By: Forest Langhorne

On Saturday, November 10th, the Virginia High School League hosted the 2012 Cross Country State Championship at Great Meadows in The Plains, Virginia.  With big names, big teams, and fast times, it was a day of fantastic displays of speed, endurance, and athleticism.  Chief among these competitors were the Tuscarora Huskies, who raced their entire girls’ team along with 3 boys individually.

    The girls’ AA race started at 11:45 a.m., with sixteen full teams competing along with numerous other individual runners.  Representing the girls from Tuscarora were sophomore Anna Wasko, freshman Kelly Reilly, junior Natalie Rosas, junior Colleen Heberle, freshman Raiya Al-Nsour, senior Lori Kostka, and junior Courtney Walker.  Following a fast finish from Hidden Valley’s Carolyn Bethel, running an 18:11 for first place, Wasko was the first Tuscarora team member to finish, running a time of 19:36 for 16th place. Wasko finished just one place outside of the All-State team.  Reilly came in 3 seconds behind her for  a 19th place finish, and was followed by Al-Nsour at 46th, Kostka at 64th, and Heberle at 74th.  After the scores were assembled, the Tuscarora girls came in fifth, one place outside of the All-State teams.  However, true to past races, the team placed first out of all the teams in our region and set up a great chance for a state win next year.  Most of the team is made up of juniors and freshmen, while most of the other teams in the state are seniors and juniors, so our team is predicted to do very well next year at the state meet.

The boys ran 45 minutes after the start of the girls’ race, running at 12:30 p.m.  In this race, the individual competition was much stiffer, but in the team race, Blacksburg High School was guaranteed a win.  In a big upset, Blacksburg’s Nick Link finished at number one, beating out favorite Thomas Madden from Skyline, who finished in seventh.  Loudoun County’s Patrick Joseph finished second and was chased in by the rest of the Blacksburg team.  Tuscarora’s own John Dooney finished tenth with a time of 16:10. He was the top junior to finish and only the second non-senior to finish, beaten only by Noah Combs, a sophomore from Blacksburg.  Dooney also finished second in the Dulles District, but was quickly followed by Trent Lancaster, a junior from Dominion High School who finished eleventh.  Junior Sam Brazer was the next boy to finish from Tuscarora, finishing 39th with a time of 16:47, with senior Logan Feierbach finishing off the boys by running a time of 16:51 for 43rd place.  These results set the stage for an even better boys’ team next year, as they losing only one senior and several other boys are likely to improve over the next year.