Speed Devil

Rachel Harding seems to be peaking at the right time.

With just one more regular-season race to go before the Battlefield District meet, Harding ran her best time ever Wednesday to help the Culpeper County High School girls cross country team finish with a nearly perfect score as CCHS hosted a dual meet against Eastern View.

Harding finished in first place, crossing the line in 20:45 on the 5K course, beating the competition by nearly two minutes. Culpeper’s Courtney Dean (22:30), Brooke Malloy (23:45) and Abigail Jahoda (25:24) finished second, third and fourth respectively to help the Blue Devilettes finish with 16 points. Eastern View had 39 points and was led by Kaitlyn Martin, who finished in fifth place in a time of 25:28.

Culpeper eighth grader Emily Deitz finished the race in 24:48, but didn’t count in the varsity scoring.

“I was pleased with the performance,” CCHS coach Kim Williams said. “The weather was cool and we had a lot of people run good times.”

Harding’s personal record gives her the third fastest time in the Battlefield District this season — Courtland’s Jackie Graham has run a 20:25 and Chancellor’s Samantha Huff a 20:34 — and places her squarely among the favorites to challenge for the district title on Oct. 28.

“The whole idea with Rachel today was to chase the boys,” Williams said. “She tried her best to get up there because she was chasing them. She’s one of the top girls. We have potential and if we are ready to run we have two individuals that could vie for the titles, both the boys and the girls.”

On the boys side, Eastern View gained an advantage in the race for the Community Cup, an all-sports trophy awarded to the Culpeper school with the most points at the end of the school year. CCHS entered the meet with three of its top seven runners out with the flu, including top performer Colton Elliot.

With Elliot out, Eastern View’s top runner Charlie Bayne was able to set the pace for teammate Jeffrey Thelin. The two Cyclones matched each other stride for stride nearly the entire way and Bayne finished in first with a time of 17:59 while Thelin knocked 30 seconds off his time from the Fredericksburg All-Area meet and was second in 18:00.

The 1-2 finish was enough to give Eastern View a 25-30 win, it’s first of the year against the Blue Devils.

“The plan was for Charlie to sit back and help Jeffrey along and it kind of surprised us a bit when Colton didn’t run. That helped us out in the scoring, but Jeffrey ran well today.”

Kyle Lombardi led Culpeper with a third-place finish in 18:22 and Robert Gamache was fourth, also in 18:22.

“Our strategy would have been a little different with all our guys,” Williams said. “Our five guys ran well, but I need to get my guys healthy. Once we get healthy and get 100 percent we’ll be OK. We’re still in a real good position going into districts.”