In the most loaded field of runners hosted at John Poole Middle School since the 2002 county championship meet, Poolesville runners broke the boys and girls dual meet course records. Chelsie Pennello set the girls course record in 19:37 and Chase Weaverling set the boys course record in 15:45. The previous records were 19:54 held by Abbey Daley and 17:03 held by Chase Weaverling.

Pennello ran nearly every step of the race with teammate Claire Beautz before pulling away in the final stretch. She said that she felt good about the race and was happy to be getting back to where she wants to be.

An interesting race for third place transpired between Einstein freshman Victoria Cabellos and Walter Johnson's Nathalie Kirsch. Cabellos chased after the Poolesville pair for the first mile while Kirsch held back by five seconds. The two would swap positions three times over the remainder of the race with Kirsch finishing third in 20:06 and Cabellos in 20:19.

Following the race, Einstein Coach Eric DaSilva told Cabellos that she was the fastest runner from Einstein High School in 20 years, to which she stared back at him with no emotion.

"...and you have no idea what that means," DaSilva concluded. "You are like the female Nick Simpson."

The entire Einstein girls team is collectively performing like no Einstein team in the last 20 years as evidenced by the wins over Poolesville and Walter Johnson. Einstein's #2-4 runners finished between 20:50 and 21:05. #5 ran 21:59.

Chase Weaverling notched a commanding victory over many of Montgomery County's top runners. He said that he was pretty scared at first, but he ran pretty even five minute miles through the first two miles. His lead was only 5 seconds at the first mile but grew to 25 seconds by the second mile. Weaverling was chasing the course record while Nick Simpson settled into second position, seemingly satisfied to put his team in position to win over WJ.

The Einstein boys were coming off a victory in the 'A' race at the William and Mary Invitational and knew that today they were up against the best team in Montgomery County in Walter Johnson.

The Walter Johnson boys were confident they could win but knew that Einstein was not a team they could play around with.

WJ Coach Tom Martin said, "If we didn't put enough people between their number 2 and 3 we would have been in trouble."

No WJ runner was able to catch Einstein's top two of Simpson and Ben Withbroe, but a half dozen green jersey's hovered around Einstein's #3 man Ryan Henderson throughout the race. WJ took 4th through 9th place overall to easily declare victory over the other teams, and took 11th, 12th and 13th place just for good measure.

The course was surprisingly dry after a rainy day yesterday. The sun was out and the breeze was blowing slightly with temperatures in the 70's. One might say that the course conditions were nearly perfect for a fall race. The Einstein coaches ran the course after the meet with two GPS watches. They measured the course to be 3.03 miles.

Note that the dual meet course is different from the county championship course layout which was used only once in 2002. Ashley St. Denis, who won the county championship race at John Poole Middle School 10 years ago, was present for today's race as Walter Johnson's assistant coach.