It’s hard to describe the Western Albemarle girls cross country team’s performance as anything other than dominant during Wednesday’s Jefferson District championship at Panorama Farms.
After Emily Moffett, the Warriors’ top runner, took first place it was a wave of yellow and blue coming in behind her for the next two minutes. When it was all said and done, Western had seven runners finish in the top 12 and the team handedly earned the district championship ahead of second place Louisa County.
“For us, the spread in time between our runners was a little bit longer than usual,” said Western coach Katie Pugh. “Usually there’s only a minute separating them all. But it was a good race and well done by everyone. Emily ran phenomenally and was really battling with Claire Johnson all the way through the second mile of the race.”
Western’s Claire Johnson took second place behind Moffett with Monticello’s Madeline Hermsmeier placing third. Katie Farina, Killian O’Connell and Peri Bowser took fourth, fifth and sixth place for the Warriors.
“We started a new strategy a couple of races ago to try running a little slower in the first mile to pace ourselves,” Moffett said. “That’s really worked out for us recently and we’ve all reached (personal record’s).”
Fluvanna County and Monticello join the Warriors and Lions in the Region II championship next week at Panorama Farms with their respective third and fourth place finishes.
In the boys race, the results were similar, albeit with a little more parity at the top. Louisa sophomore Chris Springer edged out Monticello’s Nathaniel Hermsmeier for first place by two seconds.
“It really had a lot to do with the pacing the whole race,” said Springer who was also awarded as the JD’s top runner among boys. “I was just kind of drafting behind people the entire time and let them do the harder work for most of the way.”
After that it was another Western wave with Ben Schiller, Andrew Jennings and Henry Giles rounding out the top five. The Warriors wound up placing six runners in the top 11 to complete the sweep of the event, overcoming a number of key losses to the team because of injury or graduation.
“The whole group has worked really hard all year long,” said Western boys coach Lindy Bain. “If we didn’t have everyone contributing the way they are, we might not be where we are. We’ve had injuries but we’ve also had guys ready to fill in and do a really good job.”
Monticello took second as a team who were followed by Louisa and then Goochland for third and fourth.
Both Bain and Pugh received JD coach of the year honors.
The Region II championship will be held at Panorama Farms on Wednesday.
For results, check out milestat.com here.
