by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi
Lancaster’s Darius Reed beat out his teammate Dominique Veney in a photo finish in a three-team cross country meet at Washington & Lee last Wednesday. Reed and Veney both ran a 19:36 race with Reed edging Veney by just steps at the finish line.
The Red Devils finished second in team scoring with 34 points, while West Point won the meet with a low 27. The Pointers had all five-scorers finish in the top 10. Host Washington & Lee was third with 75 points.
Lancaster’s Will Parker placed seventh with a time of 21:40 and Marshall Lee was 11th in 22:07. Zach Kane was 14th overall in 22:31.
Girls meet
In the girls meet, Lancaster’s Leanne Nguyen was the runner-up and only LHS varsity finisher among the top 10. Nguyen ran a 24:36 race. Mears Pollard placed 11th for LHS in 29:45, Skylar Bean was 13th among varsity runners (31:14), Tara Gill was 15th (33:03) and Emily Kane was 16th (33:04). Lancaster was third among the three teams with 57 points. W&L won the meet with 25 points and West Point was second with 40.
Lancaster’s junior varsity runner, Hailey Smith, was the second runner to cross the finish line, beating out 20 varsity and six other JV runners. Smith finished the race in 23:22.
Saturday races
Reed and Veney were Lancaster’s top finishers in the Albert E. Dorner: Newport News Invitational at Christopher Newport University last Saturday. Reed ran an 18:31 race for 26th place and Veney crossed the finish line on his heels in 18:32 in 27th place. Lancaster’s boys team ran in the varsity “B” division which included 180 runners.
The LHS girls, running the varsity “C” division, were led by Nguyen with a ninth-place finish in 23:46. Pollard was 57th out of 91 runners with a time of 28:29.
Northumberland’s girls were the runner-up in the “C” division with a team score of 58. Lancaster was seventh out of 10 scoring teams with 176 points.
The Lady Indians had three runners finish in the top 10 with Rain Eguiguren placing fourth in 23:02. Addie Swisher was seventh (23:28) and Savanah Blake was eighth (23:32).
Lancaster will run Saturday, September, 16 at the William & Mary Invitational.