Sports

Cross Country Championships

By Tom Robinson
Go Lackawanna sports correspondent

HERSHEY – Tunkhannock junior Reece Ayers returned to the top 10 and the Holy Redeemer team returned to the top five Saturday in the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Cross Country Championships on the Parkview Course.

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Rachel Sowinski, left, and A.J. Limongelli both medaled for Holy Redeemer Saturday.

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In each case, lofty goals created a combination of satisfaction from finishing among the state’s best and disappointment with being unable to climb higher.

Ayers and the Royals were the top individual and team from the Wyoming Valley Conference.

“I wanted to run faster than last year, which I did by 10 seconds,” Ayers said after placing ninth in Class 3A with a time of 16:23 on the 3.1-mile course. “But, I also wanted to stay with the lead pack, but I fell back.

“They kind of pulled away.”

Brad Miles of North Penn won in 15:47, 23 seconds better than last year’s winning time. Despite the improved time, Ayers fell back one spot from his eighth-place finish a year ago.

“The conditions were the same, there was a just a bigger group of people in contention this year,” Ayers said.

Holy Redeemer beat out Elk Lake for the District 2 title for the second straight year. For the second straight year, however, the Royals finished behind the Warriors in the state Class 2A meet.

Elk Lake was unable to defend its team championship, dropping to third with 135 points. Holy Redeemer was fourth for the second straight year, but did lower its point total from 168 to 151.

York Suburban outscored Quaker Valley, 76-99, for the team championship.

“When I was at the mile, I saw the first person from Valley View and I saw guys from Quaker Valley and Elk Lake, which were the targets we were trying to hit,” said A.J. Limongelli, who claimed the WVC’s other medal by leading the Royals with a 24th-place finish. “There were a couple in front of me.

“There was real anxiety there trying to get to first place as a team.”

After Holy Redeemer, fifth-place Fairview was the only other team under 200 points.

“It’s pretty disappointing, but we win as a team and we go down as a team,” Limongelli said.

Individually, Limongelli made it to the medal stand by a matter of two seconds. He finished in 17:17 to remain among the top 25, which received medals. The 26th-place runner came in at 17:19.

Limongelli was just his team’s fourth-best runner while placing 12th in the District 2 meet. He led the way Saturday.

“I was coming off being sick,” he said. “In the last week, I got my workouts and starting running my mileage again. This was a test to see how I would hold up.”

Limongelli passed the test.

“The first mile was real fast,” Limongelli said, “but I was able to keep at it after that.”

Limongelli said he believes he was somewhere between 30th and 40th halfway through the race. He was 29th with a mile to go and moved into a medal spot.

“I just worked my way up through,” he said.

While placing 24th overall, Limongelli was 10th among the 170 runners from 25 schools that factored into the team scoring. Rex Shiekh was 32nd among that group, leading a pack of Royals that included Dave Levandoski (35th), Timmy Lambert (36th) and Mitch Ford (38th). Joe Hickey placed 57th and Sean Murray 103rd.

Valley View’s Aaron Wilkinson was fourth overall and Elk Lake’s Mike Bedell was 23rd as District 2 produced three medalists in 2A.

Lake-Lehman freshman Kieran Sutton finished 186th in the 289-runner field.

Stephen Welsh of Kutztown was the individual champion.

West Chester Henderson won the team title in Class 3A where Tunkhannock was 16th out of 24 teams.

Reece was eighth out of the 164 runners that were part of the team scoring. David Novak was 57th, Jake Siegel 103rd, Jeremy Stonier 117th, Ben Robinson 123rd, Cory Faux 133rd and Nikolas Atkins 144th.

North Pocono’s Victor Costello passed two runners in the final 20 yards, but missed a medal by one spot in 26th.

Three WVC individuals ran in 3A.

Crestwood’s Robert Moulton was 126th overall, Wyoming Area’s Josh Krall was 146th and Hazleton Area’s Chris Tombasco 168th out of 282 runners.