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Class 4&5 Cross Country: Albemarle boys deliver, win Class 5 title

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Albemarle’s boys cross country team knew they were the favorites heading into this year’s Class 5 state cross country meet. 

 

Saturday was about delivering. It was about exorcising the demons of last year’s frustrating third place finish. 

 

The Patriots stepped up, running a monster race to bring home the program’s second state title and the second in the last three years, a run powered in large part by a tremendous senior class. 

 

Will Mackenzie led those seniors with a runner-up finish just 22 seniors off the pace set by Deep Run’s Colby Burcham who won the individual title. The Patriots had four runners in the top 14, with Stephen Smith finishing seventh, J.D. MacKnight taking 11th and Joe Yung fighting through a nagging injury to finish 13th. Harris Naseh’s 26th place finish rounded out the Patriots’ scoring. Jake Harotgensis’ 33rd would have been enough to win the title if Naseh hadn’t already wrapped it up as Albemrle finished with 52 points to easily hold off runner-up Deep Run who finished with 86. 

 

Albemarle now heads to the Southeast Regionals in two weeks with an eye toward qualifying for Nationals. They’ll need another huge outing to make that happen, but they’re certainly in the conversation. 

 

Class 5 Girls

 

Powered by a third place finish from junior Arianna DeBoer, Albemarle’s girls cross country team took third place as a team in the Class 5 girls race, finishing behind champion Deep Run and runner-up Midlothian for another solid performance at the state race. 

 

Senior Madeline Zarzyski took 26th overall and freshman Olivia St. Amand took 30th while Abby Murphy finished 36th and freshman Hanna Guyton rounded out the Albemarle effort with a 41st place clocking. 

 

Class 4

 

Louisa County’s boys finished seventh as a team in the Class 4 state championship race, with junior Branden Wood taking sixth overall to jumpstart the performance. Bowen Varney finished 24th overall, Matt Klapak took 51st, Kyler Soriano took 69th and Everett Robinson finished 75th. 

 

On the girls side, Louisa took ninth overall as a team with Cierra Caicedo’s 13th place finish setting the pace. Alayna Campbell took 46th, freshman Kennedy Harris 56th, Sydney Madison took 61st and Maeve Myers took 89th. 

 

Orange County freshman Evelyn Anderson took 40th overall in her first state championship race. 

 

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