Wilson gets Group AA berth

TROUTVILLE — The Wilson Memorial Girls cross country team embraced its move to Group AA this season, dominating the Southern Valley District. On Wednesday, the Green Hornets faced their stiffest challenge to date at the Region III meet on Lord Botetourt’s demanding course.

Wilson’s young squad answered the challenge, scoring 113 points to catapult the team into the Group AA meet with a fourth-place finish. Katie and Elizabeth Barnes led the way with ninth and 10th place finishes respectively.

“They exceeded our goal,” said Wilson coach Gary Kessler. “We wanted to be in the top four, but we didn’t know how this course would affect our team time. They ran faster than our goal.”

The Jefferson Forrest girls took the Region III championship with 48 points, besting second-place Brookville by 45 points. Harrisonburg took third as a team with 107 points. Stuarts Draft ended its season with a ninth-place finish, amassing 245 points. Fort Defiance and its 254 points followed the Cougars. Rockbridge rounded out the Southern Valley teams with a 266-point, 11th place finish.

For the boys, Spotswood was impossible to catch. Jay Jarrels led the pack into the chute with a 17-minute time with his teammate Samuel Pankey four seconds behind. The Trailblazers finished the race with 73 points. No Southern Valley teams qualified as a team.

Rounding out Group AA qualifiers were Jefferson Forest (83), William Byrd (122) and E.C. Glass (140).

The Lord Botetourt course featured an intimidating hill to start the race and the runners continued to climb uphill for most of the first two miles.

“Yeah, it was pretty much awful,” Katie Barnes said. “You start uphill and then you go down for a second, then there is anther hill.”

Only one Augusta County runner made all-region during the boys race, R.E. Lee’s Dillon Sowers. Sowers won the SVD this season and took a fourth-place finish with a 17:22 run.

“I knew Jay Jarrels would win, he ran a great race,” Sowers said. “He let other people set the pace and then just killed on the last mile.”

Fort Defiance’s Allison Alexander was three seconds from being eliminated from the Group AA meet. The Fort freshman finished in 15th place, taking the final Region III bid for the state meet. Alexander said she could hear 16th-place Alexi Bowman behind her.

“I just think I wasn’t ready for this course, I was just not mentally prepared for it,” she said. “I tried to do my best and just finish in front of her.”

The Fort boys squad missed out on qualifying for states with a sixth place, 210-point finish. The Indians won the Southern Valley District championship last week in Staunton.

“We overachieved,” said Fort coach Ron Withrow. “We were 11-1 and won the district title. If you told me we would do that at the start of the season I would have said, ‘that’s great, I’ll take it.’ ”

The R.E. Lee (215) boys finished in seventh, Rockbridge (217) took eighth and Waynesboro (299) finished in 13th.

Jessica Miller (22:43) led the Cougars’ effort on Tuesday with an 18th-place finish with her teammate Morgan Holbert (23:27) taking 34th. Waynesboro senior Jennah Gnann (23:42) finished 42nd in her final race.

Fort Defiance’s Andrew Phillips (18:12) led the Indians with a 20th place finish. Waynesboro’s Chris Ciszek (18:52) finished in 42nd.