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Virginia AAA Northern Region Indoor Track and Field championships: Lake Braddock’s Sophie Chase has a busy but successful weekend

By Carl Little,February 18, 2012

To appreciate just how spectacular of an indoor track season Sophie Chase is having, take a look at her worst performances. At the bottom of the heap you won’t find any clunkers.

Then there are her flourishes. The Lake Braddock junior had a massive one on Saturday — she won two events in dominating fashion at the Virginia AAA Northern Region championships in Fairfax.

“It was time to get after it,” Chase said while beaming.

The girls from South County also got after it as they picked up their second straight team title comfortably over Robinson and Oakton.

Junior Felecia Majors blazed the way with victories in the pole vault (meet-record 12 feet 1 inch), high jump (5-0) and long jump (18-3.5).

Westfield won its first boys’ title since 2007 by holding off two-time defending champion South Lakes. T.C. Williams and Annandale tied for third.

Chase, who was named the All-Met cross-country Athlete of the Year in the fall, didn’t push particularly hard in the 1,600 because she knew she had the 3,200 meters later. She was still too strong for the field at George Mason University.

She led from the start and ran away from West Potomac’s Dale Lescher to win in 5 minutes 0.43 seconds.

One could almost set his or her watch to the beautiful tempo Chase set in the 16-lapper a little more than an hour later. The 17-year old ran even splits during the first half of the race and then exploded over the final half to beat an extremely quick field to the line in 10:41.95.

Five girls finished in well under 11 minutes. Oakton freshman Allie Klimkiewicz was runner-up in an astounding 10:47, but at no point in the second half of the race was she close to Chase.

What made Chase’s victories even more impressive was that Friday night she competed at the AAA swimming championships, which were also being held at Mason. She returned there immediately after the 3,200 on Saturday for Day 2 of the swimming meet and the 100 breaststroke.

Westfield’s title run was keyed by Justin Little. He won the triple jump (45-1) and tied for third in the high jump.

The Bulldogs also got critical points with a victory in the 4x400 relay and by having three scorers in the top four in the 500.

Robinson junior Chioma Onyekwere joined senior teammate Genamarie McCant as individual winners. Onyekwere cut her left wrist on broken glass Saturday morning, but the righty still won the shot put with a personal-best 42-8.5. T.C. Williams senior Jonathan Anderson won the boys’ competition by more than three feet with 52-3.75.

McCant picked up two gold medals in the sprints, winning the 500 in 1:15.45 before taking the 300 in 40.11.