Graham Blanks, Sasha Neglia Win NXR Southeast Championship Races

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

The Jungle TC (Loudoun Valley VA) is returning to Nike Cross Nationals next week in Portland, but this time to the girls are going, too. 

The teams coached by Joan and Marc Hunter ran to a program sweep on Saturday in cold, wet conditions at the NXR Southwest at Wake Med Soccer Complex in North Carolina.

RESULTS | RACE VIDEOS

The boys, two-time reigning national champions, scored 80 points to win the regional for the third straight year. 

Carlos Shultz finished fifth and Kellen Hasle was 14th overall to lead the way for the boys. 

The girls team went even lower, with 71 points, with Ava Gordon running to fourth place and Ricky Fetterolf taking eighth. 

Joining the Loudoun Valley teams as auto qualifers to nationals are the boys from Western Albemarle VA and the girls from Pine Crest FL. 

Western Albemarle, running as the Crozet Crew, earned its first berth to the NXN championship. The team scored a perfect 15 points to win the Virginia Class 3A title two weeks ago and put up 116 on Saturday to beat Severna Park MD (146) and West Springfield VA (238). 

Pine Crest FL, running as Panther Nation, is returning to nationals after edging out Chapel Hill NC by four points, 134-138. Dobyns-Bennett TN was fourth. 

Tsion Yared led Panther Nation with a fourth-place finish. 

Chapel Hill put six runners inside Panther Nation's No. 5, who finished 127th overall. The Panthers' gap from No. 4 to No. 5 runners was 71 second and 93 places. 

Individually, Graham Blanks, the Great American Cross Country Festival winner, won the boys championship race in 14:57.7, about 12 seconds slower on the same course that he ran on in better conditions on Oct. 5. 

Behind him, Sean Stuck from West Springfield VA was second in 15:02.4 and Sully Shelton from Harrison GA was third in 15:03.1. Ian Harrison of Panther Creek NC (Catamount XC) was fourth in 15:05.9. Shultz was fifth and Justin Wilson, a sophomore from Satellite FL (Wickham Park DP) was sixth.

Sasha Neglia, the Tennessee Division 1 state champion from Dobyns-Bennett, won the girls race for the second year in a row, in 17:02.5. 

Athena Young (17:04) and Lea Hatcher (17:34), the 1-2 punch for Morgantown WV, finished second and third and qualified to go to NXN together. 

Hannah Miniutti from Blessed Trinity GA and Kaitlynn Wolfe from Blacksburg VA are also in line to advance as individuals after placing sixth and seventh. Wolfe has been to NXN three times already as a member of her team.