Third Battle Invitational

WINCHESTER — The Millbrook girls’ cross country team might not have added to its string of first-place finishes on Saturday, but the Pioneers achieved an impressive first nonetheless.

Millbrook earned a trophy at its own Third Battle Invitational for the first time since the meet was expanded to 30-plus teams in 2013. The Pioneers never finished higher than ninth from 2013-17, but they took third at the 32-team girls’ meet on the 3.1-mile Third Battle of Winchester course on Saturday.

The Pioneers led all local teams with a ninth-place finish last year, when only one local girls’ runner, James Wood’s Kenzie Konyar, earned a medal for placing in the top 20. Led by Konyar (12th in 18:47.3), four local girls earned medals on Saturday. The junior was followed by Millbrook senior Kaycee Cox-Philyaw (16th in 18:55.9) and Clarke County seniors Madison Webster (17th in 18:56.9) and Skylar Bragg (20th in 19:07.2).

On Saturday, the Pioneers finished only behind West Springfield (third at the Class 6 state meet last year), whose top five accounted for 59 points, and Loudoun Valley (second in Class 4 last year), which scored 89 points.

Millbrook and Tuscarora, whose Ava Hassebrock won the race by 23 seconds in a time of 17:45.5, finished with the same number of points (162). But the Pioneers were awarded third because the depth that head coach Kevin Shirk has been raving about since the beginning of the season came through again. The Pioneers won the tiebreaker with Tuscarora because its No. 6 runner on Saturday, senior Emily Muldowney, finished 28 places ahead of the Huskies’ No. 6 runner.

Muldowney even finished eight spots higher than the Huskies’ No. 5 runner in helping Millbrook add to its impressive collection of awards.

The Pioneers have won four or their last five major competitions after opening the season with a second-place finish at the Central Invitational.

“The only meet we haven’t taken a trophy home is from the RVA Relays [the Pioneers finished fourth], which is a relay-style meet,” said Shirk, Millbrook’s ninth-year head coach. “Any regular race, we’ve actually gone home with a team trophy of some kind. That’s something I’m really happy with.

“I think [the team] is getting more and more confident as the year goes on. Looking into the postseason, we feel good going into the district, we feel good going into the regional meet. I feel like we’re stacking up really good for the state meet even. We know Blacksburg and Loudoun Valley are going to be ranked ahead of the state meet, but our girls are looking really strong. This is the best I’ve ever seen a full team, one though seven or eight runners, from Millbrook. This is by far the deepest team we’ve ever had.”

On a cool day in which the most popular phrase seemed to be “PR” because of the vast number of personal records that were set, each of Millbrook’s top six girls ran their season-best times on Saturday.

Senior Maddie Lloyd (28th in 19:20.9), freshman Lina Guerrero (37th in 19:34.3), senior Sophie Edlich (38th in 19:35.6), freshman Madison Smith (43rd in 19:41.2) and Muldowney (45th in 19:42.8) ranked fifth through ninth in terms of the area’s fastest runners on Saturday.

“We knew the freshmen would be fast, but we didn’t expect them to do this well,” Cox-Philyaw said. “I’m really happy and proud of them, because it’s made our team a lot better as a whole. This year has been amazing, and I think this year is going to get even better.”

Cox-Philyaw had a lot to be pleased about with her own performance as well. She finished 36 seconds faster than she ran at Third Battle last year, and she improved on her season-best time by 47 seconds.

“I haven’t progressed as fast as I want to this year,” Cox-Philyaw said. “Before races I’ll get a lot of anxiety. Today’s race was just about staying relaxed the entire time and letting everything go, and just racing.”

Konyar said her best time this year was around 20:10 heading into Saturday.

“I’m so happy,” Konyar said. “I ran really well. I hadn’t been running well this year. I feel like this is definitely a good sign for the postseason, knowing that I just had a season-best time in the last regular-season race of the year.”

Konyar was the top runner among the five Class 4 Northwestern District schools on Saturday, with only Handley and Liberty not in attendance. The district meet will take place on Oct. 24 at the Third Battle of Winchester Course.

Konyar led James Wood to 10th (302 points), Webster and Bragg led Clarke County to 13th (402) and Sherando placed 21st (548). Molly Robinson paced the Warriors by placing 74th in 20:16.2.

Loudoun Valley — which won the Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon last year and is the three-time defending Class 4 state champions — took six of the first seven spots in the boys’ race and won with 18 points, 117 more than West Springfield. University of Washington commit Sam Affolder (14:59.6) won the race by 17 seconds over teammate Jacob Hunter.

Millbrook led the local boys’ teams by placing 13th out of 37 teams with 369 points. Pioneers senior John Pullen was the top local finisher (26th in 16:17.9). Rounding out the team’s scoring five was senior Brad Hambrick (63rd in 16:47), junior Silas Schroer (88th in 17:04.7), senior Justin Sharp (90th in 17:05.2) and senior Dylan Wallace (110th in 17:15.9).

The Pioneers finished behind Class 4 Northwestern District rival Fauquier (ninth with 289 points) but Shirk was pleased to beat another strong team in James Wood (16th with 418). All seven of Shirk’s runners in the varsity race had PRs.

“We know we’re not going to be towards the top of the state meet or anything like that, but we keep our eye on regional competition and the local schools,” Shirk said. “It will be interesting to see how we stack up with them at the district meet.

“The good thing with our boys’ team is we have a lot of depth. Our one through 10 guys today went under 18 minutes, which is probably the best we’ve ever had here. And we get to [enter] 10 at the district meet. Hopefully with our depth, if anyone has a bad day, that’s one of strengths, that we can fill in the gaps.”

James Wood was led by Nathan Shade (58th in 16:46.1). Sherando took 26th and was paced by junior Ty Waits (34th in 16:21) and sophomore James Harris (36th in 16:27.6). Clarke County took 34th was led by senior Connor Hanson (103rd in 17:14.2).

Fans are not charged to attend the meet, but donations are accepted for the battlefield. Shirk said $7,023.53 will be donated to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation. That figure tops last year’s previous record donation total of $6,348.

For more coverage of Saturday’s meet, see Tuesday’s edition of The Winchester Star.

— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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