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Western sweeps Ragged Mountain Cup

Photos: Ashley Thornton

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Parity has been a strength of the girls race in the Ragged Mountain Championship over the last ten years. Squads from Albemarle, Fluvanna County, Monticello and Western Albemarle have all taken home the trophy in that span. So when the Flucos’ Kristen Cabrera and Orange County’s Caroline Marquis came across one-two through the first leg of the race, it meant Western Albemarle had an uphill climb — one that Zoe Clay was more than up for.

 

“So my coach (Katie Pugh) told me not to kill myself trying to catch up because it’s two miles so it was important thinking about that,” Clay said. “You don’t want to floor yourself on the first mile catching up. Once I caught up I felt relaxed and just wanted to keep my pace so I could finish strong.”

 

The third leg for the Warriors’ A squad, Clay had to hunt down Fluvanna as Saige Haney’s second leg kept her team in first place half way through the race. But Clay’s blazing third leg of 11:51 was enough to vault Western into first place and leave the race for a veteran to finish off. Averi Witt put together the time you’d expect from a senior anchor to lead the Warriors to a convincing win, just over three minutes ahead of runner up Albemarle with a time of a 50:43.

 

“When Zoe started running we were a little bit behind Fluvanna who had a really strong first two legs,” Pugh said. “I think that was all Zoe needed to get that motivation. We weren’t too surprised how well she ran because she’s been doing so well over the summer. She’s running so well, does everything right — eats right, sleeps right, never misses a practice. So it’s kind of all those things coming together.”

 

Albemarle’s rise to second came thanks in large part to junior Ryann Helmers who ran the second fastest individual time, just two seconds off of Clay’s first place time. After a strong start, Fluvanna wound up finishing fifth behind defending champion and fourth place Monticello. Western’s B squad took third with all four of those runners, Jenna Hill, Claudia Giortz-Jorg, Caroline McGahren and Grace Rainer finishing with sub-14 minute splits, the only other team besides the first place tandem to do so.

 

“We are so excited about what we have this year and getting a course record here today means a lot too,” Pugh said. “But looking at some of these runners, so many of who were first year runners last year — what they’ve done since then to get here, this team has just jelled and bonded. We were hoping that we could have gone 1-2 but Ryann Helmers ran such an amazing race that it didn’t work out that way. Still, we’re very excited.”

 

The championship team wound up breaking the course record for girls, one that already belonged to a Warriors team from 2010. This Western winning relay broke the record by eight seconds. Also, Clay’s first place finish was just 18 seconds shy of the 2-mile record also set back in 2010 by Western’s Mattie Webb.

 

Individually it went Clay, Helmers, Witt, Cabrera and Marquis in the top five. Covenant’s Ella Dalton finished sixth. Monticello’s Camden Luck led her team with a ninth place finish. Javaneh Brown rounded out the top 10 with her team best showing for St. Anne’s-Belfield.

 

Western boys make it a 4-peat

 

All he’s known is winning. Last year a freshman, Cyrus Rody-Ramazani won the open race, the event that follows the big varsity relay. This year, Rody-Ramazani led a quartet of all underclassmen to a dominant showing as he won the individual title and his team won the RMC trophy for the fourth-straight time.

 

“It’s going to be a fun year with a nice young team and the guys all running so close together,” said Western coach Lindy Bain. “When you’ve got a pack like this it takes the pressure off from one runner always having to be on their ‘A’ game.”

 

All four of Western’s A squad ran the 2-mile race in less than 11 minutes. Stuart Terrill, just a freshman, set the tone with a 10:44 start. Another freshman, Joe Hawkes followed with a 10:51 to put his team out in front of Fork Union which led after the first leg thanks to Julian Yescas. The Warriors then built a lead over Woodberry Forest who took over in second after the second leg. There with Rody-Ramazani’s championship time, the race was won. When the sophomore tagged in team veteran Max Feuerlein, it was essentially a victory lap, although the junior hardly treated it that way and the Warriors were able to win by a 1:50.

 

“We lost some huge role models, guys that were mentors like Gannon Willcutts, so we’re young but we’re definitely a very deep team this year,” Rody Ramazani said. “It was definitely awesome seeing the freshmen, it inspired me to know that if they could run like that I could too. I wanted to make it an easier effort for Max and so it was really just a great team effort.”

 

Woodberry took home second with Albemarle finishing third. The Warriors B squad took fourth and the Albemarle B squad took fifth.

 

Behind Rody-Ramazani’s 10:35 championship time was Yescas who took second with Terill placing third. Feuerlein snagged fourth while Woodberry’s James Carrington placed fifth. Hawkes and Western’s Will Koester grabbed six and seventh respectively. Woodberry picked up a second top-10 finish with Parker Watt placing eithing. Louisa County’s Justice Anderson and Albemarle’s Zach Mackenzie tied for 10th.

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