|
|||||||||||||
Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Oakton's LoRusso wins, but this time he had company
Oakton's Joe LoRusso finished the 2.98-mile course at Burke Lake Park in a blazing 15 minutes, 24 seconds to win the Concorde District title on Oct. 25. In that race, LoRusso battled rain, wind and the lack of any non-Oakton competition.
But, on Thursday afternoon for the Northern Region cross country title, LoRusso's surroundings couldn't have been any different; however, the result was still quite the same.
LoRusso finished the course in 15:10, two seconds better than Jefferson's Brian Landry (15:12) and eight seconds better than T.C. Williams' Brad Kenimer (15:18). According to LoRusso, Thursday's conditions were ideal.
“Really all of us [Landry and Kenimer] were just trying to keep it fast,” LoRusso said. “I think we all wanted to run fast today. We just started to switch up the lead and give each other someone to compete against the whole time.
“Between the weather and leading most of the race – last week was a lot tougher to run fast. Today was the opposite. I'm glad there was nice weather today because there was great competition here today.”
A day prior to LoRusso's district crown, Kenimer claimed the Patriot District title with a time of 15:28. In that race, Kenimer said he felt as strong as he had all season, but on Thursday, Kenimer said that wasn't the case.
“In school today I felt a little 'feverish.' I felt a little better by warm ups, but you have to go out and race today,” he said. “My head hurt and I was a little bit achy, but it might have just been nerves. All things considered, I think it was a pretty good race today.”
Landry was one of four Jefferson runners that placed in the Top 15. Evan Heflin (15:22) finished fifth, Aaron Bernstein (15:36) finished seventh and Brian Davenport (15:42) finished 13th, as the Jefferson Colonials went on to win the team portion of the race with only 40 total points. Jefferson coach Matt Ryan didn't know exactly what separated his team from the competition, but he knew their work ethic had a lot to do with it.
“I don't know what we do differently, but I know what they do well is that they put their time in over the summer,” Ryan said, speaking of his team's dedication. “It's on them, that's their own motivation and their own time where they put that in.”
Oakton finished second in the team portion with a total of 77 points, even though Oakton coach Phil Tiller had a runner injured mid-race and one of his top runners out with the flu.
“It's been an interesting day for us,” Tiller concluded. “I think there was a good amount of pressure on us to win our third straight regional title. That was our goal and to not accomplish that was disappointing. We know it wasn't because of our inability to win. We knew it was because of some unfortunate events that took place that made sure we couldn't put in our best team.”
Oakton may not have accomplished their team goal, but Tiller saw his star [LoRusso] accomplish a personal goal.
“I know he took some pride in winning that,” LoRusso said. “I knew he had the ability to do that the whole time.”
LoRusso and his teammates will now have a chance to right themselves at the state title meet.
“Fortunately, we get a chance to make up for it next Saturday,” he said. “We'll look forward to 'states' and hopefully having a chance to win the title there.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.