On Wednesday, August 28th, the Chantilly cross country team completed their preseason schedule with a scrimmage against Northern Region powers Robinson and Edison. Running on the 2.98 mile Burke Lake course, the Chargers got a sense of how far they have come this summer, and how they can hope to stack up as the fall season progresses.

On the girls side, defending regional champion Lia DiValentin had a strong showing, running 18:37 for first place, and demonstrating that she is starting to round into form after dealing with injuries which cut short her spring campaign.  She will be a force to reckon with again this postseason, when she really hits her stride.  Also running impressively for the girls team, junior co-captain Rachel Grochowski ran a solid time of 20:12 for 5th place, just ahead of sophomore newcomer Erin Horil, and broke the line in 20:46, in 8th place.  Sophomore Hannah Strub also showed improvement by finishing 4th for the Chargers in 11th place, while senior co-captain Katie Gast finished the scoring for the team in 21st place.  The team finished third in the team rankings, although only 1 point (and a tie-breaker) separated Chantilly from the 1st place Robinson Rams, about as tight a team score as you can get.

The Robinson boys demonstrated why they are among the predicted top boys team in the Northern Region, while Chantilly showed that they still have room to grow as a team.  Running without All-Region returnee, junior Chris Foley, the Chargers finished 3rd, however their individual performances showed that both the returning veterans and the younger runners have really come a long way.  Sophomore Matt Cumpian (pictured) led the Chantilly charge with his 12th place finish, in a time of  17:51.6, a 28 second improvement over his 2007 personal best.  Senior co-captain David Harsh followed Matt to the line for 13th place four seconds later.  Newcomer Patrick Roberts, a senior transfer who ran last year in England, was third for the team, with his 18:04 time (16th place), with returning varsity members Andrew Zulick (18th) and Wilson Bever (19th) completing the scoring.

The Chargers begin their regular season schedule on Saturday, September 6th, at the Monroe Parker Invitational, held at Burke Lake Park from 8-12.

Results from this scrimmage can be found at: http://www.chargercctrack.com/ccresults.html.

Photos, courtesy of Chris Dolan, can also be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kippercd/sets/72157606983373628/.