The coaches entered the team in the Woodberry Forest Invitational with the idea that we could get experience on the course that the VISAA State Meet will be on, and, well... it was quite an experience!   First, there was a traffic jam on the way to the meet that delayed our arrival, especially for half the girls' team.  Then there were various trips, slips, falls and other mishaps, including one that sent one of our runners to the medical tent with a spike to the knee - don't let anyone tell you that Cross Country is not a physical contact sport!  But, in the end, we ran well and did have a great experience!   To recap the results... in general, times were slower than the Tuesday meet, but this was a very hilly and challenging course, and the competition included several large public schools and many of the top schools in the independent VISAA divisions.     Our girls started off the meet at 4pm, which was 14 minutes after the arrival of half the varsity team.  Their warmup was to get on their race number and run to the start line.  But they all did pretty well, and gained great experience on the course that will be invaluable at the State Meet in November.   Girls team results: Rose 24:13.7 Lily 24:56.6 Monica 25:50.6 Mary Catherine 25:58.8 Penny 26:46.9 Philomena 27:22.5 Cora 29:54.0 Noemi 30:29.5 Colette 33:20.7   Next, the boys team set off and almost immediately ran into difficulties as someone clipped the back of Patrick G's shoe, taking it off.  Then there was a fall and pileup in which Christian was spiked in the knee.  Later Gabriel D collided with another runner and took a tumble.  Despite all that we managed to place ahead of a couple of teams that were above us at last year's state meet.  We had 4 runners under 20 minutes, and every boy who ran this course at states last year improved on their time.       Here are the boys results: Michael B 19:14.0   Top Seton runner Peter K 19:24.9   Improved over last time on this course by 40 sec Dan 19:25.2   Personal Best, improved on course by 86 sec Patrick G 19:42.3   Improved over last time on this course by 20 sec Jerome 20:20.9   Improved over last time on this course by 45 sec Max 20:32.3     John 21:44.0     Patrick K 21:53.9   Personal Best Kieran 22:18.7     Christian 23:05.2   despite getting spiked! Nick 23:18.5     Noah 23:24.5     Gabriel D 23:49.4     Peter H 24:28.1     Joey 25:03.5   Personal Best Andrew 26:25.7   Personal Best   We are encouraged by the time improvement and the fact that despite the falls and mishaps we placed above two of the top teams in our division from last year.  As we look forward to returning here for the state meet in November, we will have this experience to draw on to give us the confidence to better our state meet result! https://va.milesplit.com/meets/515785-woodberry-forest-47th-annual-xc-invitational-2023/results ...

We had a very productive first meet, with 13 runners getting their all-time personal best time, and 8 runners completing their first high school 5K. Our boys finished 3rd behind two strong teams from St John Paul the Great and Trinity Christian, while the girls finished 6th in a very competitive girls event. The boys race was decided by one point, with John Paul winning 27-28 over Trinity. Here is link to the results:https://va.milesplit.com/meets/567275-vcac-meet-1-2023/results ...