Girls’ Cross Country Runner Of The Year: James Wood’s Sophia Dorsey

Posted: December 11, 2014
By ROBERT STOCKS
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Even though James Wood sophomore Sophia Dorsey added swimming to her list of varsity sports this season, there’s no question that cross country remains her favorite.

And although she’s only been running competitively for two seasons, Dorsey definitely made her mark in her second varsity season.

She finished as the first area runner at every invitational she entered, and she also finished as the top area runner in all three postseason races — the Conference 21 championship (fourth, 19 minutes, 57 seconds), the 4A North Regional (11th, 20:22 seconds) and the VHSL 4A state championship (17th, 19:38).

Dorsey earned All-Conference 21 and All-4A North Region honors (by placing in the top 15 in both) and only missed all-state honors by two places at the 4A state meet.

With her standout sophomore season, Dorsey is The Winchester Star’s Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year.

“It was just a real pleasure to see her progress throughout the season,” said James Wood cross country coach Mike Onda, who noted Dorsey improved her time by about 30 seconds from her freshman year. “She was fairly consistent and then toward the end of the season she was really able to improve her times a lot. I think it just really showed how all the hard work is really just starting to come together and pay off.”

Dorsey finished in the top 40 in every invitational she entered. She was the top local runner at the Glory Days Invitational on Oct. 11, finishing 36th (20:29) in a field of 188 runners. At the 33-team Third Battle Invitational at Millbrook on Oct. 18, she finished as the top local runner, taking 21st out of 224 runners with a new personal record time of 19:26.

Dorsey said running a sub-20 minute time was one of her season goals.

“I really wasn’t sure how I was going to do this season and I was just really hoping to get back into the 19’s again,” Dorsey said. “At the Millbrook race I actually got my best time ever and it was the first time I had broken 20 [minutes] this season and I was really happy with it. I think I just really sort of wanted to prove myself again, so I just gave it everything [at Third Battle].”

Dorsey, who attended Powhatan School in Boyce from kindergarten up until her freshman year at James Wood, also runs track and joined the swimming team this season, but she says she enjoys cross country the most.

“Cross country would definitely have to be my favorite,” Dorsey said. “I just love being [outdoors] and running on all terrain versus a track where I’m just doing laps.”

The different terrain didn’t seem to bother Dorsey, who showed she could run well on both the faster, flat tracks like Millbrook’s Third Battle course and also perform well on more hilly courses like Kernstown Battlefield — the site of both the conference and regional races.

At the Conference 21 meet on a chilly and rainy afternoon, Dorsey not only finished as the first local runner but the only area runner to clock a sub-20 minute time (19:57) to take fourth place. At the 4A state meet at Great Meadow, she turned in her second best time of the season, finishing 12 seconds off her PR.

“I think her best race time-wise was Third Battle because that was her PR in 19:26, but I think her most competitive race was the state championship,” Onda said. “She was only a few seconds off that [PR] and she ran a 19:38 but against a much tougher field and I just think she raced real well there.”

Onda said Dorsey does a nice job in the lead role on a young James Wood team that will return its entire top seven next year.

“She’s the No. 1 and she’s the best runner and she sets a really good example,” Onda said. “She works real hard in practice and she’s very pleasant to be around. She gets along real well with all of the other girls and they just seem to have a really good team dynamic.”

Dorsey said qualifying for the state meet will be one of her goals again next season.

“The competition is going to be different and it was pretty tough this year, but hopefully I’ll be back out there racing [at state],” said Dorsey, a two-time state qualifier. “I’m going to try my hardest to place better than this year.”

With Dorsey only being a sophomore, Onda said there’s no reason she shouldn’t improve with two more varsity seasons remaining.

“The continued cumulative effect of the training that she’s going to have over the next year and just her natural ability and talents — you throw those two together you’re really going to see some improvement next year and the next two years,” Onda said. “There’s a lot of tough competition in the state when you look at the top girl is also just a sophomore — the one from E.C. Glass Libby Davidson [who won the 4A state championship] — so she’s got that to face but she’s still competing well in her own right. She’s progressing real well.”

With no seniors on the roster this year, Dorsey, who said competing for the Colonels’ swim team is good cross training for her running, hopes her team can qualify for the state meet in one of the next two seasons.

“I think this year we were really close as a team and I think that helped us motivate each other,” said Dorsey, the lone state qualifier from James Wood’s girls’ team this season. “States is always the ultimate goal for us and since we’re not losing anybody we have a lot to gain. I would be so happy to have the whole team there and we really, really want it. It would be so great and I would just be so happy.”

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