Scott Maxfield

Here are the top 1,000 times from Great Meadow's non-state course.

Oakton senior Joe LoRusso (pictured right by John Herzog) admitted to having doubts about his race strategy almost as soon as the gun went off Saturday at the McDonald's Cross-Country Festival at Maymont Park in Richmond. Before he could find his pace, a blur of bodies was already streaking past him. Did he start too slowly? After all, the meet is one of the most prestigious on the East Coast, with a fast field. Perhaps the pace was too quick for him? Two-thirds of the way through the race, LoRusso started to catch his second wind -- as well as the runners who had blown by him. A patient LoRusso picked them off one by one on his way to finishing in the top 15 and running a career-best time on the five-kilometer course. Read full story...   

  MileStat.com's Brandon Miles analyzes the top five teams in the state to look out for this cross country season as part of a series of preview articles leading into this fall. Midlothian is the front runner again after holding strong last fall as a pre-season #1 to the finish and onto a dominating AAA state title and Virginia's first NTN appearance. The Trojans will have the handle the pressure of the bull's eye on them once again in 2007. The Western Albemarle boys have a team that has the talent to match up with Midlo's front three with the trio under 16 minutes in the Footlocker South sophomore race back. Oakton has the power in depth and numbers as last fall with six runners back under 10 minutes in the 3200. Jamestown is the sleeper with a very youthful squad as all of their top five runners will be back in 2008 as well. Mountain View is only three years old, but the road to the state meet podium looks to be paved ahead of schedule.

The state\'s top ranked boys and girls teams from Midlothian both survived scares at the Great Meadows Invitational in their opening races. The Nike Team Nationals Southeast #1 ranked squad in Midlothian ran well as shown by their low team total of 55 points in the competitive meet, but the NTN SE #6 ranked and two-time defending AA state champions Brentsville proved to be just as good as they finished two points shy of them in second place with 57 points. Midlothian junior Jason Witt took the individual title in a time of 16:03.15. Meanwhile, the Midlothian girls had two of their seven runners drop out of the race including top returnee and 4:53 miler M.C. Miller yet their amazing depth and talent was showcased still in dominating the #2 ranked team in the state and #5 ranked team in the NTN Southeast region in Brentsville by a 65 point margin of victory. The Lady Trojans were led by the Lautzenheiser twins, Kathleen (1st, 19:20.92) and Leia (3rd, 19:46.59), as the freshmen pair finished first and third respectively. More to come from Great Meadows...