South County Teams Sweep Four-School Cross-Country Meet

South County Secondary School’s cross-country teams swept a weekday ‘Quad Meet’ at Occuquan Regional Park on Wednesday. Four teams competed: Annandale High School, Lee High School, T.C. Williams High School and South County, with Lee as the official host of the event.

South County’s boys’ and girls’ teams both emerged victorious when the results were tallied late Wednesday night. Lee finished second in the boys’ race, followed by Annandale.

A delayed school bus caused the T.C. Williams boys’ team to miss their race, so their results were not counted. But they wanted to run anyway, so Lee head coach Jason Rodriguez allowed them to do so in the girls’ race that took place afterward.

The Annandale girls’ team took second place in that race, followed by T.C. Williams. Lee did not bring enough girls to have their results counted. A school must have at least five runners in each race in order to qualify.

T.C. Williams coach Mike Hughes wasn’t too upset about his team’s transport-related difficulties. “These events are really for the younger kids to cut their teeth, and for the bubble kids to defend their spots,” Hughes said.

Former Lee track coach Jim Miller was on hand to watch the meet. “These weekday meets are always quite exciting,” he said. “The top runners don’t always compete in them, so you can have kids placing second or first who normally don’t find themselves in that position,” Miller said.

“My top boy wanted a workout, so I brought him,” said Lee coach Rodriguez. That runner, Biruk Amare, certainly got one, running the fastest time of the day at 16.49.

Annandale coach Phil Harris was very pleased with both of his teams, saying “It was a great course for us. We wanted them to group run, and that’s what they did.” When asked if the presence of the T.C. Williams boys’ team in the second race affected his girls’ team, Harris said “Not a factor at all.”