On Saturday, October 11th, the 2008 cross country team closed out its regular season at the Glory Days Grill Invitational, held at Bull Run Park in Centreville, VA.  The meet hosted nearly 2500 runners in 9 different races, and by all accounts, the Chargers more than held their own.  With the post season starting in the next two weeks, this meet was the last serious challenge to the teams against regional competition, prior to the district championship.

As he has done all season, junior Chris Foley not only led the Chargers, but demonstrated tremendous form in challenging the leaders throughout the race.  Finishing in a strong 7th place overall, Chris showed that he will remain one of the challengers for the Concorde District and Northern Region crowns, as well as remain one of the better runners in the Virginia AAA race.  The boy's team finish 20th place overall, with junior Matt Cumpian and Harold Dockins and seniors David Harsh and Patrick Roberts adding to the scoring.

Junior Rachel Grochowski may have had her best race of her career in finishing 15th place overall, in a personal best 5K time of 19:20.  She earned her fourth medal of the season, and has shown that she will also look to make her mark at both the district and regional meets. She led the girls team to a solid 13th place, as they also enjoyed their best team race.  The girls team looks to place in the top 4 at districts, and if they are to advance as a team, it will also depend on continued strong races from sophomores Erin Horil, Kacey Norwood and Hannah Strub, and senior Katrine Gast.  On Saturday, they also had their best races, and look to be peaking at just the right time for the postseason.

The post season begins on Thursday, October 16th at Lake Fairfax, with the ad hoc JV District Championship, the Dobson Double Dual Championships.  The Concorde District Championships will take place at Burke Lake Park on Wednesday, October 22nd, at 3:15 pm.

Full results for the Glory Days Invitational can be found at: http://www.chargercctrack.com/ccresults.html

Thank you as always to Tom Foley for his pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/CHSrunning.