Albemarle, Western boys each take second at state cross country

THE PLAINS — Albemarle senior Adam Visokay finished third in the Class AAA Virginia state championship cross country race on Saturday on the Great Meadow. But instead of celebrating his all-state status, or collapsing to the grass, as is the norm in this grueling sport, he turned on his heel and returned to the finish gate to cheer on his teammates.

He was looking for four more pairs of easy to spot orange-and-white striped Patriots shorts. And within 45 seconds, he counted to three — Ben Deal crossed, then Ryan Thomas, and then Chris Springer. No one covered the 3-mile course slower than 16 minutes, 18 seconds. But then he waited. And waited. More than a minute went by before Aaron Elder came in at 17:22.

At that point, it was a math problem. While regional rival Stafford had only two runners in the top 15, did the Indians have enough low finishes to take the lead?

It turns out, that with no runner finishing worse than 31st in the team competition, they did. And Stafford earned the state title with an aggregate score of 87 to Albemarle’s 102.

Buz Male, the Patriots’ coach of 38 years, who wears a sweatshirt decorated with ironed-on photos of his runners, was in tears after the scores were announced.

“I’m 65,” he said. “I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be doing this.”

After Visokay’s two-mile state title on the track last year, Male said he told his runners they’d have a chance for a state title a few months later in cross country.

“I’ve never told teams you can win a state championship, but I told this team they could. We were just one man down, that’s all,” he said.

Stafford’s runners didn’t have the high finishes, but the 44-point gap between the Indians’ No. 5 and the Patriots’ No. 5 made the difference.

“Our top four finished incredibly,” said Male, holding back tears. “We had three all-state and our fourth guy was great. We had by far the lowest point total, (at that point) but this is a sport where the fifth man counts.”

The two teams have been trading wins all year — be it in invitational meets, districts or regionals. But Saturday, Stafford held the upper hand.

“Something was in the air,” said Greg Bohmke, Stafford’s top finisher. “With three seniors in our top five, we knew it was going to be this year or we weren’t going to get it.”

Male had a similar thought.

“Albemarle High School has never won a state championship in boys’ or girls’ cross country,” he said. “If we couldn’t do it this year, we knew it was going to be a while. … I’m going to coach again next year, but for the seniors, it was their last chance.”

Visokay was pleased with his last meet on the state level, but more importantly, he had a great senior year on the squad.

“We’re really blessed to have had such a great season,” he said. “We’ve come together as friends and teammates like I never thought we would.”

In the Class AA meet, Western Albemarle placed second, nearly 50 points behind champion Blacksburg. The Warriors were led by junior Dave Taylor, who clocked 16:16 for 11th place overall. He was followed by point-scorers Ben and Adam Schiller, Gavin Ratcliffe and Andrew DeJong.

Western coach Lindy Bain summed up the season: “It’s kind of fun to have two good teams in the area, but it would have been nicer to have both teams a finish a little higher,” he said.

The big names from the Northern Region won individual state titles in AAA. Sophie Chase of Lake Braddock handily won the girls’ meet without defending titlist Hannah Lowery of Stafford in the field due to a health problem. On the boys’ side, Annandale's Ahmed Bile defended his crown, ahead of Chantilly’s Sean McGorty and Visokay.