Emma Eckerstrom

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As crazy as it sounds, the regular cross country season ended Saturday, giving the athletes that competed one last fight before the championships. The champs will be kicked off this weekend with the MVAL Championships (Friday) and the Montgomery County Championships (Saturday). Montgomery County has been traditionally known to be one of the deepest in the state. Several of the top female individuals and top male teams are from Montgomery. In 2005, six MoCo girls placed within the top fifteen at the 4A State Championships, including 3rd and 4th place finishers Lousie Hanallah (Winston Churchill) and Emma Eckerstrom (Northwest). On the boys side, Sherwood, Quince Orchard, Walt Whitman and Richard Montgomery were beat only by Broadneck at the state meet. This year, the county is lead primarily by the same athletes that lead last year, less \'05 county champ Ryan Janes (Gaithersburg). This Friday, over 300 athletes and over 40 teams will compete to take home a county title. Boys Race Preview Individuals CHRISTOPHER MOEN (Junior, Walter Johnson) Although Moen has only had one phenomenal performance this year (1 second win over Andrew Revelle at Howard County Invite), it would be foolish to underestimate his ability to pull out a win when he needs it. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #1 KYLE GAFFNEY (Senior, Blake) Moen and Gaffney have been at eachother\'s heels since the year of Moen\'s freshman and Gaffney\'s sophomore campaigns, when they finished 40th and 41st at these championships. Even if Gaffney doesn\'t take the title this year, he will not let Moen win it without a strong, strong fight. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #2 Teams QUINCE ORCHARD The nationally ranked QO boys team is the deepest boys team to compete in the state in years. They will have no problem stealing the title from Sherwood this year. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #1 Girls Race Preview Individuals HALSEY SINCLAIR (Senior, Montgomery Blair) For three years, Halsey Sinclair has fought her way to the top of the county for when it counted, including last year\'s meet, where the race she ran to win her third consecutive title was one of the only good ones she ran all year. By no means does Sinclair have her fourth title secured, but she certainly has the athletism to capture it one last time. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #1 EMMA ECKERSTROM (Junior, Northwest) Emma started the season a little less prestigiously than we may have come to expect from her after she won the 4A 3200m state title last year, but she has been on an upward trend all year. She is likely to be Sinclair\'s top competition for the title, and will certainly take it if Sinclair isn\'t at her best. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #2 CARA HARRISON (Senior, Quince Orchard) Harrison has had a season to be proud of, and she has not lost to Eckerstrom, nor been ranked below her. But she will need to run a brilliant race in order to beat Eckerstrom on Friday. She is very capable of doing this, as she is of defeating Sinclair if Sinclair isn\'t trucking. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #3 Teams NORTHWEST Strongest team in the county has not been the best so far this year. Friday may be the turning point. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #1 RICHARD MONTGOMERY No. 1 ranked team has had a strong season, will need to be well prepared to top Northwest at the county. COULD BE: #1 SHOULD BE: #2

SAT\'s and homecoming dates had plenty of runners at this year\'s Glory Days Grill Invitational held at Bull Run Regional Park attempting a juggling act and being crunched for time on a pleasant and Sunny Saturday. Thankfully, a fast 5K course layout allowed runners to finish their races quickly to head off to the next destination.

In what can be described as (for lack of a better way of putting it), the first weekend in the post-Bull Run regular season, some Maryland teams and athletes scattered to one of four regional invitationals, while other schools took the weekend off to train... >>LANCER - No. 1 Matthew Centrowitz (Broadneck) eclipsed the competition yet again, this time running a new PR in 15:00.50, enough to boost him all the way to #3 on the Milesplit Network-Wide 5K Elite List. >>DOC JONES - No. 9 Liz Mccarter (Mount Hebron), who finished in 19:02.9 taps most impressive time of the meet. >>OCTOBERFEST - The top ranked Quince Orchard boys sent up huge sparks towards the folks at Nike, narrowly defeating Thomas Jefferson, the #3 ranked school in the Southeast region. The win will propel QO into the NTN SE top 5, a great accomplishment. >>INTERSTATE - The River Hill and Severna Park boys and girls teams were a surprise to the Western Maryland meet, as both schools were the top teams of the day in both large schools races.

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 29 - BETHLEHEM, PA -- They may have given up the tempting \"Dip\" of Hereford to attend the Paul Short Run, but now they become Maryland\'s 2nd - 5th members of the Milesplit National Elite. The Quince Orchard Boys took home the team title, and logged elite performances from all nine of their runners.