In their first NTN experience, the Midlothian XC Club girls of Virginia had some growing pains. Luckily for them, only one runner graduates from their top seven in senior M.C. Miller. The team\'s usual number two or three runner, Miller, fell midway through the race and broke her arm. She was never able to recover and faltered to a 97th place finish in 21:55 as the team\'s sixth finisher. The team from Midlothian finished 10th overall in the team standings with 255 points. A considerable point swing could have occured in their favor without the fall from Miller. The Virginia team was led by the freshmen Lautzenheiser twins Kathleen (22nd, 20:21) and Leia (27th, 20:35) with top 30 finishes. Midlothian sophomore Paige Johnston (59th, 21:06) and junior Samantha Dow (61st, 21:08) moved up in the field after slow starts, but not far enough while freshmen Amy Witt (86th, 21:39) rounded the team\'s scoring. Not the day wanted by the Virginia 3A state champion and Eastern States Champ at Manhattan in October against the three Northeast teams, who took three of the top four places at NTN.
The bright spot for Midlothian and the Southeast boys was the individual run by junior Jason Witt. Witt, who was considred as an outside hopeful at qualifying for Footlocker Nationals, finished 15th last weekend in Charlotte at Footlocker South. Witt came back one week later to race at Nike Team Nationals and put together his greatest race of the season and it did not exactly start out smoothly. The boys championship race had a major spill that included dozens of runners within the first quarter mile and first turn of the race and Witt went down in the middle of it. \"Mentally that was a hard blow at the start because you always visualize a perfect race or start and get out where you want to be. I was way back and I had never been in that position before,\" said Witt. Witt handled the new position well in getting stuck behind early and in tough footing to move up through, Witt continued to pick runners off throughout the race and until he found himself finishing seventh overall in 16:51. The Midlothian junior was eight seconds off two-time Footlocker qualifier Colby Lowe from Carroll XC Club (Southlake Carroll TX), who finished fourth overall in 16:43 in Portland. Lowe had finished 18 seconds of Witt at Footlocker South with a 7th place run. The whole race including the last 200 meters, I was still working my way up.
However, Nike Team National is a team event and Midlothian has a team took a so-so finish of 14th place. Not great in looking at the team\'s optimstic expectations coming in, but not awful either consider the outsider\'s expectations of the team. The next four finishers for Midlothian were closely packed in their finish with only 14 seconds separating them, but the small spread does a team no good when those finishers are the in back half of a competitive team field such as NTN with Mark Merritt (70th, 17:58.7), Jonathan Mellis (74th, 18:03), Michael Hammond (8th, 18:11), and Tommy Reese (87th, 18:12). Four of the top six finishers for Midlothian will be returning next year including top ten finisher Witt, so if they are able to make a return trip to Oregon, they will have some valuable experience on their roster. \"The guys said they felt good, so whatever position we end up, we\'ll be happy with. Hopefully we can make it back next year and improve upon that performance,\" said top finisher Witt.