THE SPORTS DESK
Prep Cross Country Notepad: Bears await tuneup for districts
The Riverbend cross country team isn’t concerned about where it will place in today’s All-Area meet at Fredericksburg Christian School.
Bears coach Brian Treakle said his runners will mostly be competing against themselves.
Senior Will Young has established himself as Riverbend’s No. 1 runner this season. Still, Young is tightly bunched with nine other standouts.
The problem is that just seven runners can compete in next Thursday’s Commonwealth District meet at Willowmere Park in Stafford County.
Treakle said he doesn’t look forward to telling his team which runners will be left out of the district meet. But he said the competition has made the Bears a stronger program as they’ve focused on a “pack mentality.”
“The guys understand they’re running for a team,” Treakle said. “I preached from the beginning of the season that if you look at [runners] eight through 12 on good teams, they’re just as strong as the others. The top seven can always change.”
Treakle said whoever doesn’t run in the district meet will know they played a big part in the team’s success.
The Bears placed second in the Chancellor Invitational on Sept. 1. They won the Pole Green Classic the following weekend at Lee–Davis High in Mechanicsville.
“It got the guys motivated right from the start,” Treakle said of his team’s early success. “Any time you can have success early it keeps you motivated throughout the season.”
Those meets were run on Saturday mornings. Today’s All-Area contest represents the first opportunity for the Bears to compete in the afternoon following a school day. That’s the same setup as the district meet, so Treakle said he’s eager to see how his team responds.
Bruce Garth, Jacob O’Campo, Nate Lasker and Garrett Horne round out the Bears’ top five—as of now.
“I’m very comfortable running 10 guys,” Treakle said. “This is the deepest team we’ve ever had.”
—Taft Coghill
