2026 Skip Grant Invitational

Thank you to all of the parents (and athletes) who have already uploaded photos to our Google Drive folder. If you took photos but haven't uploaded them yet, please use this link to do so.

Intro

The 5k course at the Agricultural Farm Park has a long history in Maryland, particularly for its private schools. This was the site of the Maryland-DC Private School Championship beginning my junior year, when a pair of wrong turns -- a result of not paying attention on the course walk -- cost me time and a shot at winning the race.

This year was the first time the Skip Grant Invitational used the same course layout as they use for championship meets, making this the first time any of my athletes have run the same course I ran my junior and senior years. It is a challenging but deceptively fast course that I try to include on the schedule when it fits.

Last year, the meet was held on a Friday afternoon and the heat was oppressive. This year, we had much more favorable conditions on Saturday morning. I'll save the rest of my thoughts for the end of our writeup.

As always, in blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile) at the meet. Additionally, in red, I have noted all athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k. For our returning athletes who competed in this meet last fall, if they ran faster this go-round, I've included in silver their new PMB* (personal meet best) for the Skip Grant Invitational.

*Because the course layout was altered, it isn't considered a personal course best -- though, the difference between the two layouts shouldn't amount to more than a few seconds.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our athletes in the junior varsity race (210 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the event. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

5 Renaud Williams (Sr) - 19:26.0 [(1) 5:48, (2) 6:44, (3) 6:11, (3.1) 0:43] PR by 5 seconds
25 Blake Inzeo (So) - 20:27.1 [(1) 5:56, (2) 7:07, (3) 6:35, (3.1) 0:49] PR by 12 seconds
31 Alexander Soto (Jr) - 20:43.0 [(1) 6:15, (2) 7:07, (3) 6:39, (3.1) 0:42] SB by 12 seconds PMB by 1 minute 49 seconds
73 Dominic Hislop (So) - 22:11.4 [(1) 6:39, (2) 7:39, (3) 7:03, (3.1) 0:50] PR by 0.8 seconds
84 Dane Kuzner (Jr) - 22:33.8 [(1) 6:29, (2) 7:49, (3) 7:20, (3.1) 0:56] PR by 7 seconds PMB by 1 minute 37 seconds
87 Michael Bridges (So) - 22:46.1 [(1) 6:53, (2) 7:53, (3) 7:10, (3.1) 0:50] PMB by 45 seconds
104 Logan Von Spiegelfeld (Jr) - 23:11.8 [(1) 7:19, (2) 7:57, (3) 7:09, (3.1) 0:47] PR by 1 minute 53 seconds
107 John Tomas Felicio (Jr) - 23:18.6 [(1) 7:00, (2) 7:50, (3) 7:36, (3.1) 0:53] SB by 1 minute 8 seconds PMB by 3 minutes 58 seconds
122 Ryan Hickey (So) - 23:41.8 [(1) 6:45, (2) 8:15, (3) 7:45, (3.1) 0:57] PR by 12 seconds PMB by 5 minutes 34 seconds
146 Stavros Rodousakis (Jr) - 24:40.9 [(1) 7:20, (2) 8:29, (3) 8:05, (3.1) 0:47] PR by 11 seconds PMB by 3 minutes 40 seconds
155 Ian Andrews (So) - 25:02.9 [(1) 7:18, (2) 8:38, (3) 8:08, (3.1) 0:59] SB by 7 seconds
161 Stephen Lawrence Jr. (So) - 25:40.5 [(1) 7:59, (2) 9:09, (3) 7:42, (3.1) 0:51] PMB by 1 minute 3 seconds
162 Terence Rascher (Jr) - 25:40.8 [(1) 7:17, (2) 9:07, (3) 8:21, (3.1) 0:56] SB by 1 minute 16 seconds PMB by 1 minute 27 seconds
165 Caene Nartey (Fr) - 25:58.3 [(1) 7:25, (2) 8:56, (3) 8:35, (3.1) 1:02]
166 Nathaniel Garvin Jr. (So) - 26:03.2 [(1) 8:21, (2) 8:49, (3) 8:00, (3.1) 0:53]
172 Zachary Hailu (Fr) - 26:24.5 [(1) 7:54, (2) 8:55, (3) 8:39, (3.1) 0:57] PR by 1 minute 5 seconds
178 Nnamdi Onwuka (Fr) - 26:46.0 [(1) 8:22, (2) 8:46, (3) 8:37, (3.1) 1:01] PR by 1 minute 59 seconds
188 Chase Osby (Sr) - 27:34.5 [(1) 8:23, (2) 9:18, (3) 8:58, (3.1) 0:56] SB by 1 minute 28 seconds PMB by 37 seconds
190 Sebastian Righi (So) - 27:38.3 [(1) 8:26, (2) 9:14, (3) 8:59, (3.1) 0:59]
197 Luke Anthony Quach (So) - 28:43.0 [(1) 8:31, (2) 9:45, (3) 9:24, (3.1) 1:03] SB by 30 seconds

We had a bit of a mix-up at the one mile mark. We got all the splits, and I'm fairly certain we were able to reverse engineer the order in which our athletes came through. If you see a teammate with a faster 1-mile time than you, and you're confident that you were ahead of them (or vice versa), please let me know so I can make an adjustment if needed.

Our JV runners continue to make great strides. Only a handful of these guys have extensive cross country experience (read: more than a season and a half at the high school level). Eventually they all will reach a level of experience where gaining more won't be enough by itself to allow for these big jumps, but right now they are taking full advantage of this important early part of their cross country journey.

Of our nine athletes who set new PRs in this race, only two have at least two full seasons of high school cross country experience, and I don't think it's coincidental that those two -- Renaud and Stav -- dedicated time between January and May to offseason training.

Amongst our athletes who set new season bests, JT is now within half a minute of his PR from a season ago.

I'm really impressed with our athletes who set new PMBs this week. The conditions were certainly more favorable than last year, but the slightly higher net elevation likely made this version a touch more challenging. Additionally, the old version of the Skip Grant course was slightly shy of a full 5k and this year's course, the one used during championship season, was honest.

Team Results

1. St Albans 52 points
2. Sidwell Friends 53 points
3. Georgetown Day 78 points
4. Spire Homeschool 122 points
5. Fairfax Homeschool 134 points
6. DeMatha 164 points
7. Landon 170 points
8. Good Counsel 190 points
...
11. St. Andrew's 307 points

We were missing a few guys from our JV squad. Fareed likely would have factored into the scoring and Zahir would have been in the mix based on his previous times. To still finish in the middle of the pack and ahead of our only WCAC competition is a job well done.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (107 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

8 Arvin Mirchandani (Sr) - 17:33.7 [(1) 5:17, (2) 6:03, (3) 5:34, (3.1) 0:40]
17 Kenneth Osuji Jr. (Jr) - 17:56.6 [(1) 5:20, (2) 6:12, (3) 5:43, (3.1) 0:42] PR by 1 minute 27 seconds
27 Elijah Hawkins (Sr) - 18:20.6 [(1) 5:30, (2) 6:19, (3) 5:51, (3.1) 0:41] PMB by 1 minute 29 seconds
34 Lucas Moisiuk (Jr) - 18:40.2 [(1) 5:30, (2) 6:20, (3) 6:00, (3.1) 0:50] PMB by 14 seconds
40 Kendall Giles (Sr) - 18:55.5 [(1) 5:28, (2) 6:29, (3) 6:07, (3.1) 0:52]
58 Evan Bouchard (Fr) - 19:30.7 [(1) 5:38, (2) 6:49, (3) 6:19, (3.1) 0:45]
63 Dominic Hilton (Jr) - 19:38.4 [(1) 5:43, (2) 6:45, (3) 6:26, (3.1) 0:44]
79 Satchel Drabinski (So) - 20:22.1 [(1) 5:50, (2) 6:55, (3) 6:44, (3.1) 0:53] PMB by 1 minute 41 seconds

We had a solid showing from our varsity squad. I know the lack of color in the margins may appear to suggest otherwise, but I am much more encouraged by this week's performance than I was after Seahawk.

Arvin was just a few seconds off his season best from two weeks ago, and ran almost an identical time to his performance at this meet a year ago.

Kenneth is the 35th DeMatha cross country runner to break 18 minutes in the 5k since 2000. He joins an elite group of athletes in just the second race of his cross country career.

Elijah was just a few seconds off his time from Seahawk and another second off the PR he set at the October parkrun last season. He showed that he is well ahead of where he was at this time last fall and I'm excited to see how he wraps up his senior season.

Luke bounced back nicely from a tough race a couple weeks ago. He's just five seconds off his time from the August parkrun.

I'm really proud of Satchel. I know this wasn't a very good race for him judging solely off his finish time -- he was about a minute faster at the August parkrun. But I don't think he's fully gotten over the illness he was dealing with earlier in the week and his hip continues to flare up, something we're still trying to get to the bottom of. We may have to make some adjustments to his training over the next week or two, but the fact he still took nearly 2 minutes off his time from a year ago shows just how far he's come in the past 12 months.

Team Results

1. St Albans 43 points
2. Sidwell Friends 79 points
3. DeMatha 123 points
4. School Without Walls 146 points
5. Spire Homeschool 160 points
6. Bullis 177 points
7. Good Counsel 178 points
8. Georgetown Day 188 points
9. Flint Hill 197 points
10. Landon 205 points
...
15. Covenant Life 446 points

As our guys came through the 2-mile mark, I knew we had a great shot to place well. I didn't realize we'd be this high in the rankings.

In fairness, Bullis had two athletes way out in front of the pack when they passed me; one of them was injured and unable to finish the race, and if he'd finished second, where he'd been, they would have jumped ahead of us.

Regardless, this was a big improvement over our team performance at Seahawk and our guys have a lot to be proud of this weekend.

Final Thoughts

This was our best team performance of the year so far. What really excites me after this race, though, is that I can see more clearly now than I could two weeks ago that we are right on the trajectory I envisioned as I built this year's training cycle.

It is hard to be patient, but our athletes are trusting the process and starting to see the results. It is particularly hard for our Tier 1 and Tier 2 guys because our training cycle takes the longest to build for them and they don't get to see the drastic improvements that come from gaining early experience in the sport.

They've done a great job, though, and as we continue our journey through this more speed-focused block of training, I expect those guys will see their patience pay off.

We've had two heavy training weeks since Seahawk, so our guys were running on very tired legs. This Monday will be the longest run we do this season, so it will be another challenging week, but we should recover much more easily from Wednesday's 1000m repeats than they did from this past week's mile intervals. Everyone should expect to feel a little bit fresher for Oatlands than they did this weekend.

Don't get me wrong, we're still training through this middle section of the schedule. But I expect to see some season bests and maybe a few modest PRs from our Varsity A runners and continued improvement from our Varsity B and JV athletes on another course that is much faster than its course profile might suggest.