After a very successful 2015 race, Team Virginia is looking for another huge outcome at the Foot Locker South Regional this Saturday in Charlotte, NC. Though there are over a dozen races on the day, the biggest of those races are the Boys and Girls Championship races scheduled right in the middle of competition.
From those races, a total of 20 athletes will advance to the Foot Locker National Championship out in San Diego, CA. The top 10 from each race advance regardless of time.
Taking the line for Virginia this year are multiple state champions and two returning national finalists.
In the first championship race of the day, the girls from Virginia will be looking to better last year's 1-3 finish with a much deeper group of girls. This year, we may not have an individual champion considering Nevada Mareno is the heavy favorite but we should have a much stronger 1-5 who all should have a shot at making the trip to San Diego.
This year the numbers are going to flip with Virginia sending five girls and the boys sending two.
The five girls who really have a strong shot at making this cutoff are Heather Holt, Rachel McArthur, Rachel Northcutt, Morgan Lewis, and Caroline Robelen. Allison Fick, Jodi Tolarchyk, and Sophia Jantomaso also all have strong shots at high finishes this weekend.
Nevada will likely dictate the pace early with a strong opening 1000 and then a nice easy (still very fast) 2000 to follow that. After that point she will likely attempt to just gap the field and never look back. This is really one of her first races where she may get pushed.
All of the Virginia girls should be in that opening pack. Most, if not all, of these girls are very strong competitors who like to be at the front early. But we learned last year thanks to Micah Pratt that this race is about the finish, not the start.
In the boys' competition Virginia has the second seed, but to us he is the favorite, in Waleed Suliman. He is going to have his hands full with Connor Lane (NC) and Reed Brown (TX). Waleed and Micah will be looking to make it two trips in a row after having made the team last year as well.
With really strong shots to make the team as well are Price Owens, Peter Smith, Karl Thiessen, and Bashir Mosavel-Lo.
This race is going to be very fast from the start and will definitely favor the sub 15 guys in a large way. Though the race may not end up being the fastest race of the year, it is definitely going to start that way as we have seen in years past. This race everyone tries to not lose the race in the first mile which means a very fast opening mile. It isn't until late in the second mile that the race really becomes about racing. At that point it becomes a tactical sit and kick race to make sure you get that tenth spot and have nothing left after the line.
This race is going to have an extremely close 7-20 this year and will make for some epic finishes around the lake.
Both course records, which are owned by Virginians Drew Hunter (14:26) and Aurura Scott (16:26) should be safe this year.