Nearly 100 schools – including four from the West Hills – will be represented at the 23rd annual Red, White & Blue Classic high school cross country meet at White Oak Park in White Oak.
The meet, which includes two days of competition – Friday, Sept. 5, and Saturday, Sept. 6 – includes teams from throughout western and central Pennsylvania and a handful of teams from West Virginia.
Carlynton is scheduled to bring nine runners and will compete Friday night in the Class A meet. Montour and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart are running in the Class AA meet Saturday and Moon is scheduled to participate in the Class AAA meet Saturday. Montour will bring a team of 21 runners while OLSH will bring 29 and Moon 36, according to Richard Wright of Baldwin, who oversees the meet that he helped start 23 years ago.
“Some schools bring one or two runners,” Wright said. “Then you have North Allegheny bringing 137.”
Wright said the course is popular with many area coaches. “It’s two loops, so coaches and spectators can see their athletes a lot of the time without doing a lot of running around,” he said. “It has become a friendly site for a lot of teams.”
Friday’s races will start at 5 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. for the girls and boys, respectively. Saturdays Class AA meet will start at 8 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. for the boys and girls and the Class AAA meet is scheduled to start at 11:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. for the boys and girls, respectively.
The top returning runners for the Carlynton girls team this season are sophomores Lani Blevins and Maria Leithauser and senior Ava Pancake. All three girls competed last season and helped the Cougars place third in the WPIAL championship meet and fifth in the PIAA state meet.
That team lost four seniors in Bridget McNamara – the WPIAL champion who finished eighth at the state meet – Lana Mihelcic, Grace Prepelka and Quinland Delrosario
Two-time state qualifier Ethan Moldovan leads the Carlynton boys team along with Emery Delrosario. Dominic Mancini, a WPIAL track qualifier in the 4×800, is expected to run cross country this season for Carlynton.
Montour’s top returning runners are seniors Tiffany Miller and Teagan Schaltenbrand for the girls and senior Jacob Chacon and sophomore Andrew Ludwick for the boys.
Also expected to compete for Montour are Abi Baldauff and Hannah Heath, both juniors, for the girls and juniors Lucas Benson and Ethan Chacon for the boys.
OLSH’s girls team will feature returnees Charlott Gauntner, Lindsay Bressler, Giada Hricisik, Eva Crofford and Miri Mosca while the boys team includes Brayden Douglass, Wes Goshen, Andre Kolocouris, Jeremy Ye and Leo Mosca.
Newcomers expected to contribute include Jules Goshen and Hanna Hayes.
Moon lost standouts Alyson Stepp, Hailey Mowery, Tyler Giunipero and Brayden Freund, but has plenty of numbers. Stepp finished second at last year’s WPIAL meet while Giunipero wound up third in the boys race.
This year’s Moon’s boys team will feature Sam Herrera, a PIAA finalist last spring in the 800 meters along with Evan and Ryan Slawuta, who also had solid track seasons last year.
Elise Ashcroft, another WPIAL track finalist last spring, will compete for the girls as will fellow seniors Lainey Biggerstaff and Alexis Shuler.
Newcomers expected to contribute include Owen Romasco and Ethan Hankinson for the boys and Rachel Stepp, Callie Speerhas and Maddie Puthoff for the girls. Stepp won the WPIAL title in the 400 meters and placed fifth at the state track & field meet as a freshman.
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