati until another family member in Texas asked him to take her in.

“[Amlesom] told me he just enrolled his cousin [at Heritage] and she loves to run. He mentioned she had just gotten back from the world championships,” Gilbert said. “It was at that point I Googled her name and very quickly found out who she was. It’s been a pretty large whirlwind since then.”

Kelati’s Eritrean Roots

Kelati doesn’t volunteer much about leaving Eritrea, spinning any question into a chance to talk about how excited she is to be in the United States, but it’s easy enough to find any number of reasons she’d be motivated to leave behind all she knew, her family, her friends.

Human Rights Watch calls the country’s record “dismal,” and the numbers — the United Nations estimates 5,000 émigrés flee the country every month — back that up.

Eritreans now make up the third-largest migrant group — behind Syrians and Afghans — trying to reach Europe. It’s a dangerous journey that requires crossing the borders into Ethiopia and Sudan, then on to Libya and across the Sahara. Finally, they must make the treacherous trip across the Mediterranean.

Many are leaving the country because of its forced military conscription. Eritreans are required by law to serve in the country’s military for 18 months when they reach 18 years of age, yet many remaining conscripted for 10 years or more while earning incredibly low pay that places an undue financial burden on their families.

Kelati shares a heritage with American Olympian Meb Keflezighi, whom she got to meet at the Foot Locker championships. But the two didn’t spend much time talking about the old country. “We both know about Eritrea so we didn’t need to talk about it,” she said, matter of factly.

That sums things up.

It’s been difficult, of course, to be thousands of miles removed from her family and friends. While Washington, D.C., has the second-largest African-born immigrant population in the U.S., the Eritrean community is undeniably small. But what she lost when she left Eritrea, she gained as part of a new family at Heritage.

A Strong Start

Fresh off an impressive finish at the World Junior Championships, Kelati had a strong start to her first cross-country season at Heritage. Despite stopping to tie her shoe not once, but twice, during the Oatlands Invitational in September 2014, Kelati maintained a 5:52 pace to win in 18:12.

“She was doing what I thought was like, ‘Wow, this is incredible stuff.’ I’ve had some incredible distance runners, but no one ever touched what she was doing,” Gilbert said.
But later in the season, her momentum began to fade. Battling a language barrier, Kelati struggled to explain the level of training she was accustomed to in Eritrea — and her fitness level suffered. She had been conditioned to run on Eritrea’s mountainous terrain, a drastic change from Northern Virginia’s grassy, rolling hills. Despite their best efforts, Gilbert and Kelati could not get aligned on her training. Though she made the national finals, she finished 20th. Given the excitement that surrounded her debut, it was a letdown, and to nobody more than Kelati.

“She speaks Tigrinya, a language most people probably never heard of. It was pretty nerve-racking. I did a lot of big arm motions and speaking loudly, which is not the right approach,” Gilbert said, laughing. “We could look at times and paces all day, but in terms of explaining why we’re doing certain workouts … it was tough last year.”
It wasn’t until they were returning from the state championships that November that Gilbert finally understood Kelati needed to be pushed harder than the rest of the team for her to stay on top.

“Everything was intense in Eritrea. There really was no such thing as a recovery day for her. Even on easy days, she was intense. I told her if we could get things together and work hard she could be the best runner in the United States,” Gilbert said. “I love how she races. I love the aggressiveness. She makes it a guts race. [But] her fitness level last year just didn’t suit that racing strategy.”

Becoming a National Champion

Over the next year, Kelati’s coach and teammates rallied around her, upping her training and helping her to learn English.

“This year, a major goal of ours was to tailor everything [Kelati] did, so she could race the way she wanted to,” Gilbert explained.

Teammates like Georgie Mackenzie used their workouts as an excuse to teach Kelati English. Others brought her an English dictionary and practiced with her during their lunch period, Kelati said.

“She’d teach me phrases in Tigrinya,” Mackenzie recalled. “And we just kind of got along like that. As soon as I met her, I automatically wanted to help her.”

Once Kelati’s English flowed more easily, so did her gradual return to the top of the leaderboard. In her second cross country season at Heritage, she once again placed first at the Oatlands Invitational, though this time even faster than before (17:11), blowing past the second-place finisher, the same runner as the year before, by 72 seconds. Then in October, Kelati took home the title
at the Glory Days Invitational, dipping under 17 minutes for the first time and leaving Lake Braddock junior Kate Murphy, who later won the state 6A title, in her wake.

Here is how she summed up her strategy: “I don’t think about who I am running against, if they want to come with me they can,” she said after Glory Days. “I just want to run fast.”

“She’s just going to hammer,” Gilbert added. “I can try to tell her to do something else, but she’s just going to do it.”

Nowhere was that more apparent than at the Foot Locker meet, a race she came into undefeated. Opening a several-seconds lead early on, Kelati was eventually swallowed by a chase pack. Even then she refused to let anyone else dictate the pace — she was going to run the race on her terms, and that did not include drafting and saving her energy. She fought back to the front and ahead of Illinois’ Maryjeanne Gilbert to win by less than one second.

She was a national champion of a country that was still new to her.

 

The Road Ahead

As Kelati prepares to enter her final year of high school this fall, she wraps up her last year of eligibility to compete for Heritage. She plans to focus on academics and getting into college — a goal echoed by Keflezighi.

“He told me to just be strong,” Kelati said. “And to get a good education. And after, when I’m done [with college], I could become a faster runner. But first I have to get my education.”

Kelati will undoubtedly make appearances in the Washington-area racing scene throughout the year to stay in shape, but will continue to focus her training on the 5k and 10k. Eventually, she wants to transition to competing in half marathons and marathons — maybe even gunning for a spot on the Olympic team.

“My dream is to run the marathon in the Olympics,” she said.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of RunWashington.

• Loudoun Valley senior Drew Hunter broke the national high school record for the indoor and outdoor 3,000 meters Jan. 30, running 7.59.325 at the Camel City Elite Races in Winston-Salem, N.C. The performance was a 5-second improvement over the previous mark on 8:05.46, set three years ago by Hunter’s future University of Oregon teammate Edward Cheserek. Hunter was named Gatorade’s male cross country runner of the year.
• Hunter’s parents, Joan and Marc, were the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s coaches of the year for Virginia boys’ cross country teams. The Vikings won the the 4A title at the state championships in November.
• At Georgetown Day School, Anthony Belber was USATFCCCA’s Washington, D.C. girls’ team coach of the year and Tristan Colaizzi was Gatorade’s male cross country runner of the year. The Mighty Hoppers won the D.C. state and Maryland-D.C. Private School championships.
• Gonzaga’s John Ausema is the USATFCCCA boys’ coach of the year for D.C. and Sidwell Friends School senior Taylor Knibb, D.C. state and Maryland-D.C. Private School champion, is the Gatorade D.C. girl cross country runner of the year.
• Heritage’s Weini Kelati was Virginia’s Gatorade runner of the year.
• Lake Braddock junior Kate Murphy broke the Virginia records for the indoor mile and 1,600 meters at the Camel City Elite Races, running 4:43.97, ahead of Fauquier’s Sarah Bowman’s 4:46.79 from 2005. Along the way, she ran 4:42.22 for 1,600 meters, breaking West Springfield’s Caroline Alcorta‘s state record of 4:44.40.
• Sherwood coach Dan Reeks was named National Federation of State High School Coaches Association Mideast Sectional Coach of the Year.  The Mideast section includes Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

 

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.

During the season, the Oatlands Invitational’s varsity boys race featured nine of the 10 post-season All-RunWashington team members, plus Foot Locker finalist and Virginia 6A champion Jonathan Lamogda. On the girls’ side, Glory Days had five of the 10 post-season honorees in the varsity A race.

Here’s a little bit about our postseason all-stars, and the best teams in D.C, Maryland and Virginia.

All-RunWashington

Rohann Asfaw	Jr	Richard Montgomery	Abigail Green	So	Walter Johnson
Tristan Colaizzi	Sr	Georgetown Day	Heather Holt	So	George C. Marshall
Andrew Hunter	Sr	Loudoun Valley	Weini Kelati	Sr	Heritage
Robert Lockwood	Sr	W.T Woodson	Casey Kendall	Jr	Oakton
Andrew Matson	Sr	Stone Bridge	Taylor Knibb	Sr	Sidwell Friends
Jackson Morton	Sr	Stone Bridge	Page Lester	So	National Cathedral
Kyle Sanok	Sr	Potomac School	Rachel McArthur	Jr	Patriot
Colin Schaefer	Sr	Lake Braddock	Kate Murphy	Jr	Lake Braddock
Fitsum Seyoum	Sr	Tuscarora	Bethlehem Taye	Sr	Paint Branch
Jack Wavering	Sr	Good Counsel	Emma Wolcott	So	Tuscarora

Rohann Asfaw/ Jr./ Richard Montgomery

After a year watching Evan Woods and Diego Zarate duke it out in Montgomery County, Rohann Asfaw ran right to the front of the line. He ultimately finished as the top Maryland runner at the Nike Cross Southeast meet with a sixth place finish, edging Jack Wavering and avenging his loss to Dulaney’s Eric Walz in the state 4A championship. His 15:21 at Nike was two seconds from qualifying for the national meet.

 

Tristan Colaizzi/ Sr./ Georgetown Day School

The ups and downs for Tristan Colaizzi matched the terrain at Fort Dupont Park, where he won the D.C. state championship. Though he weathered rough races at Oatlands and Glory Days,  he turned things up in October and November, running fast (15:34 at the Third Battle Invitational) and gutsy races (winning the MAC title over fellow postseason honoree Kyle Sanok). It all came together at the Foot Locker South meet (Colaizzi lives in Virginia), where he finished 19th in 15:37. He’ll run at Williams College next year, where his brother Griffin raced as a sophomore this year in the NCAA Division III championships.

Abigail Green/ So./ Walter Johnson

Abbey Green‘s sophomore season looked a lot like her first — front running that gave her the Wildcats an early advantage over everyone else. Her consistency gave her teammates something to aim for as they rounded into shape by the end of the season to claim their third Maryland 4A title. At the state meet, she lost only to Foot Locker finalist Maria Coffin, though Bethlehem Taye was just a second behind. Along the way, she won the Montgomery County and 4A West titles, running 18:04 for the former.

Heather Holt/ So./ George Marshall

After winning the state 5A championship as a freshman, Heather Holt couldn’t sneak up on anybody this year. She started strong, with wins at the Monroe Parker Invitational and the DCXC sophomore race, both of which meant beating fellow 5A sophomore Emma Wolcott. While she let Weini Kelati go at the Glory Days Invitational, she raced Kate Murphy hard but wound up third. Wolcott finally got her at the state meet, but two weeks later, Holt was six seconds from a trip to the Foot Locker Championships.

Andrew Hunter/ Sr./ Loudoun Valley

On the fourth Thursday of November, Drew Hunter gave thanks that his cross country season could finally begin in earnest. His September, October and most of November were preludes to his return to the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships in San Diego. Up to, and including the south region meet, he faced scant competition beyond the first half mile of races, and he made it through those months free of injury and ready to go after the national title. By the end, he came out as Northern Virginia’s best high school cross country runner in history and the first local Foot Locker champion on the boy’s side since Sherwood’s Solomon Haile in 2008.

He opened up the pace after the first half mile and left the pack behind, slowing only at the end of a rain-softened course in Balboa Park. Nobody challenged him and he cruised to a 12-second victory in 14:55. While not having any competition made for less-than-thrilling cross country races, it leaves Hunter fresh for a pair of track seasons, including professional-level indoor races this winter. He’ll run at Oregon next year, where his dad Marc studied while running professionally for Athletics West.

Along the way he won every race in which he set foot, moved Footlocker runner-up Sean McGorty‘s Foot Locker South course record down a few seconds to 14:26(on top of the “5k” reportedly being a little longer), and collected his third individual state title, his first after the Vikings moved up to 4A. Loudoun Valley’s team, for that matter, also claimed its first 4A title.

Weini Kelati/ Sr./ Heritage

With a lot to prove, Weini Kelati has run roughshod over the competition on her way to the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships. She started out strong last year when she arrived at Heritage from Eritrea, but waned as the season went on, and though she qualified for Footlocker, finishing 20th was a disappointment for her. With a year to learn English and communicate better with her coach and teammates,  she has not just kept up the pace, but accelerated. She  turned the tables on E.C. Glass junior Libby Davidson, who beat Kelati in both the state and national qualifiers and finals and finished sixth in the latter. She led Heritage to the Virginia 4A title in November.

Kelati has focused more on time than her competition, which has helped because she wasn’t pushed late in a race until the Foot Locker final, and even then she refused to let her competitors share any of the work. She eventually gapped Maryjeanne Gilbert and got nearly a full second ahead for a 17:09 victory, the first local girl to win since Langley’s Erin Keough repeated in 1986.

She recently turned 19, and won’t be able to compete on the high school level next fall.

Casey Kendall/ Jr./ Oakton

Casey Kendall was a dependable leader for two-time defending Virginia 6A champion Oakton. The Cougars spend most of their season racing outside of the D.C. area, but when they came home, Kendall picked up where she had left off. Fourth last year in 6A, she moved up to third to lead her team’s upset bid against Lake Braddock.

Taylor Knibb/ So./ Sidwell Friends

Two more state titles for Taylor Knibb — D.C. and the Maryland-D.C. Private School championships. A win at the DCXC senior race. All soon after starting her cross country season late following the end of her summer triathlon season. She raced through the line and usually, that meant winning.

Page Lester/ So./ National Cathedral School

Page Lester assuredly put together a strong sophomore season, though always on the heels of triathlon training partner Taylor Knibb at both the ISL and Maryland-D.C. Private Schools meet. She won Delaware’s Lake Forest Invitational in September and bested fellow sophomore Abbey Green on the Georgetown Prep Classic’s hilly course in October.

Robert Lockwood/ Sr./ W.T. Woodson

After races in previous years that saw him unwisely taking the lead, Bobby Lockwood became a closer. and how. After licking his wounds after a 21st place finish at the stacked Oatlands race and 16th at Glory Days, he picked it up in November, finishing fifth in the Virginia 6A meet and 16th at Nike Cross Southeast, leading his team: We’re the Waldos.

Andrew Matson/ Sr./ Stone Bridge

Matson was part of a strong Stone Bridge team that rivaled Lake Braddock for supremacy and edged Thomas Jefferson for the 5A title, thanks in large part to Andrew Matson‘s ninth place finish. He ran 15:42 for 23rd at Nike Cross Southeast and finished 11th in the competitive Oatlands Invitational and the Third Battle Invitational.

Rachel McArthur/ Jr./ Patriot

Rachel McArthur did not race much, giving her long racing socks — an elementary school gift from her mother — a longer lifespan. But when she lined up, she showed up. She notched a 17:36 at her season opener at the Third Battle Invitational for second behind Weini Kelati, but had an injury layoff that kept her out of the end of Virginia’s postseason,  but she made it back in time for the Nike Cross Southeast meet, where she scored her second trip to the national meet by virtue of her fifth place finish in her season’s best 5k time of 17:16. She finished 41st at Nike Cross Nationals.

Jackson Morton/ Sr./ Stone Bridge

Standing a full nine feet tall and leading the league in earnestness, Jack Morton‘s fourth place finish lead Stone Bridge to its first 5A title, but his 13th place finish at Nike Cross Southeast was also something to write home about. He was a mainstay in the top 10 in his invitationals throughout the season, with a sixth place finish at Oatlands and fifth place at Third Battle.

Kate Murphy/ Jr./ Lake Braddock

Though cross country fans were robbed of the Murphy-McArthur competition for the most part thanks to the latter’s injury, Kate Murphy had plenty to savor. She started racing late, after early August’s Pan American Junior Track Championships, where Murphy won the 1500 meters, pushed back her post-track break. After claiming the Virginia 6A individual title to lead the way for Lake Braddock to reclaim the team’s first title in three years, two weeks later her 17:00 winning time at Nike Cross Southeast led to the same team result, a 37 point win over Virginia powerhouse Blacksburg. At the national meet, Murphy moved up throughout the race to finish 16th.

Kyle Sanok/ Sr./ Potomac School

Kyle Sanok showed up to all kinds of races and mixed it up with Virginia’s public school teams. He finished fifth at Oatlands and ninth at Third Battle, but also won the Virginia Independent Schools state meet. He ran a 15:40 PR to finish 23rd at Foot Locker South.

Colin Schaefer/ Sr./ Lake Braddock

Repeating a state title after losing the first two finishers isn’t easy, but Colin Schaefer wasn’t afraid of the challenge. He finished fifth after a series of yeoman-like races, picking up top-five finishes beneath his sweatband. He qualified for the Nike Cross Nationals meet with a fifth place finish in the Southeast, then went on to finish 79th. His 15:11 time at Nike Cross Southeast was his season’s best.

Fitsum Seyoum/ Sr./ Tuscarora

His second year of cross country was a doozy for Fitsum Seyoum. Just a year after leaving soccer to take on running full time, he started off winning the Great Meadows, Monroe Parker and DCXC senior invitationals, with just an injury dropout at Oatlands keeping him from finishing among the other eight All-RunWashington postseason honorees. He raced smart at the 5A state meet, trusting that Waleed Suliman, whom he had beaten before, would come back. It didn’t happen, but with a commitment to run at Virginia Tech starting next year, Seyoum will have plenty of chances to build on his rapidly growing body of experience in racing. He finished 22nd at the Foot Locker South regional.

Bethlehem Taye/ Sr./ Paint Branch

Her track speed caught up to Bethlehem Taye‘s developing cross country strength and she saw her Maryland 4A finish jump to third place, just a second behind Abbey Greene, from from 25th the year before. What’s more, she closed out her season with a 14th place finish at the Nike Cross Southeast region meet, the third highest local finisher.

Jack Wavering/ Sr./ Our Lady of Good Counsel

Going up against some heavy hitters never caused Jack Wavering to flinch. During the season coach Tom Arnold debated the merits of his third place finish at Oatlands, losing only to Hunter among the eight other All-RunWashington team members that ran the race, versus his second place finish at the Glory Days Invitational.

Nike Cross Southeast put those in perspective. His seventh place finish at Nike Cross Southeast had him three seconds from an individual trip to the championships, but it was also the start of the scoring for his Good Counsel team’s fifth place finish, 13 points ahead of Virginia’s top team from Lake Braddock.

Emma Wolcott/ So./ Tuscarora

Emma Wolcott had a strong freshman year and improved where she needed to in 2015. She claimed the Virginia 5A individual championship from Heather Holt, setting up two more years of tug-of-war that promises great races. She was runner up at the Monroe Parker Invitational, the DCXC sophomore race, won the season-opening Great Meadow Invitational and the Loudoun County championship. She finished 22nd at Foot Locker South.

All-D.C

John Colucci	So	Gonzaga	A’Ishah Bakayoko	Sr	Georgetown Day
Jacob Floam	Sr	Gonzaga	Emily Carroll	Sr	St. John’s
Tyreece Huff	Sr	Phelps	Abigail Doroshow	Sr	Georgetown Day
Harry Monroe	Jr	Gonzaga	Brennan Dunne	Fr	Georgetown Visitation
Will McCann	Jr	Gonzaga	Michaela Kirvan	So	Georgetown Visitation
Christian Roberts	Jr	Sidwell Friends	Arrington Peterson	Jr	Wilson
Jackson Todd	Jr	Georgetown Day	Katherine Treanor	Sr	Georgetown Day

With four runners on the All-D.C. team, Gonzaga is an easy choice for best boys team in D.C., ahead of Sidwell Friends.

On the girls’ side, Georgetown Day had what coach Anthony Belber thinks could be D.C.’s strongest team, though he gave the mantle of fastest to 2014’s Georgetown Visitation. The Mighty Hoppers proved it with a win over Good Counsel at the Maryland-D.C. Private Schools championship and a 16th place finish at Nike Cross Southeast.

All-Maryland

Michael Abebe	Sr	Northwood	Cecily Davy	Sr	Einstein
Asfaw Estifanos	Sr	Northwestern	Grace Dellapa	Sr	Wootton
Ben Gersch	Sr	Whitman	Sophie El Masry	Sr	Richard Montgomery
Matt Lopez	Sr	Good Counsel	Amanda Hayes-Puttfarken	Sr	Sherwood
Kevin McGivern	Sr	Good Counsel	Emily Murphy	Sr	Walter Johnson
Colin Sybing	Sr	Wootton	Julia Reicin	Jr	Churchill
Liam Walsh	Sr	Quince Orchard	Nandini Satsangi	Fr	Poolesville

When you win three straight state titles, you make a pretty convincing case for the being the best team in the entire state. They’ll go for four next year.

Good Counsel’s boys dominated the Maryland-D.C. Private Schools meet and finished fifth at Nike Cross Southeast.

Brent Bailey	Sr	Centreville	Danielle Bartholomew	Jr	Osbourn Park
Bryce Catlett	Sr	Osbourn Park	Regan Bustamante	Sr	West Springfield
Spencer Jolley	Sr	Lake Braddock	Jill Bracaglia	Sr	Oakton
Conor Lyons	Jr	Lake Braddock	Sara Freix	Sr	Westfield
Brandon McGorty	Jr	Chantilly	Sarah Daniels	So	Lake Braddock
Joe Valle	Sr	Stone Bridge	Emily Schiesl	Jr	Lake Braddock
Saurav Velleleth	Jr	Thomas Jefferson	Faith Zolper	Jr	South County

From the start, when Lake Braddock won the Monroe Parker Invitational while giving Kate Murphy a break, the Bruins looked pretty set for the season. After a hiccup in Minnesota, they came back to Virginia and plowed through the rest of the season, ending with a Nike Cross Southeast title and a 13th place finish at Nike Cross Nationals.

The Lake Braddock boys won their second straight Virginia 6A title, but they faced stiff competition from 5A Stone Bridge at Nike Cross Southeast, and 4A Loudoun Valley could have also given them a tough race.

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.

“I wanted to take the race out, make it a tough race for everyone, including myself,” Hunter said.

[button-red url=”http://footlockercc.com/2015/results/nationals/BoysChampionship.pdf” target=”_self” position=”left”] Boys Results[/button-red]Hunter, a senior at Loudoun Valley, ran away from the field early and split 4:31 and 9:25 on his way to a 12 second victory in 14:55, only slowing over the last mile. California’s Phillip Rocha was second. He is the second Virginia boy to win since Charles Alexander from Richmond’s St. Christopher’s School in 1981 and the first local boy since Sherwood’s Solomon Haile in 2008. Hunter finished fourth last year, in contention for the lead during the last mile.

He was two seconds off Reuben Reina‘s record pace, a 14:36 from 1985. Hunter is only the third winning boy from the South, behind both Alexander and Reina. The region includes West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma.

Northern Virginia had been shut out of the individual championship despite runner-up finishes by Chantilly’s Sean McGorty (2012), South Lakes’ Alan Webb (2000), West Springfield’s Sharif Karie (1995 and 1996). Webb served as South team captain, years after being coached by Hunter’s parents.

[button-red url=”http://footlockercc.com/2015/results/nationals/GirlsChampionship.pdf” target=”_self” position=”left”] Boys Results[/button-red]The lead Kelati built early, including’s early charges when others tried to share the lead, disappeared around halfway, but she kept leading, typically a very risky strategy. In contrast to Hunter’s sustained lead, she dragged Illinois’ Maryjeanne Gilbert and Judy Pendergast and North Carolinian Nevada Mareno (whom she had faced in the South regional) up until the last hill near three mile mark.

She got a step ahead of Gilbert and ran to a one second margin in 17:09. Mareno (17:17) and Pendergast (17:20) followed. Annapolis junior Maria Coffin, who won the Maryland 4A championship, finished 27th in 18:22.

Kelati started high school at Heritage in 2014 at 17 and recently turned 19, so although she is a sophomore academically, she has completed her cross country eligibility. She was 20th at last year’s Foot Locker finals.

 

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.

The Bruins’s finishers included Samantha Schwers in 106th (18:55), Sarah Daniels in 120th (19:03), Emily Schiesl in 124 (19:08) and Sonya Butseva in 152 (19:23). Butseva is the only senior among them. Taylor Kitchen (192nd in 20:29) and Daly Ferguson (196th in 21:01) also raced.

Their teammate, senior Colin Schaefer, was the only local boy to compete, finishing in 79th in 16:03.

 

 

Foot Locker

[button-red url=”http://footlockercc.com/2015/results.shtml” target=”_self” position=”left”] Foot Locker Results[/button-red]Loudoun Valley senior Drew Hunter broke the Foot Locker South course record, running 14:26 for a course judged to be roughly 40 meters longer than when Chantilly’s Sean McGorty ran 14:28 in 2012. He had a 33-second lead over Western Albemarle’s Gannon Willcutts, who won the state 3A title.   Hunter finished fourth in last year’s finals. Virginia boys took five of the 10 spots for the national meet. Jonathan Lamogda, from Virginia Beach’s Cox High School, was third. State 5A champion Waleed Suliman, from Richmond’s Douglas Freeman, was sixth, and Micah Pratt, a homeschooled Lynchburg resident, was ninth.

Other top local finishers included Georgetown Day School senior Tristan Colaizzi, an Alexandria resident, in 19th; Tuscarora senior Fistum Seyoum in 22nd, Potomac School senior Kyle Sanock in 23rd and Loudoun Valley sophomore Peter Morris in 43rd.

Heritage senior Weini Kelati, who was fifth at least year’s Foot Locker regional meet, had a 22-second lead with her 16:43 finish. E.C. Glass junior Libby Davidson was the only other Virginia qualifier, in third. George Marshall sophomore Heather Holt was one place and six seconds from qualifying. Kelati was 20th in last year’s finals, Davidson was sixth.

After Kelati and Holt, the rest of the local top five were Tuscarora sophomore Emma Wolcott in 22nd, Westfield senior Sara Freix in 23rd and Oakton senior Jill Bracaglia in 28th.

D.C. and D.C.-area Maryland competitors were sparse at the Foot Locker Northeast meet in New York. The top finisher, Kayla Smith, is D.C. resident who runs for Archbishop Spalding in Severn, Md. Smith was 35th, just ahead of Sidwell Friends senior Taylor Knibb. Poolesville freshman Nandini Satsangi was 49th. No D.C. boys ran in the seeded race, but James Hubert Blake senior James Newport was 98th.

Maria Coffin, the Annapolis junior who won the Maryland 4A championship, finished third to qualify for the finals.

 

Nike Cross Southeast

Kate Murphy handily won the championship race in Cary, N.C., running 17:00 to outdistance Elly Henes, who ran the 2014 DCXC Invitational, by 24 seconds. In 17:35, Rachel McArthur raced for the first time in more than a month to claim an individual invitation to the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland. A partial tear in her quadriceps kept her out of Virginia’s postseason races. She won the regional meet in 2104, and she and Murphy finished 25th and 24th, respectively, at last year’s finals.

[button-red url=”http://nxnse.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=303&do=news&news_id=382536″ target=”_self” position=”left”] Nike Cross Southeast Results[/button-red]Lake Braddock’s Bruin XC Club girls won, with Emily Schiesl in 23rd, Sonya Butseva in 25th, Sarah Daniels in 28th and Samantha Schwers in 41st to close out scoring over 3A Virginia champions and defending NXSE winners Blacksburg 62-99. Walter Johnson’s Wildcat running team finished eighth, Georgetown Day School’s Might Hoppers finished 16th and Brentsville District finished 17th.

Paint Branch senior Bethlehem Taye was 14th overall, West Springfield senior Reagan Bustamante was 22nd and GDS senior Katherine Treanor was 24th.

On the boys’ side, Schaefer finished fourth in 15:11, 16 seconds out of first. By virtue of the top five boys being on non-qualifying teams, Richard Montgomery junior Rohann Asfaw (sixth in 15:21) and Our Lady of Good Counsel senior Jack Wavering (seventh in 15:22) did not make it to the national meet, but they came home with solid PRs. Asfaw avenged his 4A Maryland state meet loss to Dulaney’s Eric Walz, who was 10th. Stone Bridge senior Jack Morton (13th) and W.T. Woodson senior Bobby Lockwood (16th) rounded out the local top five.

The Good Counsel Harriers were the top local team in fifth, ahead of Lake Braddock’s Bruin XC Club in seventh, Stone Bridge in ninth, Brentsville in 14th, the DCXC Club of Gonzaga runners in 20th, We’re the Waldos from W.T. Woodson in 24th, Thomas Jefferson in 27th and the Barons of Bethesda-Chevy Chase in 32nd.

College Cross Country

Several D.C. area runners competed in the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships Nov. 21 in Louisville.

[button-red url=”http://www.ncaa.com/ncaa-cross-country-championship-live-timing” target=”_self” position=”left”] NCAA Results[/button-red]Two northern Virginia natives, Sean McGorty and Thomas Curtain, finished in the top 50 at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships Nov. 21 in Louisville. Among local colleges, Georgetown’s men finished 10th behind sophomore Jonathan Green‘s fifth-place finish and the Hoya women finished 20th. McGorty, a Stanford junior who graduated from Chantilly, was seventh. Curtain, a Virginia Tech senior from Loudoun County High School, was 22nd.

Here, at least among names I recognized, they are:

Women’s 6k

158. Sophie Chase – Jr – Stanford (Lake Braddock)
216. Allie Klimkiewicz -Fr – Princeton (Oakton)

Men’s 10k

7. Sean McGorty -Jr – Stanford (Chantilly)
22. Thomas Curtin – Sr – Virginia Tech (Loudoun Valley)
55. Chase Weaverling – So – Virginia (Poolesville)
73. Nicholas Tuck – Jr – Penn (Lake Braddock)
104. Ahmed Bile – Jr – Georgetown (Annandale)
221. Kevin Monogue – Fr – Penn (Lake Braddock)