Glenvar runners swept the Class 2 state cross country individual titles last Saturday on a beautiful fall day at Roanoke County’s Green Hill Park. Senior Carly Wilkes won the girls’ title, then Daniel Zearfoss won the boys’ medal in the final race of the day amidst the fall colors and crisp Virginia air.
For Wilkes, it was her 17th state championship as either an individual performer, part of a relay team or member of a state championship track or swim team. She’ll have some more chances as she now turns to indoor track and swimming with spring track still on the agenda for the talented senior, who was also named Homecoming Queen at a recent Glenvar fooball game.
Carly was battling back from an injury this fall, but that didn’t keep her from easily winning the Region 2C title on November 3rd with a time of 19:06. She wasn’t all that happy with the time, but was pleased with how she was recovering.
“It was an overuse thing, affecting my sciatic nerve,” she said. “I just took some time off from running and just swam, then I changed my workouts a little. I felt really good on Saturday.”
Running the same course, Carly improved her time to 17:47.4 in winning the state. She was about a minute and 40 seconds faster than the second place finisher, Abigail Rhudy of Tazewell.
“It was hard to push myself running all alone,” said Wilkes. “It’s hard to run my best without a motivating factor.”
What did she think about as she left the pack in her dust?
“I was just trying to get as close to the motocycle as I could,” she said, referring to Salem’s Tony Wirt, who led the race on his motorcycle to make sure no one took a wrong turn.
By the time Carly hit the final turn no one but the fans in the home stretch could see anyone but the cycle and Wilkes, so the rest of the field was on their own. Glenvar finished ninth as a team with Wilkes leading the way. Sophomore Joanna Killeen was next for the Highlanders in 35th place and also scoring were junior Molly McCroskey in 58th, Emma Pope in 70th and Emma Speight in 94th. Clarke County took the team championship and two Three Rivers District teams were next, Radford and Floyd.
The boys’ race followed and Glenvar had two boys running as individuals, senior Daniel Zearfoss and junior Davis Norman. Zearfoss had a little more competition in senior George Austin of East Rockingham, who won the state as a sophomore, and junior Cyrus Hartig of Radford, who was the runnerup to Daniel in the Region 2C meet at Green Hill Park just 11 days prior.
The three were close for much of the race as Wirt led the three-some on his cycle with the rest of the field running almost a minute behind. Then Daniel started to pull away.
“I ran behind them for the first two miles but somewhere in that last mile I decided it was time to pull away,” he said. “When I hit that last corner I knew it was time to go.”
Zearfoss finished in 16:20.8, 12 seconds ahead of Austin and 15 seconds ahead of Hartig. He gave out a shout as he crossed the line with his first state championship after winning the region in 2018, ’19 and ’21.
Glenvar’s Norman had a good race as well, finishing in 26th place with a time of 17:59. Union High won the team championship with Clarke County second.
“Daniel has been chasing after a state cross country title since his freshman year and was able to achieve his goal his senior season,” said Glenvar coach Amanda Spradlin. “Joanna had an impressive victory as she had run a new personal record at the Region 2C Championships on November 3rd and then managed to shave off another 30 seconds at the State Meet. I could not be more proud of all Glenvar’s runners. They truly have pushed themselves to new limits this season and I’m hopeful we can keep this momentum going into next year.”
The next order of business for Carly and Daniel will be the Footlocker Eastybay South Regional Girls and Boys Championship races on November 27th near Charlotte, NC. The top eight will advance to a national race in San Diego, CA on December 11.
“That’s my goal, it’s an all expenses paid trip,” said Wilkes, who will be running for Furman University next year. “It went from the top 10 to the top eight this year so it got a little tougher.”
Wilkes has been training with her personal coach, Justin Adams. Her best previous 3K time was 17:26 but, with a little competition, she feels she can run faster.
“I’m in shape to run faster than that,” she said. “My coach thinks I can run as fast as 17:05, and I’d like to get in the 16s.”
She’s also considering running in a national meet in Alabama on December 4th.
“That’s a big meet and it’s a fast course,” she said. “A lot of it depends on how I do in North Carolina. If I make the San Diego race that would be three big races on three weekends in a row.”
