STORY: Colley, Jamestown earn BRD meet titles

[Sonny Dearth]

The Jamestown High boys and Tabb girls ran their way to victory Thursday in the Bay Rivers District cross country meet on the soggy Eastern State Hospital course.
Andrew Colley and Rachel Apostoles, both of Jamestown, took the individual crowns.

Jamestown, considered among the state favorites in Group AA, showed why by placing four of its runners among the top six. Colley finished in 15 minutes, 14.6 seconds, while Tabb's Will Mulherin was second in 15:43.0.

John Holt (third, 15:57.5), Colin Mearns (fourth, 16:21.6) and Russell Hornsby (sixth, 16:33.7) also sparked Jamestown, while Lafayette's Robert Webb (16:23.1) placed fifth.

The Eagles had 24 points, followed by Grafton with 80, Lafayette with 90 and New Kent with 100 in the 11-team meet. All of those teams will adv ance to the Region I meet.

In the girls competition, the top five teams were separated by only 19 points.
Tabb won with 73, followed by New Kent with 80, Jamestown with 85 and Lafayette with 86. Grafton, with 89 points, barely missed qualifying for the regional.

Apostoles ran a time of 20:10.7 to edge Grafton's Haley Kopczynski by 1.1 seconds. Lafayette's Becky Dobosy (20:19.8) was third, Tabb's Amanda Jones (20:39.3) fourth and Grafton's Lauren Clark (20:47.8) fifth.

Peers selected Jamestown's Howard Townsend as boys coach of the year and New Kent's Joan Lawter as girls coach of the year.

[gunnersonal]

Why is there no mention of the BRD Championship - not just the BRD "Meet" Championship? And why don't you show the top 15, i.e., the BRD all-district honors, in each of the girls and boys? Since September, there has been little or no press of the Grafton Boys team that "are" the BRD Champions, beating Lafayette in head-to-head competition and "only" losing to Jamestown boys running their top 5 runners. Grafton ended district competition with a 9-1 record and BRD Champions! I only ask for fairness in coverage.

[Sonny Dearth]

The individual top 15s are listed on the Daily Scoreboard on HRVarsity.com, along with the full team scores.

Was Grafton a co-champion with Jamestown? Were both 9-1?
I don't know; please respond if you do. Thanks!

[gunnersonal]

Jamestown was the BRD "Meet" Champions with Grafton as the runner-up. This year's rule change concerning district champions caused the following:

Jamestown as the "Meet" Champions
Grafton as the BRD Champions as well as the "Meet" Runner-up - no trophy for "Meet" Runner-ups.

Grafton and Lafayette Boys each had a 9-1 BRD record but Grafton beat Lafayette in head-to-head competition. Grafton brought home the BRD Championship trophy.

At first, Lafayette was announced as the BRD Champions until Grafton coaches protested knowing the truth. There was a "newspaper" individual there that I do not think was from the Daily Press that I believe took Lafayette as the BRD Champions - if that is so, I will, as well as others will, ensure to correct.

I am not at all trying to take away from Colley and others but I do want to have a correct story.

Many thanks in allowing me express this.

[davidbaer]

I agree that the coverage for Cross Country this fall has been lacking. You might as well let the state meet site cover everything or let a local parent or coach write the articles.

On another note why do you have a regular season cross country champion? I don't know of anyone else in the state that does this. I guess if you ran tri or quad meets and scored them it would be okay, but you are only allowed to run individuals in 10 regular season meets. So many teams do run their top runners every dual meet because invitationals bring much better competition and bigger fields.

I really don't understand some of the other sports and how the regular season championship is so big as well. The district tournement should be the deciding factor as to which teams make it to regoinals and then states not their regular season placement in the district. Don't all Districts in the state have to have the same guidelines? Is this just a Field Hockey thing?

Football coverage has gotten way out of hand on this site with pre game write ups and post game write ups, then athlete of the week, and college recruitment nonsense. I have not religiously been looking at the athlete of the week but it seems it is always football when I look. Are there going to be other athlete's of the week either separate or on a more level playing field. We have some of the best runners and teams in the state and they get no exposure. BUT Northern Region and Richmond area runners are getting a whole lot more exposure and it is helping their popularity, and leaving these areas way behind.

More to come on the district results...