By Pearl Watts
Thursday, November 2 -- The Oakton boys team held off a determined Lake Braddock squad by eleven points at 63-74 and the Jefferson girls put together numerous personal best performances to edge favored Robinson by one point at 82-83 in the Northern Region Championships at Burke Lake.
Alan Webb of South Lakes methodically cruised to the boys individual title on the 2.98 mile course in 14 minutes, 56 seconds while Jefferson senior Kelley Otstott made a strong move over the last mile to claim the girls title in 17:38.
In the boys action, Oakton which had won the Concorde District meet last week with an excellent score of 30 points, ran well for the second week in a row in scoring 63 points for the victory. Lake Braddock was the region runner-up for the second year in a row with 74 points with defending region champion Robinson third with 118 points.
In an extremely close battle for the fourth and final spot to qualify for the state meet at Great Meadow in The Plains on November 11, South Lakes pulled it out with 137 points followed closely by Jefferson in fifth at 140 points with West Springfield sixth at 141.
Oakton, one of the pre-meet favorites, was strong at the top with senior Matt Maline finishing second behind Webb in 15:06 with junior Phil Gaeta right behind Maline with his third place finish at 15:20. The Cougars also got a big contribution from Justin Simcox in 13th place at 15:50.
Oakton coach Terry Weir said, "I wasn't that surprised that they ran well two weeks in a row. Last week at districts they did what they were capable of and I told them that if they repeated that same performance this week, they would be region champs."
Lake Braddock put together their best race of the year to make it close against the Cougars. Coach Mike Mangan's squad was also tough up front with three runners in the top ten with Jimmy Judge fifth for the Bruins at 15:30 to place one spot ahead of Dave Vitto (15:33) with Steve Hoogland of Lake Braddock also having a good race as the number three runner for the Bruins in
ninth place overall at 15:46.
Patriot District champ Robinson had two top ten finishers to help their squad advance to next week's state meet with seniors L.A. Snead finishing fourth at 15:28 and Brian Dumm eighth (15:44) while South Lakes had two all regional performers in winner Webb and junior Richard Smith who was 15th at 15:52. The top fifteen individuals in addition to the top four teams also advance to Great Meadow next Saturday.
Individually, Webb was content to run in about 30th place at the race's outset with Snead of Robinson leading the runners through a slowish first half mile of 2:25. Webb then moved up into the lead pack of ten or so runners at the mile mark which was covered in 5:10 as opposed to Webb's split of 4:32 last week en-route to his record breaking 13:57 time. By two miles Maline of Oakton was the only runner with Webb and at the sound of the split of 9:55, the Seahawks senior pushed the following hill hard and then cruised to victory.
Webb said, "I was just running to win. I have had a really hard stretch of practices this week. Next week at states the tempo will probably be a little quicker than today, although I'll still be in the middle of some pretty tough training."
The girls team title went to a Jefferson squad by a mere one point over Robinson after the Colonials had just eked out a win at the Concorde District meet over Chantilly last week on a sixth runner tiebreaker after they had tied with the Chargers at 51-51 through the first five runners.
Jefferson did not need to go to their sixth runner this time but still needed to make every point count including the single point by individual winner Kelley Ostott. One of the favorites coming into the meet, the Colonial senior, who verbally committed to Georgetown on Wednesday, improved her time by twenty seven seconds over last week's district runnerup finish for the
victory in 17:38 with Oakton junior Keira Carlstrom, last week's Concorde champ over Otstott, running another solid race to place second in a personal best of 17:49.
The front pack went through the first mile in 5:48 and at two miles Otstott and Carlstrom had the lead together at 11:48 with Kelly Swain of Lake Braddock and Centreville's Dacia Barr a couple of strides behind. Otstott then gapped Carlstrom on the following uphill quarter mile and pulled to an even bigger lead on the ensuing downhill and maintianed the margin to the end.
Otstott said, "I wanted to run with the other three (Carlstrom, Swain and Barr) for most of the race and then make my move late. I have had to overcome a lot this season with an injury early on and had lower expectations than usual coming into the race but felt really good during the race. I'm surprised at the outcome. I made the same move at the same point over Keira this week that she did to me last week."
Jefferson coach Matt Ryan said, "coming into the meet I thought we had a shot to win it because the middle of our pack had run with the middle of Robinson's pack at the Monroe Parker meet. Our group behind Kelley has stayed pretty tight all year whether they run good or bad and today they ran great."
The Colonials had their number two runner Hilary Goss finish 18th overall and the overwhelming performance of the day for Jefferson was by Jennifer Dolson. The Colonials freshman was the sixth runner at the district meet to
win the tiebreaker over Chantilly with a time of 19:56 and then improved a whopping 50 seconds to finish as the team's number three runner in 19:06. The Colonials number four runner Ana Avramovic has knocked almost three minutes off her Burke Lake best time from last year and their number five runner was senior Andrea Lopez in her first season of cross country.
Robinson's runnerup result was not as much a matter of not running well but more of Jefferson putting it all together. Robinson had three sophomore all region runners led by Joanna Rodgers in 8th at 18:35 with Sam Ference 11th in 18:40 and Lauren Hovland a step behind in 12th at 18:41.
Chantilly got a major race from senior Tracy Williams as she just nipped Centreville's Barr at the end for fourth place with both runners timed in 18:22 and Chantilly also had senior Laurie Yarger contribute a 14th place finish (18:44) as the Chargers claimed third place with 120 points.
Lake Braddock grabbed the final state qualifier with 129 points to finish just ahead of Langley and their 142 point total. Lake Braddock sophomore Kelly Swain paced the Bruins with her third place tally at 18:01 with senior Cheryl Carr also having a good run in ninth overall at 18:39.
Boys Team Scores:
1. Oakton 63; 2. Lake Braddock 74; 3. Robinson 118; 4. South Lakes 137; 5. Jefferson 140; 6. West Springfield 141; 7. Herndon 164; 8. Wakefield 172; 9. Hayfield 197; 10. Lee 262
Individual Results:
1. Alan Webb (South Lakes) 14:56
2. Matt Maline (Oakton) 15:06
3. Phil Gaeta (Oakton) 15:20
4. L.A. Snead (Robinson) 15:28
5. Jimmy Judge (Lake Braddock) 15:30
6. Dave Vitto (Lake Braddock) 15:33
7. James Feeney (West Springfield) 15:43
8. Brian Dumm (Robinson) 15:44
9. Steve Hoogland (Lake Braddock) 15:46;
10. Abdi Dubed (Wakefield) 15:47;
11. Rasheed Thompson (Herndon) 15:47;
12. Billy Bylund (Langley) 15:48;
13. Justin Simcox (Oakton) 15:50;
14. Michael Heiner (Centreville) 15:51;
15. Richard Smith (South Lakes) 15:52
Girls Team Scores:
1. Jefferson 82; 2. Robinson 83; 3. Chantilly 120; 4. Lake Braddock 129; 5. Langley 142; 6. Hayfield 188 (6th runner tiebreaker); 7. Herndon 188; 8. Madison 197; 9. T.C. Williams 201; 10. Oakton 204
Individual Results:
1. Kelley Otstott (Jefferson) 17:38
2. Keira Carlstrom (Oakton) 17:49
3. Kelly Swain (Lake Braddock) 18:01
4. Tracy Williams (Chantilly) 18:22;
5. Dacia Barr (Centreville) 18:22;
6. Kristen Hart (Herndon) 18:30;
7. Caitlin Dempsey (Fairfax) 18:35;
8. Joanna Rodgers (Robinson) 18:35;
9. Cheryl Carr (Lake Braddock) 18:39;
10. Jamie Manner (West Potomac) 18:40;
11. Sam Ference (Robinson) 18:40;
12. Lauren Hovland (Robinson) 18:41;
13. Jenny Miller (Herndon) 18:43;
14. Laurie Yarger (Chantilly) 18:44;
15. Katie Coan (T.C. Williams) 18:49
