Over 300 runners converged on Collegiate’s Robins Campus last Wednesday for an early season cross country test. But rather than looking at the meet in terms of wins or losses, the Collegiate Invitational served as a training tool as the meat of the cross country season gets under way.

  “This was essentially for us a 5k speed workout between a warm-up and a cool-down,” said Collegiate boys cross country coach Weldon Bradshaw. “Any coach at this time is having his kids train through these early meets and nobody runs on fresh legs in August, September and October, but you hope all you put into it will have you running on fresh legs in November.”

  This early in the season, Collegiate girls coach Karen Albright said it is hard to evaluate a team when compared to others in final results. “The thing we try to look at is the times between our runners,” she said. “It’s hard to compare times you ran here with times you ran at FUMA because the courses are all different. But what is consistent is our times are relative to each other on the team. So we’re trying to bring that time gap between runners as close as we can.”

  And Albright is keeping a close eye on this year’s Cougar squad because she and assistant coach Gracie McGurdy believe it is special. “(The thing) we talk about with this team is that it’s just unlike teams we’ve had in the past,” Albright said. “They’ve got the fight and a drive that I haven’t seen the whole team have.”

  Albright believes the drive of this year’s squad is derived from the leadership shown by her three senior captains, Goochland residents Julie Sroba and Story Hinckley as well as Jasmine Turner. The coach feels that the attitude of her senior captains is infectious. “The girls are doing a great job so it’s bringing out kids that are brand new,” Albright said that pairs of seniors, juniors and a trio of freshmen are all new to this year’s team.

  “They understand that running doesn’t always feel good and that there’s pain involved,” Albright said. “But just that attitude, we haven’t necessarily had through the whole team in the past years.”

  Sroba and Turner return at the teams top two runners this season and they will be followed by sophomore Gray Little and Hinckley.

  At the Invitational, the Collegiate girls preformed as expected, taking third behind Deep Run and Patrick Henry but more importantly crossing the finish line close together. Sroba finished third and Turner tenth, while sophomore Jennie Sroba came in 18th and Hinckley 26th. Juniors Amanda Cole (34), Molly McFadden (54), Kendall Berents (56) and Sally Sommers (62) were joined by Goochland resident ,sophomore Sarah Richardson (63), and freshmen Gracie Mountcastle (49), Kristie Turkal (76) and Goochland resident Meg Meyer (79) in the upper half of the field.

  Last year the Collegiate boys came in third in the prep league and third in the state but Bradshaw lost four of his top five runners from that squad. But the coach does not like to think of this as a rebuilding year for his Cougars. “I don’t really choose to use that term,” he said. “We went into this year talking about we have an opportunity. We have an opportunity with some of the same team, just different guys have to stop up into the breach.”

  Junior Scott Newton currently holds the number one slot on the Cougar team while seniors Trip Templeman and John Charles Wood are generally in the top five. Junior Ian Rowland had a good run in the Invitational as well as sophomores Connor Partlow, Teddy Nasworthy and Goochland resident Luke Page.

  “Guys unaccustomed to being point scorers have to be point scorers and that’s the joy of coaching,” Bradshaw said. “You have to have guys step up and you have a new team.”

  The Goochland High School teams also made the trip across county to take part in the Invitational and head coach Henry Jones enjoyed having a chance to run against prep and Group AAA talent. “The competition, that’s what it boils down to,” he said. “It’s allowing them to push themselves further each week so they can compete against the district teams that we have to go up against this year.”
  Goochland’s Stephen Ferguson finished fifth among the boys and Aaron Madrea was close behind. Jones was especially pleased with the performances of senior Levi Ballard and sophomore Marcus Houston, “who, whew, had one heck of a run,” Jones said.

  On the girls’ side, senior Casey Doody came in 15th, and junior Abbigail Dobbertin 23rd. But Goochland eighth graders Madison and Morgan Venhulzen made a real impression taking 27th and 55th in the field of 153 high school runners.