Ellwood City and Riverside Cross Country teams had a collective five runners qualify for PIAA State Championships as a result of their individual finishes at the WPIAL Championships held Thursday at California University of Pennsylvania.
For Ellwood City, Colton Crizer and Joel Brooks earned qualifying times while Ty Fluherty qualified in the WPIAL Boys Championships.
Fluherty finished in 3rd place overall in the Class 1A Finals with a time of 17:31.7.
Crizer (19:01.6) finished 30th overall and Brooks (19:12.2) finished 36th overall in their qualifying efforts.
Brooke Wissinger and Lexi Fluherty finished in 7th Place and 15th Place in the WPIAL Girls Cross Country 1A Finals and both qualified for the the PIAA Championships.
Also finishing for Ellwood City among the 194 runners were Nick Wise (19:21, 41 place), Anthony Spadafora (19:31, 43rd place), Ian Stoneking (19:47, 48th place), Bradley Custer (20:25, 63rd place), and Evan Magill (21:38, 95th place).
Finishing for Riverside were Mike Styn (22:11.9, 115th), Joe Pietro (23:16.5, 136th), Donnie Tayler (23:57.1, 149th), Cole Grinnen (24:06.2, 153rd), Joseph Oconnell (24:22.6, 157th), and Elliot Grinnen (25:15.4, 170th).
Ellwood City, with all runners finishing in the top 100 individually, finished 6th overall as a team, while Riverside finished 19th overall out of the 26 participating teams. Riverview won the team championship while Sean Aiken, Jr. Sean Aiken, Jr of Eden Christian Academy finished 1st overall with a time of 17:09.3. (VIEW FULL BOYS CLASS-A RESULTS)
For the girls in the WPIAL Class 1A Championship, Our Lady of Sacred Heart finished first overall for team results while Corinn Brewer of Greensburg CC finished first overall with an individual time of 21:17.8. The Mohawk girls team finished third overall. (VIEW FULL GIRLS CLASS-A RESULTS)
The 2021 PIAA Cross Country Championships will be conducted on the Parkview Cross Country Course, Hershey, PA on Saturday, November 6th. (VIEW COURSE MAP)
photos courtesy: Charlie Deitch
Thank you for putting that on for Riverside Cross Country Team.