Four new champions — two individuals and two teams — were crowned at this year’s Arlington County high-school cross-country meet, held Sept. 29 at Bluemont Park.
Among those was a rookie in the race: Molly Hardwick, a sophomore for the Yorktown Patriots, who helped her squad win the girls team crown. Hardwick was running the Bluemont Park course for the first time, briefly making a wrong turn, but still winning in 17:51.
Yorktown, W-L finish 1-2 in girls race: Yorktown dominated to win the girls competition, amassing a low 19 points.
Hardwick’s initial plan for the race was to stay with the lead pack, then go for the lead late.
“I went ahead and took the lead pretty early because that’s how things developed,” Hardwick said.
Hardwick is running cross country for the first time. She has won two other big races this fall and placed second in the competitive Octoberfest Invitational held Oct. 4 on the Great Meadow course in The Plains in 18:08.
Her teammate, Nicky Chinchilla, finished second in 18:39 at the county meet. Also for the Yorktown girls, Ali Mathews was third (18:42), Ayla Mehmood sixth (19:32), Claire McArdle seventh (19:38), Cecilia Floom 12th (19:43) and Hannah Hawkins 14th (19:51).
“The race went as planned,” Yorktown assistant coach Deb Ryan told ARLnow. “They got off to a good start and ran well the whole race. It was great to get a one-two-three sweep like Molly, Nicky and Ali did.”
The defending champion Washington-Liberty Generals finished second in the girls race with 44 points, the Wakefield Warriors were third (70) and the Bishop O’Connell Knights fourth (118).
Madeline Brys was fourth (18:42) to lead the W-L girls, Georgia DeFilippi was eighth (19:40), Emily Buckwalter ninth (19:40), Caroline Kaplan 10th (19:43) and Mina Dowler 13th (19:45).
For Wakefield, Ada Jordan led the way in fifth (19:20) with Eulalia Sarli 11th (19:43).
O’Connell was led by Isabel McEvoy in 35th.
O’Connell tops W-L in boys race: O’Connell did much better in the boys race, winning with 28 points and having individual junior champion Jayse Brefczynski (15:34), with his freshman brother Landon Brefczynski second (15:52).
Also for the Knights, Peter Fleenor was fourth (16:11), Lance Jayme sixth (16:21) and Ryan Street 15th (17:30).
Jayse Brefczynski said he took an “easy” pace for the first two miles or so, then “gunned it” to take the lead in the final stages on the 5,000-meter trek.
He had finished third in last year’s meet and “I wanted to win this time,” he told ARLnow.
Added Landon Brefczynski: “I ran the course for the first time two weeks ago and liked it. Jayse pulled away from me in the end.”
The O’Connell boys have enjoyed a strong start to the season.
“We had a strong top five in the race,” O’Connell coach Jim Connor said of the county meet. “We have looked good and we want to keep this going. This is only the beginning. There are three big meets left we want to do well in or win.”
The defending champion Washington-Liberty boys were second in the county meet with 54 points. Morgan Fritz led the squad in third (16:00), Alessandro Piosa was eighth (16:36), Alex FitzHarris 12th (16:52), Elijah Purdy 14th (17:30) and Edward Smith 17th (17:46).
“The future is bright because we have a lot of good young runners for the girls and our boys teams,” W-L coach John Bacon said.
Leading the third-place Wakefield boys (59 points) were Andrew Coe in seventh (16:27), Daniel Herring ninth (16:41), Kai Simkiss 10th (16:45) and Ian Maguire 11th (16:50).
For the fourth-place Yorktown boys (71 points), Griffin Divis was fifth (16:16).
NOTE: The Yorktown girls were second in the team scoring at the Oktoberfest meet, with Chinchilla placing 13th and Mathews 18th.
