My thanks to the folks at the YAIAA for allowing me to cover their championship event yesterday. Kudos to Gettysburg for putting on such an outstanding event. Thanks also to the wonderful ground’s crew for having the course in great shape!
Girls
The girls kicked things off at the 2020 YAIAA XC Championships at Gettysburg High School yesterday morning. Northeastern’s Margaret Carroll (sr) ran with the pack, working with teammates Marissa Pritchett (jr) and Bella Treglia (jr), through the first half of the race. Keeping pace with Carroll through 2-miles was Gettysburg freshman Winter Oaster. Once Carroll passed the two mile mark, however the race was essentially over. In a matter of seconds, Carroll had opened up a 20m gap and by the end of the race she had cleared the pack by nearly 30-seconds. She broke her previous course record of 18:28, running 18:26 to claim victory. Oaster ran a gutsy race out front to finish 2nd, breaking 19-minutes and running 18:54. XC newcomer, Brooke Sargen (sr, York Suburban) placed 3rd in 19:02 with Dallastown senior Helen Zardus placing 4th in 19:05. Rounding out the top 5 was Susquehannock sophomore Nicole Dauberman who ran 19:11.
4 of the next 5 runners were from Northeastern. Marissa Pritchett (jr), Bella Treglia (jr), Hannah Herr (jr), and Trinity Schraudner (sr) placed 6-8-9-10 to round out the scoring for the Bobcats. Northeastern claimed victory scoring only 34 points. Dallastown’s Lydia Tolerico (jr) was 7th, giving the Wildcats 2 runners in the top ten and helping her team to a 2nd place finish with 59 points. Both teams advance to next weekend’s District 3 AAA Championships. With Chambersburg failing to qualify as a team out of the Mid-Penn, Northeastern and Mechanicsburg will likely enter the meet as the favorites.
East York and West York will both advance to districts in class AA. The top class AA finisher in yesterday’s race was Kennard-Dale freshman Angelina Hammond who placed 12th overall, running 19:58. Delone Catholic’s Julia O’Brien (sr) was the top class A runner placing 16th overall in 20:20.
Boys
The YAIAA boys featured some of the best team races in all of District 3. The overall race between Kennard-Dale and York Suburban was as good as advertised. The Rams won the team title by placing 4 runners in the top 10. Suburban moves onto districts in class AAA with their 2nd place finish (top AAA finish) and Kennard-Dale will move on in class AA. Susquehannock easily earned the 2nd team spot in class AA and should battle for a top 3 team finish next weekend. The 2nd team berth in AAA was much closer with Gettysburg edging out South Western for the right to compete next weekend at Big Spring.
Individually, Cole Adams (jr, York Suburban) repeated as YAIAA champion. He took home the victory in 16:03, 6 seconds ahead of a hard charging foursome who battled to the finish for the runner-up position. Garrett Quinan (2nd, jr, Kennard-Dale) just edged out Cole Perry (3rd, jr, Northeastern), Grant Kern (4th, jr, York Suburban), and Dan Gibney (5th, sr, Kennard-Dale). These 4 were each separated by only 0.1 seconds, all running between 16:09.7-16:10.0
Kennard Dale’s Collin Wolf (sr) and Dylan Cunningham (so) finished 6th and 10th, running 16:16 and 16:36, respectively. Gettysburg’s Drew Cole (jr) was 7th in 16:26, Susquehannock’s Matthew O’Brien (so) was 8th with a 16:29, and Dallastown’s Jakob Rager was 9th in 16:34.
York Catholic finished 8th overall and may be the favorite to win the District 3 class A title next weekend. Moseley Driscoll (jr) was their top finisher, placing 14th in 16:40. He could also battle for the individual title in class A.