John Bozek and Jacob Miller finished first and second to pace Hayfield's boys cross country team to a National District title on Thursday at Burke Lake Park. According to coach Ed Geraty, it is Hayfield's first title since the school competed in the Gunston District in the 1990s.
Bozek also defended his individual district title, covering the three-mile course in 15:55.
"I feel great that I could hold my title for two years," Bozek said. "I really just wanted senior year. To go out with such a bang as district champ, and hopefully I'll go through regionals and get into states, it would be great."
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The Hawks finished with 34 points, 23 better than nearby rival Edison. Rounding out the regional qualifiers from the district were Yorktown (102 points) and Stuart (127). All five of the Hawks' scoring runners finished in the top-15.
"The boys have a strong nucleus of returning runners," Geraty said. "All of my top six runners ran last year and they lost districts by one point last year. So that was their goal all this year. And they met their goal.
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Bozek said he has run the course nearly 30 times since his freshman year, and his familiarity paid off.
"We know where we need to work it and where we can pass people at," he said, remembering where he took over the lead. "Same place as last year, right at the two-mile hill. That's the place where most people die, and I saw the guy in front of me dying and I took the lead and never looked back."
Kirubel Aklilu, Christopher Page and Cory Fish rounded out the scoring for the Hawks.
On the girls' side, the team overcame the loss to injury of top-five runner Tea Lanfranconi, and finished solidly in third place, paced by freshman Abby Power's third-place individual result (18:54).
"I'm really happy," Power said of her team qualifying for the regional meet. "One of our best runners got injured, so we had our substitute (Hannah Fielder) go in and I'm so proud of her."
Even though Fielder's time did not count in the scoring (the top five finishers for each team are combined to get a team score) she was number six for the Hawks, finishing 28th in the 44-runnner field. If Fielder's time had counted, the Hawks would still have finished ahead of Edison.
Lanfranconi said she hopes her hip injury will be healed in time for the regional meet.
Power, who finished behind Edison's repeat district champion Myah Hicks (17:53) and Washington-Lee's Isabel Amend, set out a goal for herself in next week's regional meet. Finish ahead of Amend, who has beaten Power in each race this year. How will she do it?
"Our coach was telling us it's a 24-7 thing and we should be making sure we're eating right a week before, at least, and not staying up too late," Power said.
The other scoring runners for the Hawks girls' team were: Melanie Trammell (11th), Chelsea Pixa (18th), Anna Bishop (21st) and Yvonne Fox (22nd).
"We have young talent," Geraty said. "Abby finished third and Melanie Trammell, a sophomore that didn't run last year, she was all-district in 11th place. To have two young runners like that be our top two runners, it's great."
Washington-Lee (49 points) won the district behind three top-10 finishes, edging Yorktown (58).
