2026 WCAC Championship

Emotions are still raw from today. We had some great performances that we need to celebrate. We also had disappointments that will take longer to process than the few hours I spend on these write-ups. I'll share where I am at in that process in my Final Thoughts section, but know that I am immensely proud of the work our athletes have put in this season.

As always, I have noted in blue all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile) at the meet. Additionally I have noted in red  all athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k. For our returning athletes who have run on this course in any of the last three WCAC Championships, in silver I have noted all athletes who set a new PCB (personal course best) for the Kenilworth Park 5k course.

*Weather note: I always make a note of weather conditions so I have context when looking back at past performances. Today's weather was ideal for racing. Temperatures were cool in the morning but not as frigid as in some past seasons. Temperatures reached the upper 50s or low 60s for the varsity race at noon. We really couldn't have asked for better conditions from that standpoint.

Freshmen

Here are the results for our freshmen (67 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the freshman race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

8 Evan Bouchard - 18:47.6 [(1) 5:49, (2) 6:22, (3.1) 6:37] PR by 21 seconds
39 Nnamdi Onwuka - 22:43.5 [(1) 6:39, (2) 7:44, (3.1) 8:21] PR by 22 seconds
53 Zachary Hailu - 23:58.9 [(1) 7:20, (2) 7:59, (3.1) 8:40] PR by 13 seconds
55 Caene Nartey - 24:11.1 [(1) 7:01, (2) 8:16, (3.1) 8:54]
66 William Dougherty - 29:31.3 [(1) 8:40, (2) 9:56, (3.1) 10:55]

What a job by our top three guys today to hit milestones and set new PRs today. Evan ran his first sub-19 today. He got out almost 10 seconds faster in the first mile than he did at MDXC, positioning himself just inside the Top 10. He held that position through about 2.5 miles and then was able to find just enough extra to move up and tie Andrew Stinson for the best finish in this race since Roman Zentek's fourth place finish in 2022.

Nnamdi broke into the 22s and Zachary broke into the 23s for the first time today. Both got out quite a bit harder in the first mile than they did when setting their previous PRs. Nnamdi was 23 seconds faster at the mile than he was at MDXC, lost seven seconds in the second mile, but then finished faster than he did two weeks ago.

Parkrun splits are a little different because of the 1.1-mile segment coming in the middle, but Zachary was about 28 seconds faster through the first mile today than he was last week. That may have been a little faster than his ideal opening, but he did a great job to hold on and set a new PR.

Team Results

1. The Heights 32 points
2. Gonzaga 42 points
3. St. John's 74 points
4. Bishop O'Connell 107 points
5. Good Counsel 140 points
6. Bishop Ireton 171 points
7. DeMatha 173 points
Inc. Paul VI 3 finishers

The Heights had a really strong showing in this race with three finishers in the Top 5 and four under 19 minutes. After having 11 finishers in this race last year, we only had five freshmen on the team this season. That makes it challenging to compete for a strong team position, but I'm glad we had enough to be part of the scoring. Seven complete teams has to be near a record for the WCAC freshman race.

Varsity B

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (160 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Varsity B boys race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

13 Alexander Soto (Jr) - 18:56.2 [(1) 5:45, (2) 6:20, (3.1) 6:51] PCB by 51 seconds
16 Satchel Drabinski (So) - 19:05.4 [(1) 5:44, (2) 6:22, (3.1) 6:59] PCB by 1 minute 35 seconds
29 Blake Inzeo (So) - 19:43.4 [(1) 5:55, (2) 6:43, (3.1) 7:05]
34 Fareed Rahi (So) - 19:48.6 [(1) 6:08, (2) 6:40, (3.1) 7:01] PR by 4 seconds PCB by 39 seconds
52 Dominic Hislop (So) - 20:28.7 [(1) 6:13, (2) 6:52, (3.1) 7:24]
56 Dane Kuzner (Jr) - 20:31.2 [(1) 6:14, (2) 6:51, (3.1) 7:26] PR by 0.03 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 25 seconds
64 Zahir Accilien (So) - 20:45.2 [(1) 6:14, (2) 6:57, (3.1) 7:34] PR by 6 seconds
65 Michael Bridges (So) - 20:46.8 [(1) 6:18, (2) 6:50, (3.1) 7:39] PCB by 41 seconds
77 John Tomas Felicio (Jr) - 21:10.7 [(1) 6:17, (2) 7:05, (3.1) 7:49] PCB by 1 minute 42 seconds
100 Logan Von Spiegelfeld (Jr) - 22:24.3 [(1) 6:58, (2) 7:23, (3.1) 8:03]
106 Ian Andrews (So) - 23:00.5 [(1) 6:57, (2) 7:39, (3.1) 8:25] SB by 2 minutes 2 seconds
113 Nathaniel Garvin Jr. (So) - 23:21.2 [(1) 7:31, (2) 7:38, (3.1) 8:12]
115 Stephen Lawrence Jr. (So) - 23:22.4 [(1) 7:31, (2) 7:38, (3.1) 8:13]
117 Kendall Gratton (Jr) - 23:27.0 [(1) 7:21, (2) 7:51, (3.1) 8:15]
123 Stavros Rodousakis (Jr) - 24:00.9 [(1) 7:22, (2) 7:56, (3.1) 8:43] PCB by 1 minute 49 seconds
125 Oladimeji "Akin" Alade (So) - 24:03.1 [(1) 7:17, (2) 7:58, (3.1) 8:48] PCB by 3 minutes 37 seconds
126 Julian Righi (Sr) - 24:07.3 [(1) 7:01, (2) 8:09, (3.1) 8:57] SB by 16 seconds
128 Miguel Guzman (So) - 24:12.7 [(1) 7:16, (2) 7:55, (3.1) 9:02]
130 Ryan Hickey (So) - 24:15.5 [(1) 7:16, (2) 8:07, (3.1) 8:53] PCB by 1 minute 17 seconds
133 Sebastian Righi (So) - 24:20.7 [(1) 7:29, (2) 8:05, (3.1) 8:47] PR by 35 seconds PCB by 5 minutes 25 seconds
135 Emilio Chicas (Jr) - 24:22.5 [(1) 7:24, (2) 8:02, (3.1) 8:57] PCB by 2 minutes 3 seconds
148 Chase Osby (Sr) - 25:43.9 [(1) 7:39, (2) 8:51, (3.1) 9:14] PCB by 7 seconds
149 Luke Anthony Quach (So) - 25:57.3 [(1) 7:42, (2) 8:50, (3.1) 9:25]
153 Terence Rascher (Jr) - 26:20.1 [(1) 7:34, (2) 9:07, (3.1) 9:39] PCB by 20 seconds
157 Eddie Castillo-Gutierrez (So) - 27:36.7 [(1) 8:08, (2) 9:06, (3.1) 10:23]

We didn't quite match last year's feat of five Varsity B runners under 20 minutes, but this was an outstanding performance for these guys. Last year we had two athletes in the Top 40, with our first finisher coming in 20th. Today we had four in the Top 40 and two in the Top 20.

Great job by our guys who hit new PRs today. Kenilworth can be a fast course but the footing makes it challenging to get there. The plan was that a couple weeks of recovery would allow for another time drop from MDXC, but that was not the case for as many of our athletes as I'd hoped. Fareed, Zahir, and Sebi did great. So did Ian and Julian, who set their season bests.

I didn't mention Dane in that group because I want to highlight a strange quirk with the timing system. His official result says 20:31.2, but his previous PR was 20:31.14 -- so why do I have a PR listed for him? Some meets, like WCACs, only include one decimal in the official results. Up through 2023, the league didn't even include decimals. When rounding, the procedure is to round up to the nearest tenth in all cases. Hundredths are visible in the live results, which technically are not official, but in them Dane ran 20:31.11. So even though his official time appears slower than his MDXC time, this is his PR now.

Our guys in this race did extraordinarily well this season. It's reasonable to have mixed emotions today. Of 18 returning athletes in this race, 13 set new PCBs. But of those 13, only three set new PRs. On one hand, that means they've progressed really nicely this season. On the other, it means many of our guys did not have their best performance of the season, which is what you look for at a championship meet.

I do want to shout out a few other guys from this race before we move on. Dominic Hislop was less than 4 seconds off his PR from MDXC while Logan, Emilio, and Eddie were all within 7 seconds of their PRs. They should all be pleased with their performances today.

Team Results

1. The Heights 32 points
2. Gonzaga 33 points
3. DeMatha 124 points
4. St. John's 133 points
5. Bishop McNamara 135 points
6. Paul VI 173 points
7. Bishop Ireton 180 points
8. Bishop O'Connell 185 points
9. Good Counsel 231 points
10. St. Mary's Ryken 280 points

This was our best Varsity B team finish since a second place showing in our 2022 championship season! We'd finished fourth each of the past three years so breaking into the Top 3 is a great feeling.

While success at the championship meet is not defined by how we do in the Varsity B race, placing this well without a senior factoring into our team score means we should be able to reload with a "next man up" mentality after we graduate four members of this year's Varsity A squad.

Varsity A

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (68 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Varsity A race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

11 Kenneth Osuji Jr. (Jr) - 16:43.6 [(1) 5:04, (2) 5:37, (3.1) 6:03]
18 Arvin Mirchandani (Sr) - 17:11.6 [(1) 5:10, (2) 5:43, (3.1) 6:19] PCB by 1 minute 4 seconds
31 Kendall Giles (Sr) - 17:38.6 [(1) 5:21, (2) 5:56, (3.1) 6:22]
39 Elijah Hawkins (Sr) - 18:11.3 [(1) 5:21, (2) 6:08, (3.1) 6:42] PCB by 2 minutes 4 seconds
51 Renaud Williams (Sr) - 18:30.7 [(1) 5:38, (2) 6:14, (3.1) 6:39] PR by 7 seconds PCB by 1 minute 20 seconds
55 Dominic Hilton (Jr) - 18:47.3 [(1) 5:38, (2) 6:22, (3.1) 6:47] PCB by 2 seconds
57 Lucas Moisiuk (Jr) - 18:50.7 [(1) 5:21, (2) 6:17, (3.1) 7:13] PCB by 1 second

Last year our first two finishers came in 46th and 51st place. While today was a very disappointing result for us, it says a lot that we can perform so much better than last year's team and still be left unsatisfied.

Like last year, our returners ran faster than they had previously on this course. For Arvin and Elijah, their previous best at Kenilworth was in their sophomore seasons, while Dominic and Luke improved from last year by the slimmest of margins.

Kenneth got out in fantastic position. His mile split was right in line with his start at MDXC and he had control of the race. I didn't see it happen, but I was told he and a St. John's runner at the front went off the course and had to be directed back.

I know what that's like. My junior year at the state meet, I wasn't paying attention on my course walk and took two wrong turns while leading the race. Between the time loss, the extra distance I'd run, the strain of stopping my momentum to get back on course, and the energy cost of accelerating back to speed, it would have taken a lot to get back in the race and, to be honest, I mentally checked out.

I don't know if any of that mirrors Kenneth's experience today -- I didn't feel it was the right time to talk to him about it in depth right after his race -- but like I did he'll have to learn whatever lesson he needs from this experience to make sure it doesn't happen again. I think he had every opportunity to win this race today. Fortunately, he'll have another shot at it next year.

The rest of our varsity guys also ran very similar 1-mile splits to their MDXC performances. Kendall, Renaud, and Dominic were 6 or 7 seconds faster, and everyone else was within three seconds.

With Elijah and Luke the only exceptions, our guys ran similar or faster splits in the final 1.1 miles of the race today than they did at MDXC. Their time losses came in the second mile and they were substantial.

Renaud had the best mid-race performance today when compared to his PR, and he lost 10 seconds on his second mile at MDXC. That still put our 2026 senior captain in a good spot to vie for a PR, and he did it by covering the last 1.1 miles 9 seconds faster than he did at Shawan Downs.

Despite not having their best races, Kenneth and Arvin still put their marks in the DeMatha record books today.

• Kenneth's time is tied for the 30th fastest 5k time for DeMatha since at least 2000.

  • It's the 9th fastest time for a junior in that time span, giving him two races in the Top 10 on that list.

• Arvin's time is tied for the 68th fastest 5k time for DeMatha since at least 2000.

I have also updated a couple of lists for our WCAC performances dating back to 2000:

• Kenneth has the 4th fastest time at the WCAC Championship in a DeMatha uniform, trailing only my junior and senior times at Lake Fairfax and Chase Lopez's winning time in 2023 on this Kenilworth course. This places him on the All-DeMatha WCAC Varsity team as our No. 3 runner.

• Arvin has the 11th fastest time at the WCAC Championship in a DeMatha uniform and is our No. 7 runner on the All-DeMatha WCAC Varsity team.

• Kendall Giles has the 20th fastest time at the WCAC Championship in a DeMatha uniform and is our No. 7 runner on the All-DeMatha WCAC JV team.

Team Results

1. The Heights 39 points
2. St. John's 40 points
3. Gonzaga 129 points
4. Bishop O'Connell 138 points
5. Good Counsel 147 points
6. DeMatha 150 points
7. Bishop Ireton 161 points
8. Bishop McNamara 206 points
9. St. Mary's Ryken 240 points
10. Paul VI 256 points

Twenty-two points. That's what separated us from the third place finish we thought we were capable of going into today.

So here's the exercise -- we line up our five scorers with Gonzaga's and see what the data reveals.

• 1: DeMatha - 16:43.6 (11 points) | Gonzaga - 16:48.4 (13 points) [-2]

• 2: DeMatha - 17:11.6 (18 points) | Gonzaga - 17:20.4 (24 points) [-8]

• 3: DeMatha - 17:38.6 (31 points) | Gonzaga - 17:28.2 (29 points) [-6]

• 4: DeMatha - 18:11.3 (39 points) | Gonzaga - 17:31.3 (30 points) [+3]

• 5: DeMatha - 18:30.7 (51 points) | Gonzaga - 17:43.6 (33 points) [+21]

Gonzaga's 6th and 7th men come in ahead of our fourth, adding some points to our score.

Now, we run the numbers if our guys all ran their fastest time of the season.

• 1: DeMatha - 16:23.9 (6 points) | Gonzaga - 16:48.4 (14 points) [-8]

• 2: DeMatha - 16:45.7 (12 points) | Gonzaga - 17:20.4 (27 points) [-23]

• 3: DeMatha - 17:09.4 (18 points) | Gonzaga - 17:28.2 (32 points) [-37]

• 4: DeMatha - 17:14.2 (23 points) | Gonzaga - 17:31.3 (33 points) [-47]

• 5: DeMatha - 17:19.9 (26 points) | Gonzaga - 17:43.6 (35 points) [-56]

I'll start by addressing anything ahead of 3rd place. Even with some displacements of runners for The Heights and St. John's, our 85 points in this scenario would not have put us in contention for a plaque or the trophy.

And yes, we can make ourselves crazy running numbers, but ...

Final Thoughts

What this math exercise for the varsity race tells us is that we could absorb a bad race or two, but with everybody so far off their MDXC pace, we lost our path to the Top 3.

One thing that stands out to me about Gonzaga's performance today is that they raced last week at the VA Showcase, which is one of the fastest courses I've ever seen -- like, "it feels like cheating to count it as a PR" fast. And while their seven did not finish in the same order today, their first five times last week and today are almost identical.

That tells me two things:

1. We can't make excuses about the poor footing or anything else about this course. While I'm not a fan of it, and I hope it is moved next year, if we're back at Kenilworth we have to toughen up mentally and be ready for it.

2. Something I am doing -- workouts, mileage, strength, mobility, flexibility, or discipline ... or some combination -- failed our guys today.

Our guys were not ready to run their best. One athlete having a bad race is one thing, and our exercise showed that we had enough of an edge over Gonzaga at their best that we could have handled one athlete having a bad race and still have placed third. Six of our athletes had bad races, and at that point it's really hard to find an explanation that doesn't put most or all of the blame on my shoulders.

The hardest thing to swallow about it is that four of our varsity scorers are seniors. I don't get the chance to make adjustments that will make it right for them. So my responsibility becomes to make sure I don't repeat the mistakes that affected them today.

What I need to learn will take time, reflection, and conversations to discover. But we have three varsity runners returning next year, a freshman who had a terrific performance today, and enough solid depth in our JV and freshman ranks that we can absolutely reload and improve on this year's finish in the fall of 2027.

Now, I do want to provide some deeper historical context to today's performances. The WCAC cross country landscape goes through ebbs and flows of competitiveness. Right now, we're in a very competitive era. Yes, today was the first time since 2023 the winner didn't break 16 minutes, but I want to look back at that 2023 championship meet.

We placed 3rd that year with 99 points. We had a gap of 2 minutes and 38 seconds from our first finisher to our fifth and the average time for those five runners was 17:38.

Today, we placed 6th with 150 points. We had a gap of just 1 minute and 47 seconds between our first five finishers and an average time of 17:39 for those five scorers.

There's some context to 2023 such as weather (we had an untimely heat wave that affected everyone) and the fact that Chase Lopez '24 won that race. That average balances his winning time with a 5th place time slower than Renaud's time as our fifth scorer today. But that fifth finisher placed 36th in 2023, where Renaud -- again, with a faster time -- placed 51st today.

No excuses. The league is more competitive. That means we need to act accordingly and do what we must to make ourselves more competitive. That's what we have to be about going into next season, and that means 100% of our athletes have to buy in to that mentality, no matter where you are on the proverbial depth chart.

Before we get to next season, though, we have a good number of runners continuing on to the Maryland Private School State Championship in a week and a half. I'll ask that everybody on the team check the meet info for that race when I send it out on Sunday and if you see your name listed in the entries but you don't plan to race, or if you don't see your name listed in the entries but you do plan to race, please let me know promptly.

Today defines our season as a team, but do not let it define each of your individual seasons. Of 37 athletes who have raced this season, 31 have set new PRs, many by substantial margins. If your PR came today, take pride in your individual performance. You deserve to celebrate! If your PR came earlier in the season, you can be disappointed in today's performance but still be proud of the work you put in this season and know that I am going to do everything I can to make sure your best doesn't come two weeks early next year.