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2021 Montgomery County XC Championship Meet Superlatives and Rarities
The Montgomery County XC Championship Meet was rescheduled for a Monday afternoon over concerns of property damage due to heavy rains on the Friday before the originally scheduled Saturday meet. The meet has been similarly moved to a Monday in recent history. In 2015, the meet was moved to a Monday afternoon after an unforeseen scheduling conflict at Bohrer Park was discovered late in the season. Prior to 2001, the Montgomery County Championship Meet was commonly held on a weekday.
The originally scheduled county championship meet was scheduled for October 30, which was a week later than the typically scheduled weekend. When the meet got moved to Monday, November 1, I was asked by one coach if it was the first Montgomery County Championship Meet ever in the month of November. I can confirm that it was the first November county meet since 1977 when the meet was held on November 4, 1977. That 1977 county meet was scheduled during a 14 day layoff between the state-qualifying district meets and the state championship meet. That was the only time that the county meet was ever held between the district/region and state meets.
Girls
Walter Johnson High School tied Whitman High School for the most girls team county titles in meet history with 11 wins. WJ now has won 5 out of the last 7 XC county meets.
Churchill High School's second place finish and point total of 89 was the best by a Churchill girls team since the team won in 2007 with 63 points.
The Wootton girls team (4th) maintained an active streak of finishing in the top ten at the county championship meet dating back to 2002.
The Whitman girls team (3rd) maintained an active streak of finishing in the top ten at the county championship meet in every meet since at least 1981.
Magruder's 13th place finish and point total of 357 was the best by a Magruder girls team since 2011 (10th w/ 269).
Springbrook's 16th place finish and point total of 440 was the best by a Springbrook girls team since 2012 (14th w/ 359).
Varri Higgins of B-CC became the 6th individual county champion from B-CC and the first B-CC champ since Nora McUmber in 2014.
Varri Higgins' winning time of 18:11 was the seventh fastest time in course history (since 2011).
Ella Zeigler from Blake High School (2nd, 18:44) was the highest finisher ever, female or male, from Blake High School. She was the first female all-county (top 10) performer from Blake High in meet history.
Mocorunning's Week 8 Ranking correctly projected the Walter Johnson girls to win the county championship meet, and still the WJ girls blew those rankings away and outperformed expectations. Five of the top ten positive movers on Mocorunning's Week 9 girls XC ranking were from Walter Johnson High School.
The biggest positive movers in Mocorunning's Week 9 Rankings after the County Championship Meet were: 1. Ella Werkman (Whitman, Fr.), 2. Amelia Burkhard (Walter Johnson, Sr.), 3. Kelsie Miller (Churchill, So.), 4. Hannah Riley (Walter Johnson, Sr.), 5. Isabelle Senfaute (Walter Johnson, Sr.)
Boys
Churchill won its 5th overall boys county title (since 1977) and first since 2011. Churchill is now tied with Walter Johnson for second most boys team titles in meet history (5). Whitman is first with 14 boys team titles.
Churchill's 67 points was the lowest score by a Churchill boys team since it scored 43 points in 1980
In the last ten years, only Northwood's 2018 winning score of 64 points was lower than Churchill's score of 67 points.
Whitman High School now has the two lowest non-winning boys team scores in the era of 25 high schools. Whitman scored 73 points in a runner-up effort in 2006 and 74 points in a runner-up effort in 2021. 74 points would have won five out of the last eight boys county meets.
Richard Montgomery's point total of 122 (4th place) was the lowest point total by a Richard Montgomery boys team since 1995.
The B-CC boys team navigated to a fifth place team finish with an eight second spread for their top five varsity boys finishers, 17:18-17:26.
Springbrook's 6th place boys team finish was the highest by a Springbrook boys team since since 1987. Springbrook's point total of 180 was the lowest point total by a Springbrook boys team since it scored 133 points in 1987
Andrew Schell became the fifth individual county champion from Walter Johnson and the first since Chris Moen in 2006
The Wootton boys team maintained an active streak of top ten finishes dating back to 2009, the longest active streak among county boys teams.
Seneca Valley's 19th place finish and point total of 520 was the best by a Seneca Valley boys team since 2006 (17th w/ 452).
The 18th place finish by Magruder junior Joshua Lopez was the highest by a Marguder athlete since 2010 (Dagmwai Abebe 10th).
The 9th place finish by Springbrook's Jeriel Williams is just the second All-County (Top 10) performance by a Springbrook male runner dating back to 1995. The other All-County performer was his former teammate Surafel Mengist in 2019.
The biggest positive movers in Mocorunning's Week 9 Rankings after the County Championship Meet were: 1. Mark Cunniff (Whitman, Sr.), 2. Noah Fisher (Richard Montgomery, Jr.), 3. Andrew Inman (B-CC, Jr.), 4. Sofiane Compaore (Springbrook, Jr.), 5. Nolan Brenowitz (Richard Montgomery, Sr.)
Do you have a superlative to share? Comment below.
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