MoCoRunning






FLNE and NXR Thoughts
By: Kevin Milsted
Sunday, November 27, 2016
webmaster@mocorunning.com

It was an historic day on Saturday when Rohann Asfaw of Richard Montgomery High School and Abigail Green of Walter Johnson High School each qualified for high school cross country national championship meets.

NXN Southeast Regional

Rohann Asfaw of Richard Montgomery High School became the second male runner from Montgomery County to qualify for NXN. The first was Andrew Palmer who qualified twice in 2008 and 2009 with times of 15:16 and 15:21.5. Asfaw ran 15:15 on Saturday which makes him the new fastest all-time performer from Montgomery County on the Cary, North Carolina NXR (Nike Cross Regional) 5k course.

Other top performers from NXR were Yasmine Kass of Paint Branch High School whose performance of 18:40.1 ranks 7th all-time among Montgomery County runners, and Adam Nakasaka of B-CC whose performance of 15:55.2 ranks 15th all-time among Montgomery County runners.

The four-time state champion Walter Johnson girls team competed without their #1 runner, Abigail Green and finished 17th of 30 teams in the seeded girls race.

The complete list of NXN qualifiers from Montgomery County remains a short one. Just four individual athletes and no teams have qualified for NXN, now in the meet's tenth year of running qualifying races.

Andrew Palmer, Whitman 		2008, 2009
Jessie Rubin, Wootton 		2009
Nora McUmber, B-CC		2013
Rohann Asfaw, RM		2016


The list of Top Montgomery County Performers at the NXN Southeast Regional is here.

Footlocker Northeast Regional

Abigail Green of Walter Johnson High School became the second female from Montgomery County to ever qualify for Footlocker Nationals. The only other Montgomery County girl to qualify for Footlocker was Sally Glynn of Walter Johnson High School, who, despite winning four cross-country state titles, only qualified for Footlocker Nationals once in 1994.

The list of male and female Footlocker/Kinney Nationals qualifiers from Montgomery County is still a very short list.

Pascal Dobert, Whitman		1991
Sally Glynn, Walter Johnson	1994
Solomon Haile, Sherwood		2008
Abigail Green, Walter Johnson	2016


The list of male and female Footlocker/Kinney Nationals qualifiers from Maryland is short enough that I will post here:

Maryland Footlocker Finalists All-Time

Boys 1979-Present
==================
1983	John Scherer 		12 Dayton, MD Glenelg HS
1983	Charles Cole 		12 Chaptico, MD
1991	Pascal Dobert 		12 Walt Whitman Bethesda, MD
1995	Cory Smith 		12 Calvert Hall Phoenix, MD
1995	Nick Gramsky 		12 Northern Chesapeake Beach, MD
2001	Ben Stern 		12 Georgetown Day School Potomac, MD (Lived in MD, School in DC)
2006	Matthew Centrowitz 	12 Broadneck High School Arnold, MD
2008	Solomon Haile 		12 Sherwood H.S. Silver Spring, MD
2009	Cory Puffett 		12 DeMatha HS UpperMarlboro, MD
2016	Dalton Hengst 		11 McDonough, York PA (Lived in PA, School in MD)
2016	William Merritt 	12 Smithsburg, HD, Smithsburg, MD

Girls 1979-Present
===============
1990 	Amanda White 		10 Dulaney Cockeysville, MD
1991 	Amanda White		11 Dulaney Cockeysville, MD
1992 	Amanda White 		12 Dulaney Cockeysville, MD
1994 	Sally Glynn 		11 Walter Johnson Rockville, MD
1994 	Kristen Nicolini 	12 Annapolis, MD
2006 	Alison Smith 		12 Atholton H.S. Columbia , MD
2011 	Hannah Oneda 		12 Winters Mill H.S. Westminster , MD
2015 	Maria Coffin 		11 Annapolis H.S. Annapolis MD
2016	Maria Coffin 		12 Annapolis H.S. Annapolis MD
2016	Hayley Jackson		12 Patuxent HS, Lusby, MD
2016	Abigail Green		11 Walter Johnson, Bethesda, MD
2016	Julien Webster		12 Catoctin HS, Thurmont, MD


As you can see from the lists above, it is rare for a Maryland athlete to qualify for Footlocker Nationals. It is even rarer for a male and female from Maryland to qualify in the same year (1991, 2006). For two males and four females from Maryland to qualify in 2016 is nothing short of an explosion.

For four girls from Maryland and one girl from Washington DC to qualify for FLN with another Maryland girl in 13th place is unprecedented. I tried to pinpoint a comparable performance by Maryland ladies at Footlocker Regionals.

Maryland had a running boom in the early-to-mid 90's which included a Footlocker National title by Dulaney's Amanda White in 1992 and a runner-up performance by Sally Glynn in 1994. Star runners Kristen Nicolini (Annapolis), Christy Nichols (Arundel), and Krissy Jost (Perry Hall) contributed to the boom with track and cross country performances that put Maryland on the national map. Those five runners still dominate Maryland state record books to this day, but they were sometimes in different classifications and didn't always race well on the same day.

Even with all that talent, there was only one year prior to this year when two Maryland girls qualified for Footlocker Nationals out of the same race (1994). I checked out 1992 and 1994 and mostly every year since then (I couldn't find 1993). Rarely did Maryland have five girls in the top fifty at the meet. 1994 seemed to produce the strongest Maryland performance in Footlocker Regionals history with three girls in the top ten (only the top eight individuals qualified for FLN then).

1994 Footlocker Northeast Regional
================================================
2. Sally Glynn, Walter Johnson, 	17:25
8. Kristen Nicolini, Annapolis, 	18:16
10. Christy Nichols, Arundel, 		18:29
17. Jacquelyn Hayes, Linganore, 	18:41 
33. Suzy Burr, R. Montgomery, 		19:12

2016 Footlocker Northeast Regional
================================================
3. Maria Coffin, Annapolis 	MD 	17:59.8 
5. Page Lester, Washington 	DC 	18:04.7 
6. Hayley Jackson, Lusby 	MD 	18:05.1 
9. Abigail Green, Bethesda 	MD 	18:08.2 
10. Julien Webster, Thurmont 	MD 	18:08.8 
13. Kelly Wesolowski, White Hall MD 	18:29.7


I throw in Page Lester of National Cathedral School because she is this year's DC-MD state champ and she competes in most of the same meets as MoCo and Maryland teams throughout the year. The times from Van Cortlandt Park course are not exactly comparable because the course has changed around a bit over 22 years, but I'd say that we are experiencing the new golden era of girls distance running in Maryland.

One tradition that I enjoy is checking out the Footlocker Regional team scoring by state. It is rarely acknowledged in this area and probably not much cared about even among states that top the standings. The focus of the meet is on the individuals, but Footlocker has been scoring the Footlocker regional results for a long time.

For a Maryland cross-country fan, nothing is more eye-opening than checking those Footlocker Regional team standings for the first time to see that Maryland's all-star crew of public and private school champions finished outside of the top five. You realize that some of our headline-grabbing state champions in Maryland don't even crack the top 50 when matched up against an elite Northeast field. That's when you realize that America is a very big place, and there is a next level of elite that you couldn't previously fathom.

And so I have checked the Footlocker Regional team standings year-after-year for about fifteen years with decreasing expectations. Maryland can't compete with New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, but did we at least beat Delaware, Vermont, and Maine?

In 2016, Maryland did the unthinkable. The Maryland girls won the team scoring in the seeded race at the Footlocker Northeast Regional. Certainly the rival NXN meet has something to do watering down the Footlocker Regional Meet since 2007, but NXN is not that new anymore. Maryland girls cleaned up this year like never before. If they weren't running like teammates, I have to believe that seeing so many familiar faces in the lead pack helped Maryland rise to the challenge. Now, thousands of Maryland running fans will get to tune in to see familiar faces like never before when it is webcast on December 10.






NameComments

Charles
Sunday, November 27, 2016
07:11:43 PM
Great article. I am looking forward to seeing how all of our local runners do at nationals.

Faith Li
Sunday, November 27, 2016
10:37:23 PM
Go rohann ! ! !


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