Mary Caroline Heinen (’20-Richmond) and Ben Blanchard (’22-Henrico) will be competing this Friday and Saturday respectively at the New Balance Indoor National Championships held in the heart of New York City. Fresh off of winning three state titles at the 2A State meet, Mary Caroline will compete Friday night in the Girls Two Mile run. The next day Ben will race against the best freshmen in the country in the Freshman 400m Dash. Both of these athletes qualified to the national championship meet with times achieved earlier in the season. This is Ben’s first experience at a national championship meet, while this will be Mary Caroline’s 2nd trip to NYC for the indoor nationals and her 6th national meet overall.
At the VHSL 2A State Championships Ben was part of the 4x800m relay. He was on the winning 4×8, and 4×4 and was 2nd individually in the 500m Dash. Ben set Freshman class records in the 500, 1000, 1600, and High Jump during the season. He finished the season ranked in the top 10 for Freshmen across the entire state regardless of School Classification in each of those 4 events.
Coach Jim Holdren will accompany these athletes to NYC. Good luck Dragons!
