Cross Country Team Wins 3rd Consecutive Catholic League Championship

The La Salle Cross Country team captured the PCL championship for the third consecutive year, and for the 10^th time in the past 15 seasons (since 2003). The team captured league titles at all three levels – Freshman, Junior Varsity, and Varsity.

The day began with the freshman team turning in a great performance placing 12 runners in the top 20 and 15 in the top 25. The team managed to get their first two finishers, Owen Norris in 2^nd and Max Manganiello in 3^rd both broke 19:00 running 18:49 and 18:58 respectively. Not far behind them was the pack of Patrick Coyle, AJ Frank, and Brendan Fry finishing 5^th, 6^th, and 8^th. Peter Re placed 9^th, Julian Paris 12^th, Michael Lombardi 14^th, Owen Donahue 16^th, Jordan Paris 17^th, Ryan Zimmerman 18^th, Jackson Forde 20^th, Connor Bogansky 22^nd, AJ Citro 23^rd, and James Loftus 24^th. The Freshman team scored 24 points to outdistance St. Joe's Prep by 10 points.

In the Junior Varsity race the team's incredible depth was fully on display. The JV team would not only score a perfect 15 points to capture the PCL JV Title, take the top 12 spots, place 17 of the top 20, and 20 of the top 25. But the team's 17:47 average was only bettered by Cardinal O'Hara's varsity team (O'Hara had a 17:34 average, 3^rd place St Joe's Prep's varsity team averaged 18:14). The first 4 JV finishers all broke 18:00 – Matthew Zilligen won in 17:30, Griffin Pumilia was 2^nd in 17:41, Thomas Price was 3^rd in 17:45, and Conor Christian was 4^th in 17:48. Behind them were three more runners under 18:30 (La Salle's standard for a Varsity letter), Jimmy Lombardi in 5^th, Dan Gervino in 6^th, and Matthew Hladczuk in 7^th. The other top 25 finishers were: Michael Reilly 8^th, Sean Krumenacker 9^th, Michael Loftus 10^th, Shawn McKenna 11^th, James Marek 12^th, Chris Mulligan 14^th, Ben McGrath 15^th, Dan Boyle 16^th, Jack Harrington 18^th, Kyle O'Conner 19^th, Pete Wright 22^nd, Kellen Reiche 24^th, and Matt Earley 25^th.

Finally, the varsity team ran a tremendous race to set the PCL all-time low score record. Until Saturday no team in the history of the PCL had been able to score a perfect 15 points (placing 1^st-5^th with your top 5 runners).

The Explorers did some great pack running early on, and received some big performances from everyone who raced. The team was led by senior captain Evan Addison who captured his first PCL XC crown in 16:19. He was followed by the sophomore duo of Vincent Twomey and Ethan Maher in 2^nd and 3^rd in 16:44 and 16:46. Senior captain Sean Egan also turned in a great run to PR in 16:50 and place 4^th.

Then the drama came as sophomore Brady Koors ran the entire final mile stride-for-stride with Anthony Harper from Bonner & Prendi, Brady was able to out sprint him at the end to take 5^th place in a PR of 16:57, putting all 5 of the Explorer scorers ahead of everyone else in the League! The top 5 scorers averaged an amazing 16:43! Not far behind were Paul Ghantous in 7^th (17:15), and Jack Seiberlich in 10^th (17:31), all 7 of the runners earned 1^st Team All-Catholic.

The Explorers had 5 others make 1^st Team All-Catholic during the season, giving the team 12 1^st teamers – Matt Zilligen, Griffin Pumilia, Thomas Price, Conor Christian, and Jimmy Lombardi. In addition Dan Gervino earned honorable mention All-Catholic during the season.

The team will now prepare for the PIAA District XII Championship on Thursday at Belmont Plateau. The Explorers have won 3 consecutive District XC titles, and 5 of the 9 since 2008. The District meet will serve as the qualifying meet to the PIAA State Championship in Hershey, PA on Saturday, November 4^th.

Full results available:

http://pa.milesplit.com/meets/289155/results#.We0Jh9dKs2z

Tweet from Penn Track XCThe LaSalle boys put forth a historically dominant performance at the #PCLChamps scoring a perfect 15 points!📽️: https://t.co/00VGWZo4ZL pic.twitter.com/9ljFFBUOQl— PennTrackXC (@PennTrackXC) October 22, 2017