Lord Botetourt and James River High Schools combined to host the Blue Ridge Invitational as the 2026 cross country season took the horn at the Greenfield Recreation Complex last Wednesday. Over 20 high school and middle school teams converged on the Botetourt County course for varsity, jayvee and middle school races for both boys and girls.
“I want to give a huge thank you to James River High School and their coaching staff for doing so much behind the scenes to make this event a success,” said Lord Botetourt coach Noel Preece. “We had over 450 middle and high school athletes compete between five races. Greenfield is a fantastic race course for our kids to get to compete on a more traditional-style course, and the hardest course of the season for many of these teams.”
The Christiansburg boys and girls swept the varsity races. The best finish by a Botetourt County runner was a sixth in the boys’ varsity race by LB’s Preston Vaughn. Archer Lee of the Cavs was ninth and James River had two medalists as Maddie Davidson and Braden Jones both medaled, both finishing 11th in their respective races.
“With the meet falling so early in the season this year, we elected to keep our powder dry and only race a few athletes,” said Preece. “Our two women, (Claire) Conn and (Brookelyn) Fadia, completed their first-ever cross country races and we are excited to see how they develop over the coming months. We expect these ladies to complement a strong women’s team as we look toward the rest of the season.
“All three of our men are returning upperclassmen, and all three clocked best-ever times for the course by over a minute. Vaughn led Lee to a double-podium in the varsity race and (Mason) Tuck bettered his outright personal best by over two minutes, stopping the clock over five minutes faster than his previous best on the Greenfield course.”
James River’s girls took fourth overall in the varsity team standings behind Christiansburg, North Cross and Radford. The River boys were eighth.
“The boys’ team is battling back from sickness this week and some back to school mental fatigue,” said coach Daphne Davidson. “No PRs, however this race was much later in the season last year and both of the top runners are running a minute faster in the first race of the season than they ran this same race last year.”
The Knights will be back on the trails on Thursday of this week to compete in the Bengal Invitational at the Smith River Complex in Axton. LB’s next meet is September 12 at Green Hill Park for the huge Knights’ Invitational, hosted by Cave Spring, and James River is also slated to run in that event.
