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Lightning Running Club National Runner-Up 9/10 Year Old Girls 3 km Team Champions. Pictured (left to right)
Sara Danner, Rachel Hall, Olivia Geisler, Nandini Satsangi (Age 9/10 Overall National Runner-up), Brin Strouse (Age 9/10 Overall National Champion), Emily Baba (Age 9 National Champion), Taylor Hardesty, Alexandra Dean, Katie Desotell, and Michaela Redman (missing).
Picture courtesy of Lightning Running Club (Coach Darcy Strouse).

Huntington, WV, November, 19, 2011 – Competing against the best youth runners and clubs in the country on challenging cross country courses that included a steep hill climb, Maryland’s Frederick-based Lightning Running Club (LRC) youth runners raced their way to top individual and team national honors at the Cross Country Coaches National Youth Championships (CCCNYC) in Huntington,

West Virginia. Competing at the meet venue for the West Virginia state high school cross country championships, their harrier accomplishments included five individual national championships and two top 3 national team championship awards.

In individual age-group competition, 10 year old Brin Strouse from Urbana won her third overall national youth cross country championship in a row, finishing 34 seconds ahead of the rest of the field in the Bantam girls (ages 9/10) 3,000 meter race with a time of 11:38. Her teammate, Nandini Satsangi, from Germantown, finished second overall in 12:12 earning the National Runner-up award for 10 year old girls. In the same race, Emily Baba (12:40) from New Market was the 9 year old girls’ National Champion and finished 8th overall in the Bantam girls’ race. In the Bantam boys’ 3,000 meter race, Tamrat Snyder from Gaithersburg, was the National Champion for 9 year old boys and 2nd overall in the Bantam boys’ race with a time of 11:21. Ben Lausch (11:58) from Mount Airy was 5th in the nation among 9 year old boys.

Nathan Davis, also from Urbana, earned LRC’s 4th individual National Championship, finishing first among 11 year old boys in 10:44 in the Midget (ages 11/12) boys’ 3,000 meter race. And, one of LRC’s youngest cross country runners competing in the meet, Sydney O’Clery, age 6 from Mount Airy, was the 6 year old girls National Champion with a time of 9:38 in the Primary (ages 6 – 8) 2,000 meter race.

Overall, LRC XC had a total of 28 national medalists (top 25) in individual age-group competition:

Primary 6-year old girls: 1. Sydney O’Clery (9:38)

Primary 7-year old girls: 9. Abigail Acton (9:57); 13. Julia Solano (10:47); 15.Gabriella Papillo (11:08)

Primary 7-year old boys: 7. Max Baba (9:06); 10. Nick Redman (9:14)

Bantam 9-year old girls: 1. Emily Baba (12:40); 7. Taylor Hardesty (13:25); 14. Rachel Hall (14:06); 15. Alexandra Dean (14:10)

Bantam 10-year old girls: 1. Brin Strouse (11:38) [Overall 9/10 Champion]; 2. Nandini Satsangi (12:12) [Overall 9/10 Runner-up]; 21. Olivia Geisler (13:24);
25. Sara Danner (13:35)

Bantam 9-year old boys: 1. Tamrat Snyder (11:21) [Overall 9/10 Runner-up]; 5. Ben Lausch (11:58); 16. Roman LaRocco (12:46)

Bantam 10-year old boys: 24. Ben Dill (12:46)

Midget 11-year old girls: 12. Ashlin Davis (12:43)

Midget 11-year old boys: 1. Nathan Davis (10:45); 11. Ryan Lockett (11:42); 22. Alex Seidel (12:15)

Midget 12-year old boys: 13. Alec Coleman (11:26)

Youth 13-year old girls (4,000 meter race): 12. Jennifer Simmons (16:20)

Youth 14-year old girls: 19. Olivia Lowman (16:34)

Intermediate ages 15/16 boys (5,000 meter race): 10. Ben Freed (16:55)

Race of the Americas age 6 and under 800 meter Run: Girls – 5. Annabel Geisler (age 6) [3:51]; Boys – 9. Matthew Acton (age 4 – first 4 year old!) [4:03]

In age-group team competition, the LRC Bantam (age 9/10) girls’ team led by Brin Strouse, Nandini Satsangi, and Emily Baba and outstanding performances from eight additional team members – Olivia Geisler, Taylor Hardesty, Sara Danner, Rachel Hall, Alexandra Dean, Katie Desotell, and Michaela Redman – claimed a National Runner-up team championship award with an team average 3,000 meter race time of 12:40. The LRC Bantam boys’ team garnered a National 3rd place team championship award led by the top 10 finishes of Tamrat Snyder and Ben Lausch and the gritty racing performances of fellow team members Benjamin Dill, Roman LaRocco, Davis Miller, Kevin Brown, Jason Holt, Carter Flayhart, Gunnar Eklund, Blake O’Clery, and Zachary Cooper.

LRC also had four additional top 10 age-group team performances:

Midget boys: 5. Lightning Running Club (Nathan Davis, Alec Coleman, Ryan Lockett, Lars Eklund, Alex Seidel, Ian Davis, Brett Dean, Nathan Moore, Joseph Danner, James Beau Dickens)

Primary girls: 6. Lightning Running Club (Sydney O’Clery, Abigail Acton, Ashlyn Cooper, Mia Fontanilla, Julia Solano, Gabriella Papillo)

Youth girls: 9. Lightning Running Club (Jennifer Simmons, Olivia Lowman, Maria Carberry, Tasha Freed, Anna Hartman, Colleen Joy, Madeline Abel, Caroline Abel)

Midget girls: 10. Lightning Running Club (Ashlin Davis, Anna Clement, Caroline Sanford, Maya Lowman, Danielle Holt)

Meet coverage, including complete individual and team results can be found here: http://www.youthcrosscountry.org/

LRC is a developmental running club for youth (ages 4 to 14) in Frederick and its neighboring counties. LRC offers a fall youth cross country program (mid-August to December; visit www.lrcrun.org or contact Dr. Darcy Strouse at lrc_xc@yahoo.com for program information), a spring track and field program (March to July; contact Bill Gerhold at billygmd@aol.com for program information), and a Distance Running and Road Racing (DR3) program for youth and their parents (late January to July; visit www.lrcrun.org or contact Dr. Darcy Strouse at lrc_xc@yahoo.com for program information).

Lightning Running Club Youth Runners Capture National Cross Country Championship Titles

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