With a new faster course this year on home turf at Panorama Farms, the Ragged Mountain Cup did not disappoint, producing lots of PR's and good races. The Ragged Mountain Cup is usually the unofficially start to all central Virginia cross country team seasons and while we had a few girls race the first week of school, there were a lot of first races yesterday. It is always exciting and includes a bunch of local teams and there is always an epic battle against Albemarle's archrival Western Albemarle. The varsity race is a 4 person x 2mile relay race and there is a JV "open" race that is also 2 miles. The top 25 in the varsity race all get shirts and the top five are also recognized with water bottles.
The Albemarle "A" team, nicknamed The Guardians of the Galaxy placed second overall averaging 12:41 per leg. Maddie Gypson led the way with a huge 23 second PR from last track season and a drop of almost a minute from her time trial last week. She ran 11:55 to place 3rd overall in the girls varsity category. Jenna Coleman ran 12:14 to also place in the coveted top 5. Hannah Guyton ran 13:12 for 11th and the top team was finished out by Savannah Meriwether in 13:52 who also earned top 25 honors.
The Albemarle "B" team, nicknamed The Avengers placed 5th amongst all teams (including a lot of teams A squads). They were led by a super strong performance from sophomore Alexis Alms who ran 13:46 for 18th.
Eva Weaver finished in 13:48 and Lillian Peskova in 14:19 which gave the Albemarle Girls 7 runners in the top 25 which only Western Albemarle was able to beat. Junior Bella Popovsky ran 15:42 for 39 overall to round out Albemarle's second team. One of the strengths of the Albemarle program is that there are multiple Patriot relay teams that are competitive against other team's A squad year after year which just shows the depth of our team!
The Albemarle "C" team, nicknamed The Valkyries, placed 12th overall led by freshman Emily Uthlaut in 15:38. Autmn Murphy was 41st overall in 15:54 with senior Grace Kohler running 16:04 for 45th and sophomore Shelby Owed in 17:36.
In the open division of the race freshman Brooke Blakenship led the way with a 16:59 and 37th place finish. Stella Klosek showed off her sprinting skills with a great kick to just mis
s sub 17 running 17:00.6 . Avani Abhyankar dropped 1:45 off of her time from last spring to run 21:33 and Maddie Hephner ran a really strong race in 23:29.
Overall it was a very strong day for the Albemarle Girls! The top few girls will get an opportunity to race at the uber fast Pole Green course this weekend for a full 5k and the whole team will make the trip to the FUMA invitational the next weekend.
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