Western Albemarle’s boys cross country team left little doubt Wednesday in the Region 3C championships.
In fact, they nearly left as little doubt as you possible can.
Fifteen points is the lowest team score achievable and the Warriors would’ve needed to sweep the top five spots to pull that off. Instead, Western had to settle for sweeping the top three led by individual champion Joe Hawkes and grabbing fifth and seventh with their final two qualifying finishers in a dominant effort.
Western’s 18 points outpaced runner-up Spotswood by 50 points. The Warriors advance to the Class 3 state championships.
Hawkes clocked in at 15:45.23 and teammate Jack Eliason was hot on his heels at 15:49.35. Cyrus Rody Ramazani rounded out the one-two-three sweep with a third place finish about 30 seconds later and after Spotswood’s Conner Amberg took fourth, Joseph Taylor took fifth for the Warriors and Will Bonner took seventh behind Fort Defiance’s Jacob Jones to wrap up the title. Stuart Terrill’s 17th and Thomas Kallen’s 19th would’ve also easily given the Warriors the championship as the fifth scoring runner.
Monticello finished fourth as a team, led by Will Krehmeyer’s ninth place finish overall. Jack Kircher, Ramsey Corbin, Esteban Vizcaino and Jaime McCampbell also scored for the Mustangs.
