With arguably one of the largest invitationals of the year happening this weekend we were bound to have great stories. Aside from all those, we also had some blazing performances at the Third Battle Invitational up in Winchester as well. Check here for your full recap of this weekend's action.
If we had to chose a title for this weekend we'd go with- The Big Three Stay Unbeaten- and if you don't know who those big three are then you must have been living under a rock recently because they are kind of a big deal. Those three of course are Andrew Hunter, Libby Davidson, and Weini Kelati. To put this all in perspective, last year at this time our state had a grand total of 1 undefeated runner... Caroline Alcorta. She stayed undefeated all the way until Footlocker Nationals where she inevitably ended up with the bronze medal. This year we could see two undefeated runners but not three.
Andrew Hunter's weekened went pretty well, even by his standards. Now two weeks removed from his Great victory, he continued to show us all why he is not an underdog for a national title but a serious contender. Andrew currently ranks as the US #2 only behind Grant Fisher by a mere 3 seconds with his season best time of 14:46. This weekend Andrew blazed through the Third Battle course shattering his own meet record and won in 14:54, over 30 seconds faster then anyone else. With his title this weekend his trophy case from this year now has the first place trophies from Great American, Great Meadows, Oatlands, Glory Days, Loudoun County PS Champs, and Third Battle. Let's not forget though that he is only a junior.
So we can all agree that Andrew Hunter is pretty good at running. You know who else is good at running? Weini Kelati.
Weini Kelati did it again and just like Andrew, she is undefeated on the season. Wait, no. She is undefeated for her entire high school career. In fact the only American to ever beat her on American soil is Mary Cain in the 3K at the IAAF World Junior Championships. This week her victim was the entire field at Third Battle where she scorched the course in a winning time of 17:31 to remain unbeated. She did have some company though from Patriot's Rachel McArthur who ran a pr of 17:51 to not only rank herself as the the fourth best runner in the state this season but she also solidifed herself as the 6A favorite by nearly 20 seconds too. Though these two girls are in different classifications, they are going to definitely be a duo to watch in these Northern meets for years to come.
The final performance of the big three was Libby Davidson's 18:00.00 victory at the MileStat.com XC Invitational. Libby, though she didn't post a time that started with 17, ran amazing this weekend once again and added another title to her trophy case for the season. Out of all the Virginia runners this year she has the best resume period. She has won Knights Crossing, Adidas XC, Seminole District, Great American, and now MileStat. All of those were real meets with great competition. Though she sits atop the Virginia leaderboard, she is going to have to work hard to stay there for the entire season as in just a mere two weeks she will face off with Weini Kelati in the showdown of the year at the 4A North Regional Championship.
Outside of that big three we also saw some amazing performances all across the state. The aformentioned 17:51 by Rachel McArthur cannot be overstated as an awesome performance by a sophomore. Aside for those Peter Seufer ran great winning the MileStat Invitational in a season best and VA #5 15:30. His time was the second fastest 5K ran this weekend behind only Andrew Hunter's 14:54. We also got to see a very impressive performance from Matthew Novak who led most of the race but fell, got bloodied up in true halloween fashion, and still managed to run near sub-16 minutes.