The Ellwood City Cross Country teams participated at the MAC Championships last week at Brush Creek Park where the Wolverines represented Ellwood City well in a mixed field of 27 “AA/AAA” schools.
“Our runners have been working hard since summer and races like this are where they start to see their work pay off,” said head coach Chris Ludwig. “They’ve really embraced the sport and believe in themselves and are now seeing their times drop to new pr’s and have been enjoying the competition together.”
The Wolverines Varsity Boys finished 5th as a team out of 27. The boys were led by Sophomore Gio Venezie who finished 4th overall in a field of 231 runners.
“Gio is a hard-working kid who’s figuring out racing and trusting the work he’s putting in and now he’s gaining the experience he needs to perform at the next level. He got to run with some great competition and he responded well to it.,” says Ludwig.
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Gio Venezie and Aubrey Edwards show their medals.
*4 Gio Venezie 17:41
- 19 Reese Edwards 18:44
- 32 Jacoby McKinney 19:26
- 53 Ben Sukits 20:17
- 54 Alton Sipes 20:18
- 111 Dom D’Addio 22:28
- 116 Colton Stefura 22:40
- 139 Austin Michaels 24:15
“The boys did well on the day for what we wanted from the race for specific individuals and they know it was the smallest of margins that separated them from 5th through 2nd place,” adds Ludwig.
The Varsity Girls finished 9th out of 24 teams. The squad was led by a familiar trio of Junior Peyton Cooper, Sophomore Sophia D’Addio, and Freshman Kinsley Minerd, who led the girls in the field of 151 runners.
The girls handled themselves well for the course conditions according to their coach and finishing in the top 10 out of all the teams that were there was a more impressive group effort.
- 45 Peyton Cooper 24:59
- 47 Sophia D’Addio 25:04
- 51 Kinsley Minerd 25:13
- 57 Olivia Parson 26:08
- 67 Madelyn Parson 26:48
- 81 Olivia Cassandro 28:02
- 91 Marleigh Agnew 28:40
“Collectively, our younger runners have been impressing us this time of year and Freshman Kinsley Minerd has been a leading example of consistency and effort and she finished just behind our two top girls at this race,” says Ludwig.
The Junior High runners concluded their 2026 season competing in a field of 136 girls and 125 boys. Aubrey Edwards turned in another stellar performance to bring home runner-up honors finishing in 2nd place overall while also coming in as the top 7th grader in the field.
- *2 Aubrey Edwards 13:04
- 46 Gabriella Parson 16:12
- 73 Kiara McQuistion 17:34
- 64 Zayn Blust 15:09
- 92 Declan Hammersmith 16:29
- 105 Alex Sukits 17:31
The teams will be back in action on Thursday, October 22nd at White Oak Park for the Tri-State Coaches Invitational at 3:00pm. This meet is a preview of the WPIAL Championships to also be held there in two weeks time.
Jonah Montagnese of Quaker Valley finished 1st Overall for the boys with at time 16:57.58 as the Quakers finished 1st overall as a team while Hailey Long of Mars Area topped the varsity girls with a time of 19:05.49.
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