Wood's Konyar shine in girls' district meet

WINCHESTER — The Millbrook girls’ cross country team was pretty dominant in winning the four-team City-County meet on Sept. 18 at Sherando Park by taking five of the top seven spots.

In a bigger meet with bigger stakes, the Pioneers were even more impressive on Wednesday at the seven-team Class 4 Northwestern District meet.

Millbrook runners took every place from second though sixth at the Third Battle of Winchester Course to win by a whopping 48 points (20-68) over runner-up James Wood.

Colonels’ junior Kenzie Konyar, who won the individual title by 28 seconds with a time of 18:51, was the only person who stood in the way of a perfect score of 15 for Millbrook. The Pioneers won their first postseason title since winning the Conference 21 West championship in 2015.

Senior Kaycee Cox-Philyaw led the way for the Pioneers with a 19:19, and she was followed by freshman Madison Smith (19:30), freshman Lina Guerrero (19:39), senior Sophie Edlich (19:42) and senior Maddie Lloyd (19:42).

“[Second through sixth] is what we were hoping for,” Millbrook coach Kevin Shirk said. “We were thinking Kaycee might be able to mix it up with Kenzie because she was eight seconds behind her at Third Battle, and we thought maybe she’d be close today. But the goal was to finish with 20 points, and that’s what we did. We had a 23-second split one through five, which is phenomenal. So I’m really happy with how we did.”

“That was incredible,” said Cox-Philyaw of the team performance. “I’m really happy with that.”

The top four teams in Wednesday’s meet and any individual who finished in the top 15 advanced to next Wednesday’s Region 4C meet at the Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg.

Handley (third with 82 points) and Fauquier (fourth with 93) also qualified. Sherando took fifth with 93 points, but will send two individuals to regionals in sophomore Molly Robinson (ninth in 19:46) and senior Camryn Ubert (15th in 20:13).

James Wood’s Konyar won the Conference 21 West title as a freshman, but she took second to former Fauquier runner Kyra Holland at last year’s district meet.

Cox-Philyaw was step-for-step with Konyar through the first 1.5 miles, each coming through in 9:20. But Konyar emerged out of the trees a short time later around the two-mile mark with an almost 30-meter lead on Cox-Philyaw.

“I didn’t really have a set time in mind, but I felt good [at a mile and a half], and I just went for it,” Konyar said. “The last half-mile felt great. It was almost hard not to smile, because it feels so good coming through here winning. I didn’t win last year, so it’s kind of nice to be back [as a postseason champion].”

Cox-Philyaw said she felt pretty good about her chances at the halfway point, but when Konyar surged with about 400 meters before the two-mile mark her body didn’t have the strength to follow.

“My legs weren’t feeling great, and I was listening to my legs instead of my head,” Cox-Philyaw said. “I just fell apart.”

Konyar’s performance led a strong James Wood effort. Other scoring runners for the Colonels were freshman Elena Farinholt (12th in 20:03), senior Haley Witt (13th in 20:07), freshman Lauren Beatty (18th in 20:41) and junior Shannon Mulvaney (24th in 20:59).

“They all pulled together as a team,” James Wood coach Mike Onda said. “They’re working really hard and training really hard.”

Handley was led on Wednesday by senior Kenzi Fergus (seventh in 19:43, senior Riley Fisher (eighth in 19:46), junior Kendall Felix (10th in 19:51), junior Sally Sydnor (28th in 21:14) and senior Melanie Morgan (29th in 21:15).

“I’m really pleased,” Handley coach Emily Budnyk-Putt said. “Our goal was to race strong here. Fast courses are not really our forte. I think we’re better and more aggressive on the courses with a little more challenging hills, so that’s why we’re excited about Oatlands next week.

“Our goal was to be as close as we could be to James Wood. They beat us by 50 or 60 points today, so we were down to 14 today in a smaller meet. You never know what can happen in regionals. We’ve learned that many times, so we’re going to go after it next week.”

Sherando coach Megan Roberts was pleased with her two regional qualifiers.

“Molly really went for it. She’s got a new PR by 15 seconds,” she said. “And Camryn cracking the top 15 was great. She was surprised with herself, so today was really nice for her.”

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