Loudoun Valley Continues Its Domination At Great American
- - -
Correction: An earlier version reported taht Loudoun Valley's 'B' squad would have finished 16th in boys ROC had they raced the field. The team would have in fact finished eighth.
The biggest question we wanted answered at Great American came in the boys Race Of Champions, where four nationally ranked teams were entered and the biggest contenders out of NXR Southeast were set to compete at WakeMed Park in Cary, North Carolina.
Up front, an individual battle came to pass between Carter Cheeseman and Camren Fischer, but the deeper storyline finished in the team race, where No. 1 Loudoun Valley was racing without Samuel Affolder.
The Viking still pillaged the field.
Loudoun Valley accrued a winning mark of 64 points, distancing itself from second-place Bolles (108), Bishop Hendricken (123) and Wedding (132). All three teams were nationally ranked. Fifth-place Severna Park (139) didn't fare too bad, either.
Related Links:
But the performance once again illustrated just how dangerous the Virginia squad has become. Three runners finished in the top 15, while its fourth and fifth scored a total of 49 team points between each of them, respectively.
Junior transfer Carlos Shultz had his breakout race overall, finishing seventh in 15:08.1, while senior Jacob Hunter was 10th in 15:15.1 and junior Kellen Hasle was 15th in 15:22.3. Consider this: If the squad's 'B' team had entered the ROC as a second team, it would have finished eighth overall.
Overall, four boys broke 15 minutes, including Academic Magnet senior Colin Baker, who was third in 14:53.6, and Bolles senior Charles Hicks, who led his Jacksonville-based team in fourth overall in 14:59.2.
Bolles, on the other hand, was pretty impressive, too. Considering this was the first major performance by the No. 20 ranked program in a few weeks, it fared extensively well, scoring three runners in the top 25 of the team race. It handed defeats to ranked teams ahead of it in Bishop Hendricken (RI) and Weddington (NC).
Girls Race:
Saratoga Springs (NY) senior Kelsey Chmiel offered a fantastic spectacle in her winning effort of 16:43.8, which was the third fastest effort on the course all time, just behind the Aisling Cuffe's 2010 win (16:40.90) and Nevada Mareno's effort in 2015 at the CAP 8 Conference Championships (16:36.18).
It marks Chmiel's second straight run under 17 minutes and is a 3-second PR from her debut on Aug. 25 at Great Meadow.
Everything is looking to be on the rise for last year's Nike Cross Nationals runner-up.
The remaining top five looked like this: Pine Crest's Carmen Alder (17:28), Holy Trinity eighth-grader Carly McNatt (17:35.4), Pine Crest's Tsion Yared (17:39.4) and Science Hill's Jenna Hutchins (17:40.9).
Talahasee Chiles earned a huge win overall with 127 points, while Chmiel's Saratoga Springs' team was second overall with 154 points. Marietta (GA) was third with 189 points, while Blacksburg (VA), which was looking for a big performance, fell to fifth with 222 points.