Greenfield Recreation Park in Botetourt County was the site of the annual Blue Ridge Invitational last Saturday and the Christiansburg Blue Demons swept the girls and boys varsity championships. Lord Botetourt hosted the meet and James River also participated.
Christiansburg won the girls meet with 27 points on the 5K Greenfield course. Lord Botetourt was second with 88, Roanoke Catholic was third with 108 and James River finished eighth among nine schools with just five girls.
Kerrigan Chaney of North Cross was the individual winner with a time of 19:00. LB’s top runner was junior Erna Dietrich with a time of 21:46 for sixth place while Hatlyn Haggerty was 20th in 23:48. Also scoring for the Cavaliers were Alexa Carillo in 28th, Falan Peters in 33rd and Elizabeth Meadows in 36th among 71 girls.
For River, freshman Georgia Miller led the team with a 41st place finish. Also scoring were Anna Davidson in 55th, Victoria Race-Waller in 58th, Jacmyn Rinehart in 63rd and Yazim Lopez-Capo in 66th place.
Christiansburg won the varsity boys race with 31 points, putting four runners in the top seven including winner Lawson Mecom, who covered the 5K in 17:20. LB was second with 99, North Cross was third with 118, Carroll County had 140 and River was a point behind Carroll with 141 for fifth place among 11 teams.
Lord Botetourt’s Carter Hudson finished third overall with a time of 17:53 while Cole Stelter was sixth at 18:11. Also scoring for LB were Tristan Marshall in 25th, Jonah Clark in 34th and freshman Landon Hayes in 37th. There were 92 runners in the boys varsity race.
For River, Michael Jorgensen had a time of 18:17 to finish ninth overall. John Laughridge was 21st and also scoring were Cayden Shorter in 24th, Ryan Steger in 50th and Silas Miller in 52nd.
Christiansburg had individual winners for both the boys and girls in a mixed jayvee 5K race. Blake Peery of LB was third among the boys and Emily Murray was eighth in the girls jayvee race.
Photos by Matt de Simone
There were also two-mile middle school races for both the boys and girls and Christiansburg swept the team titles in those as well. The LB boys were fifth with John Moughrai finishing 14th among 109 middle school runners. LB’s Madeline Gantyhorn was 27th among 69 middle school girls.
The Lord Botetourt runners are scheduled to run in a meet at the Salem Municipal Golf Course today and both River and LB will run in the annual Metro Cross Country Meet in Blacksburg a week from today.
