EC Cross Country Team Finishes Third At WPIAL Championships

The Ellwood City Boys Cross Country team finished third overall at the WPIAL Championships this week at White Oak Park.

“I am very proud of this third place finish,” said head coach Mark Hall. “This boys team work really hard all year long. All seven of them ran well. In a normal year we qualify for state championships.”

Under pre-Covid rules, the cross country team would have qualified for the PIAA meet, but this year will have to settle for its third place finish at WPIAL Championships to round out its undefeated, section-championship season.

The Wolverines finished with a team score of 150 and total time of 1:31:11. The combined finishes of the first five runners of each team constitute the total team score.

Marley Schweiger, (14th place, 17:22), Nolan Curran, (16th place, 17:27), Joe Cioffi, (37th place, 18:36), Joel Brooks, (39th place, 18:42), and Nick Wise, (44th place, 19:04) placed for the Wolverines while Colten Crizer, (52nd place, 19:12) and Kaden Schlichtkrull, (67th place, 19:40) rounded out the scoring for the Ellwood City boys.

“I couldn’t be more proud of them they kept improving each and every day and for my three seniors Marley, Nolan, and Joe, they showed true leader ship this year,” concluded Hall. “I’m so proud of what they have accomplished I wish them nothing but the best of luck in the future.”

In the field of 25 teams from across WPIAL Class-A, the Wolverines finished in third place while the Riverside Panthers team placed 19th overall.  Panther senior Colby Belczyk collected an overall top-10 finish for Riverside with a 5th place finish at 16:41.

Winchester Thurston senior Patrick Malone finished first overall with a time of 16:26 to lead Winchester Thurston to the WPIAL team championship. [VIEW FULL RESULTS]