Albemarle’s Allison Huschke showed great promise last year, but while she shined in the cross country post season and earned a trip to the Group AAA championship, her team was unable to join her. On Thursday, Huscke and her teammates took the first step into rectifying that situation as all five Patriots finished in the top-20 to earn second place as a team just behind Colonial Forge at the Commonwealth District championship to earn a Northwest Region bid.
Huschke broke the 20-minute mark with her time of 19:45.50 to place third overall. Joining the sophomore in the the top-10 was freshman Olivia Lewis who came in ninth place at 20:30. A little over six seconds later senior Elizabeth Sinclair finished with the 13-spot. To round out the scoring for Albemarle were sophomores Ciera Ulan and Lauren Truwitt who respectively took 16th and 18th.
Not to be outdone, behind five top-20 finishes from Ben Deal, Adam Visokay and Ryan Thomas, the Albemarle boys also advanced to the Northwest Region championship with a third place showing.
In a span of 39 seconds, the Patriots blasted their top five runners through the finish line starting with Ben Deal who earned seventh with a time of 16:40.30. Almost ten seconds later Adam Visokay came in 11th. Then Ryan Thomad and Austin McPhillips came in 15th and 16th respectively with eight tenths of a second separating them. Five seconds later Louisa County transfer and last year’s Jefferson District champion Chris Springer picked up 18th .
The Northwest Region Championship is on Thursday and on Albemarle’s home course at Panorama Farms.
