Going into the race at Bluemont Park on October 11 the school was defending a five year championship run on the boys side and Yorktown was defending a two year championship on the girls side.

The athletes stood, hands on their watches, adrenaline in their veins and listened to the announcement: “set” and then moments later “POW” the sound of the starting gun. On their minds was one thing: an Arlington County Championship.  “We’ve won five years in a row, so I think we should keep the streak going and get the sixth,” sophomore Daniel Brancati said. “We go to practice every day, five times a week and it’s a grind.”

Everyone’s reputation is on the line as the “best in the county” at these meets that exclusively feature Arlington schools. “W-L has been the top finisher here for the last five years and these are the schools we’re most competitive with,” sophomore Zach Meiners said. “We like to go all out against these guys like Yorktown and O’Connell.”

Hopes were similarly high on the girls side “I think although we lack experience but our underclassmen are fast enough to pull off a victory,” senior captain Maggie Smiedala said.

When the dust settled, Yorktown broke the school’s five time championship on the boys side and Bishop O’Connell came up with a victory over Yorktown on the girls side. The boys’ results came in with Yorktown on top with a score of 38, W-L at second with a score of 48, Bishop O’Connell trailing with a score of 67 and Wakefield finishing with a score of 73.

“The seniors needed to step up their game,” senior Cory Dudka said. “Unfortunately we didn’t pull enough weight, costing us the county championship.”

The girls’ team results came in with Bishop O’Connell leading the pack with a score of 39, W-L following with a score of 45, Yorktown trailing with a score of 53 and Wakefield finishing up with a score of 104.

The school team did have the girls county champion junior Eva Smith-Perry who came in with a time of 19:56 and the boys runner up Jonny Jackson who came in with a time of 17:15.

“Overall, although we didn’t perform to our expectations, we got a couple of good results out of it.” Captain Smiedala said. “So, as a captain I am happy.”

You can find the full results for the boys’ here and the girls’ here.